VLOG: Celebrating a King and a President
Supporting Black Businesses and MLK Day Over Trump’s Inauguration
By Christion Billy
WASHINGTON – Despite most news focusing on President Donald Trump, Jan. 20 marked more than the inauguration: It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. To protest its overshadowing, many people boycotted the inauguration and shopped only at Black-owned companies.
“Just boycott it. Don’t watch it. Don’t go downtown. Don’t spend money in the city unless you spend it on Black businesses. That’s what we did,” Shannon Faye, a federal government worker, said.
MLK Day is a federal holiday celebrating the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights leader who challenged racial discrimination against the Black community.
He gained national prominence for fighting against racial segregation using nonviolent tactics, like the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, and the March on Washington.
Also known for his “I Have A Dream” and “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speeches, King is especially significant to the Black community.
“[MLK Day] means celebrating Black freedom and just celebrating our community in general, to acknowledge what people have [done] for us before, and acknowledging what people are continuing,” said Alicia Hooks, a junior legal communications major at Howard University.
MLK Day was proposed four days after King’s assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968, but it took 15 years for it to become a federal holiday. Stevie Wonder’s song “Happy Birthday” served as an anthem during the fight for the King holiday bill, which President Ronald Reagan finally signed into federal law 1983. It took another 17 years for every state to recognize the holiday at the turn of the century in 2000. Arizona, which was the last holdout, faced boycotts because of its resistance.
Although King’s birthday is Jan. 15, MLK Day occurs annually on the third Monday of January due to the 1968 uniform annual observances act, which gave workers more long weekends.
Congress also moved the inauguration from March 4 to Jan. 20 with the passage of the 20th Amendment in 1932 and ratification in 1933.
Since then, only two other presidents were inaugurated on MLK Day: Bill Clinton (1977) and Barack Obama (2013). MLK Day will not fall on the same day as an inauguration again until 2053 — nearly three decades from now.
Inaugurations require a lot of planning, Faye said. “Having been an insider at one point in time … we know when it is, and we work backward to make sure all of those things that needed to happen happened.”
An inauguration consists of a private swearing-in ceremony, a public ceremony and a pass in review.
Faye described inaugurations as symbols of democracy and the institution.
“I don’t know any recognized government in the world that does not look for this event and [what is] happening and what it means,” she said.
Likewise, MLK Day also requires a lot of planning. Many events, including marches, civil service days and parades, occur in the DMV area and nationally.
However, most media coverage overlooked MLK Day events for the inauguration.
Chasity Wheeler, a senior kinesiology major at Howard, said news outlets having done this before was unacceptable.
“It is more disrespectful than we think because when it’s repeated behavior, it’s like, OK, sorry. That was an accident, but the fact that you let it happen again,” Wheeler said. “I do feel like that’s disrespectful, whether it was a long time ago or not.”
In response, some district residents boycotted the inauguration by not watching it and attending MLK Day celebrations instead.
Others also went to social media to express their thoughts. Miss Junebugg says that she is only celebrating MLK on Jan. 20, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The only man, I’m honoring today! The world needs more leaders and dreamers like him #mlkday2025 pic.twitter.com/4bzlnXPmRd
— miss_junebugg (@ibeautydallas) January 20, 2025
“[MLK] really wanted us to feel liberated in our speech, behavior [and] actions. He did not want us as a people to feel marginalized. And, he definitely did not want us to continue to be unrecognized for our great works,” said Jerushka Holliday, Ed.D., a school counselor. “He did not want to continue to go unrecognized, and that’s why he fought so hard.”
Christion Billy and Rachel Bunch are reporters for HUNewsService.com.
