Trump talks legacy with MLK’s son Sit-down follows escalating tensions after flap with civil rights icon
NEW YORK — Days before taking office, President-elect Donald Trump attempted to navigate the fallout of his flap with a civil rights leader and colleague of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. while also losing a member of his incoming administration to accusations of plagiarism.
With tensions escalating between Mr. Trump and prominent black leaders, the president-elect Monday met with one of Rev. King’s sons to discuss his late father’s legacy and voting rights on the holiday marking the life of the slain American icon just days after the president-elect attacked Rep. John Lewis on Twitter. Mr. Lewis and Rev. King were among the Big Six leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
The episode is seen as highlighting the challenges Mr. Trump faces as he prepares to take office Friday deeply distrusted by minorities across the country, many of whom have been offended by his false allegations that President Barack Obama was born outside the United States, appalled that his candidacy drew backing from white supremacist organizations, and dismayed at policy proposals they consider antithetical to their interests.
Mr. Trump accused Mr. Lewis, D-Ga., for being “all talk” after Mr. Lewis questioned the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s election. The president-elect also advised the veteran congressman to pay more attention to his “crime ridden” Atlantaarea district. Mr. Trump’s
comments drew widespread criticism and have been viewed as doing little to reassure those uneasy about the transition from the nation’s first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most nonwhite voters.
After the hastily arranged meeting at Trump Tower, Martin Luther King III downplayed the slight, saying that “in the heat of emotion a lot of things get said on both sides.” Mr. King III, who said he pressed Mr. Trump on the need for voting reform to increase participation, deemed the meeting “constructive.” Mr. King III said that while he disagreed with the presidentelect’s comments, he believed “at some point in this nation we’ve got to move forward.”
“He said that he is going to represent all Americans. He said that over and over again,” Mr. King III told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower after the nearly hourlong meeting. “I believe that’s his intent, but I think we also have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure. It doesn’t happen automatically.”
In his reference to the U.S.’s “broken voting system,” Mr. King III appeared to be referring to difficulties faced by black voters, many of them due to restrictive laws put into effect by Republican legislators.
Mr. Trump, during his campaign, suggested that voters in overwhelmingly African-American cities like Philadelphia could be planning to steal the election via voter fraud.
Mr. Trump briefly joined Mr. King III in the lobby but ignored reporters’ shouted questions about his comments about Mr. Lewis.
Mr. Lewis had suggested that Mr. Trump’s November victory was delegitimized due to Russian interference and said he would boycott Friday’s Inauguration. More than two dozen Democratic members of Congress have said they will sit out the Trump ceremony.
As Americans celebrated the legacy of Rev. King, civil rights leaders and activists were trying to reconcile the transition from the nation’s first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most non-white voters.
“If we are going to be honest in our support for [Rev.] King it is necessary to bring his spirit and his courage into the year 2017,” said U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a former Democratic presidential candidate, who gave an impassioned tribute book-ended by standing ovations in the very Atlanta neighborhood where the slain civil-rights icon was born, preached, and buried.
Rev. King’s daughter, Bernice King, chief executive officer of the King Center, recalled her father’s message of unity and pointed to their shared faith in God “no matter who sits in the White House.”
Meanwhile, conservative media commentator Monica Crowley will not be joining the Trump administration following accusations of plagiarism, according to a transition official who spoke anonymously.
Ms. Crowley had been slated to join Mr. Trump’s National Security Council as a director of strategic communications. On Monday, she withdrew her name from consideration after CNN reported last week that several passages in a 2012 book Ms. Crowley wrote were plagiarized. Publisher Harper Collins then pulled the book.