Subdued DC observes MLK Day
Virus, attack worries thin crowds at Monday events
WASHINGTON – It was a quiet but discomforting holiday for Joan Lee.
“I can’t put it into words. It hurts my heart,” Lee said as she surveyed the barricades lining Black Lives Matter Plaza.
The Washington resident came here on a Martin Luther King Jr. Day like no other as the threat of violence in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration loomed and the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the U.S.
Lee, 50, said that on a normal MLK Day, many would be able to be in their communities, volunteering to help others in the same way King did throughout his life or marching in parades to celebrate his birthday and legacy.
Throughout downtown Washington, however, the effects of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump who believe the election was rigged could not be missed. Barricades and fencing lined the streets, while law enforcement and National Guard members patrolled every block.
Perhaps the most notable closure on Monday: the King Memorial on the edge of the Tidal Basin in the National Mall, which was shuttered to the public through the inauguration because of security plans and the threat of more violence.
In addition to the beefed-up security around the capital, COVID-19 also forced many planned MLK Day celebrations to be called off or held virtually. A couple of portraits of King were plastered onto the side of the AFL-CIO building in Black Lives Matter Plaza, but no other signs of the holiday could be spotted downtown Monday morning.
“I’m here because black lives matter. Martin Luther King did a lot for us,” Lee said as she took in the scene at the plaza.
Nadine Seiler, 55, who was also at Black Lives Matter Plaza, expressed fear on what should have been a joyful day to
celebrate.
“We are feeling they are orchestrating some kind of violence on MLK Day just to show us that they can,” Seiler said, referring to the FBI warning of the threat of extremist violence across the U.S. through Inauguration Day.
Seiler, of Waldorf, Maryland, said she and others have been at the plaza every day since October to protect a fence that holds many of the signs and posters from the summer 2020 protests around the country after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.
The police response during the Capitol riot was a “stark juxtaposition” compared to the response outside the White House during the racial justice protests, she said.
“They were allowed to get into the Capitol, but we couldn’t get to the Lincoln Memorial,” Seiler said. “They were overpolicing us.”
The plaza became a national focal point during racial justice protests when Trump stood for photos in front of St. John’s Church after police had cleared peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park and the surrounding area using physical force and chemical agents.
In the days after, D.C. Mayor Muriel
Bowser renamed the street Black Lives Matter Plaza. Anti-Trump demonstrators have remained nearby, despite the White House erecting a new security fence around its perimeter.
Since the unrest, Seiler said she believes not much has changed in the fight for racial justice. She pointed to a memorial that stood in the plaza for Patrick Warren Sr., a Black man fatally shot by a police officer in Killeen, Texas, who was responding to a mental health call.
Still, Seiler said, she hoped Biden would bring about a step in the right direction. Before the Jan. 6 riot, she said she viewed Biden as “a good ol’ boy” focused more on political connections. She said she believes the riot, and especially the disparate police response when compared with the summer protests for social justice, affected him.
“I feel like this has moved the needle a little bit, but I don’t know how much,” Seiler said.
Atlanta
Speakers at Atlanta’s celebration called Monday for a renewed dedication to nonviolence.
“This King holiday has not only come at a time of great peril and physical violence, it has also come during a time of violence in our speech – what we say and how we say it,” said the Rev. Bernice King, the slain civil rights leader’s daughter. “It is frankly out of control, and we are causing too much harm to one another.”
The coronavirus pandemic forced the annual King Day service at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church online during the 35th celebration of his birthday as a national holiday. His family was among a sparse group wearing masks and sitting far apart amid mostly empty pews as others delivered remarks remotely.
Bernice King said the toll of the pandemic, lingering outrage over killings of unarmed Black people and the deadly Capitol attack all underscore an urgent need to pursue what her father called “the beloved community” – a world in which conflict is solved nonviolently and compassion dictates policy.
She quoted her father’s words from more than 50 years ago: “There is such a thing as being too late.”
“We still have a choice today – nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation,” Bernice King said, again reciting the words of her father. “This may well be mankind’s last chance to choose between chaos and community.”
Boston
The life of Martin Luther King Jr. was being honored in Boston and by Boston University, his alma mater, with a day of celebration on Monday while two demonstrations were planned in the city against police brutality on the federal holiday honoring the civil rights leader.
One of the protests was organized by Mass Action Against Police Brutality.
“It is the mass movement sparked in response to police brutality and racism that is the moral compass of the country and the true defender of democracy,” said Brock Satter, one of the organizers of the Boston protest, according to masslive.com.
The other protest in Boston on Monday was organized by the Boston chapter of Black Lives Matter, Violence in Boston and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.