The congregation at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington DC celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day—and voiced unified resistance to the incoming Trump administration.Phil Lewis/AP
When Donald Trump first took office, the streets of Washington, DC, and cities around the country, erupted in protest and resistance. The 2017 Women’s March, held the day after his inauguration, was heralded at the time as the biggest protest in U.S. history. This year, the crowds only measured in the thousands. Other day-of gatherings appeared similarly small, perhaps due to the blisteringly cold temperatures that drove the pageantry inside. The spontaneous panic that once gripped the mobilized masses seemed diluted.
Instead, Mother Jones video correspondent Garrison Hayes found vocal resistance in a historic place of protest that has endured many disappointing election results across decades: inside a Black church.
Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network hosted a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, which coincided with the inauguration, and used it as an opportunity to challenge Trump and embolden attendees. “We shed too much blood. We spent too many nights in jail to think that Trump can turn us around,” he said. “We are right here. We are not going back.”
Hayes also spoke to attendees. One, Alexa Donaphin, was wearing a sequined MLK Jr. shirt and described herself as a veteran defender of civil rights for the vulnerable.
“Even though I’m not gay, I’m not trans, I’m not poor, I’m not an immigrant, I’m not a migrant—I’m none of those things, but those people matter, and their rights matter,” she said. “I’ve been fighting since my hair was a different color than it is now,” she said, noting her gray hair.
“My whole life, I grew up in the segregated South. I know what it’s like to drink from a colored water fountain,” she continued. “I know how it feels to be othered. I know how it feels to be marginalized, and I can’t sit by idly and do nothing while that continues and, in fact, escalates.”
“If America is to survive the next four years,” Hayes concludes, “it could probably stand to take some notes.”
