Featured Image Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, US News
Phoebe Tonks
President Donald Trump has posted a message recognizing Martin Luther King Jr Day, after he was publicly slammed by critics for staying silent about the holiday for much of the day.
Every sitting US president has honored the late civil rights activist on the annual holiday since its inception back in 1983, yet many had feared Trump would become the first in history not to mark the occasion this year.
Earlier on Monday (January 19), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights organizations claimed Trump's silence was a deliberate decision not to honor King.
And it is this backlash which may have prompted the president’s last-minute tribute to the late civil rights activist.
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After spending much of the day seemingly talking about everything other than MLK, the president finally honored the occasion in the evening, when he broke his silence with a formal proclamation that appeared on the White House website.
In the 400 word message, Trump recognized the federal holiday and spoke of Martin Luther King Jr’s accomplishment at pioneering a 'movement that would go on to triumphantly reaffirm our national conviction that every man, woman, and child is endowed by their Creator with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.
It read, in part: "Today, we honor the noble work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose commitment to justice paved the way to the full realization of the American promise. Inspired by the tenets enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, we proudly renew our pledge to uphold our Nation’s long-cherished principles of liberty, equal justice under the law, and the God‑given dignity of the human person."
Notably, however, the announcement contained no reference to MLK’s advocacy work for Black Americans or his tireless campaigning for equality and the end of racial segregation.
It also marked a stark deviation from the administration’s current stance of decrying racial diversity and attempts to weaken federal civil rights law.
The tribute post also comes just days after Trump slammed the 1964 Civil Rights Act which sought to eliminate race-based discrimination, and claimed that it 'hurt a lot of people'.
He also previously claimed that the implementation of these civil rights policies, which were designed to provide Black Americans with equal access to education and employment, resulted in white people being ‘very badly treated’ and branded it ‘reverse discrimination.’
His recent attempts at policy change have also directly opposed the very hard fought equality MLK had championed, such as Trump’s attempts to restrict the guarantee of birthright citizenship by the 14th Amendment and the introduction of immigration policies that treat non-English accents and non-white ethnicity as valid reasons for stops.
In December, at his instruction, the National Parks Service also announced it will no longer offer free admission to parks on King Day and Juneteenth, but instead on Flag Day and Trump's birthday.