President-elect Donald Trump's inaugural coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network is planning a rally to celebrate the MLK Day and protest the second administration of Trump.
"While Trump supporters will be on one side of Washington watching him take the oath of office, I will be at the nation's capital working to keep the dream alive," Sharpton said on his MSNBC show "PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton," The Hill reported. "There has never been a more important time to peacefully organize and mobilize."
Sharpton vowed the rally will be nonviolent "unlike the 2021 insurrection."
"On Martin Luther King Day 2025, as Donald Trump is sworn in, we won't stand still," National Action Network wrote in a statement. "We will rise up, honor and defend Dr. King's dream by marching for justice, equality and change."
MLK famously prayed that a desegregated America would not judge people by race.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," he said.
But Sharpton was quickly critical about the color of Trump's Cabinet members' skin in November.
"In the two weeks since Donald Trump was elected to a second term, he has put forth a dozen troubling nominees, yet the most alarming factor in his proposed Cabinet is that not a single candidate is Black," Sharpton said then. "Trump spent this campaign selling himself to Black voters, especially men, by peddling sneakers and implying his criminal convictions would resonate with our community."
Days after Sharpton's statement, though, Trump announced former NFL player Scott Turner to be his secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Turner was executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council in the first Trump administration.
Also, Kash Patel, an Indian-American was announced Nov. 30 as his pick to be the next FBI director.
The National Action Network's Jan. 20 rally will kick off at the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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