Dr. James J. Zogby
It was unsurprising that President Donald Trump had to be goaded by civil rights leaders into issuing a statement acknowledging Martin Luther King Day 2026. The statement was released only begrudgingly, close to the day’s end, said little about Dr King, and appeared solely on the White House website, without the usual social media amplification. Mr Trump and the movement he leads have sought to whitewash American history through executive orders directing schools and federal programmes to ignore troubling aspects of the past and instead focus on glorious battles Americans have won, heroic leaders who fought them, and the values they represented.
I disagree with this approach of burying our heads in the sand and glossing over troubling aspects of our past and present. Years ago, I was honoured to serve as an appointed member of Washington, DC’s Martin Luther King Holiday Commission. My mission was to ensure that the day served to remind future generations of the struggles led by Dr King and others against the injustices that have defined our nation’s history.
That movement secured voting rights for disenfranchised African Americans who, 100 years after the official end of slavery in the US, were still victims of severe discrimination. This same civil rights movement also led to the abolition of segregation, a system of law and practice that had divided America into two distinct worlds, one Black and one white.
Generations of Americans do not realise that just 60 years ago, in many parts of the country, African Americans could not buy property, do business, reside, attend school, and so on, in “white-only” neighbourhoods. The struggle, led by Dr King, to dismantle these barriers of racial separation in housing, employment, education, and public accommodation was difficult.
Though non-violent, it was met with violence. Thousands of protesters were arrested or beaten. Many lost their lives. But in the end, this movement prevailed and forever changed the face of America. Still, the work was not done. While legal segregation ended, the legacy of racial division continued to haunt the country.
As late as 1964, property deeds in my north-west Washington neighbourhood included a “covenant” prohibiting sale to African Americans. Black families living in this “white-only” section were evicted; their properties taken and razed to make way for new all-white schools. Even after these covenants were declared null and void through legislation passed in response to the King-led civil rights movement, Washington, DC remained an extraordinarily divided city. Accompanying that physical division were significant differences in income, infrastructure, services, and opportunities—differences that continue to plague the city.
This story was replicated across the US and was far worse in the Deep South, where African Americans lived under an apartheid-like system of imposed racial segregation. There were restaurants where Black people could not eat and hotels where they could not stay. Lavatories, water fountains, and public transport were designated “white-only” or “coloured”.
This system, in both the North and the South, was challenged and partially defeated by the movement Dr King helped to lead. On King Day, we should not only honour the heroic efforts of those who built this movement, but also remember the reality they were fighting to dismantle and change—and the lasting impact of this system today.
The danger is that this history is either unknown or its importance has been dismissed. Fewer than one-quarter of today’s Americans were alive during the period of segregation. Almost from the day President Ronald Reagan signed the bill establishing MLK Day, King was transformed from a heroic fighter for civil rights, civil liberties, and immigrant rights, and against war, militarism, and economic injustice, into an unrecognisable feel-good figure. President William Clinton further diluted the day’s meaning by declaring it a day of public service—cleaning playgrounds, providing meals for the poor, and so on. As the Rev Jesse Jackson predicted: “We might win and get this holiday and live to see the day when the Dr King that politicians honour is not the Martin Luther King we knew.”
To honour King Day, we must remember the world into which he came, the injustices he fought, and the lessons he taught, and apply those lessons to today’s challenges: defending immigrants, defending voting rights, and challenging indiscriminate violence by local and federal law enforcement. In other words, doing what Dr King would be doing.
The writer is the President of Arab American Institute.
