On Jan. 20, 2025, when Donald Trump took the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States, he was overshadowed by the memory of a man and a movement that shaped our country’s history and changed the world.
In Washington, D.C., there stands a granite statue of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose federal holiday this year, on the third Monday in January, coincided with Inauguration Day. It depicts an arms-crossed leader, resolute and determined, as though he realized the goal of equality and racial justice in America would require a never-ending fight.
Though the political world has moved on, as it tends to do with each incoming administration, former Vice President Kamala Harris has not forgotten King’s lessons. At last week’s National Action Network’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Legislative Breakfast, with members of the King family in attendance, she said: “Our definition of the win is the definition that takes us over a period of time, where part of how we measure the win is: Are we making progress? How we measure the win is based on the knowledge that it is an enduring fight and that we must be strong and that whatever the outcome of any particular moment, we can never be defeated.”
