Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and state leaders reflect on MLK, Trump's 'troubling' speech

Hannah Gaskill, Baltimore Sun on Jan 20, 2025

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Gov. Wes Moore and other top Black Maryland officials reflected on Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy Monday night as they vowed to fight for civil rights in President Donald Trump’s second term.

“I know today — because I’ve had a lot of conversations with folks — about the complexity of having this inauguration on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And I know I have a lot of mixed feelings about it, as well,” Moore, Maryland’s first Black governor, said to a crowd of policymakers at a wreath-laying ceremony in Annapolis Monday evening.

The governor described Trump’s inauguration this morning as “troubling and backwards,” with language in the president’s speech that was “purely un-American.”

Trump was sworn in for his second term Monday morning, making promises in his inaugural address to take action via executive order to roll back protections for transgender people and eliminate DEI programs that he said “socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.”

“We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based,” Trump said.

Maryland is home to the nation’s largest state Black Legislative Caucus. According to Del. Jheanelle Wilkins, the leader of the state’s Legislative Black Caucus and a Montgomery County representative, the Maryland State House is the only one in the country with a dedication to King on its grounds.

State House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, a Democrat and the first Black person — and first woman — to serve in her position, said that the legislature will face new challenges during Trump’s new term but assured all in attendance that lawmakers are prepared to “protect Marylanders.”

“We are going to protect equity in our public schools. We are going to protect against attacks on DEI, and on our civil rights, and on our immigrant communities,” said Jones. “And we’re going to protect the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, because Dr. King’s legacy is our legacy.”

Moore said that the rare overlap of Inauguration Day on the federal holiday celebrating King was fitting because it reminds Americans that he did not “lead in easy times.” He said that he read King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Sunday evening and reflected on how there is no “time or tolerance” for people to be disrespected or for rights to be rolled back “and allow someone to paint that as ‘progress.'”

With Trump beginning a new term, Moore said, “It’s more important than ever before that we remember the lessons that came before us. It’s more important than ever before for us to remember the power of our unity — our ability to push back and make sure that a threat to justice anywhere will be a threat to justice everywhere, and this caucus will respond accordingly.”

Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat representing neighborhoods in South Baltimore, said that this moment in history made him hearken back to King’s organizing in politically dangerous places before his assassination in 1968 as he looks ahead to new policies coming under the second Trump administration.

“That, in this moment now that we face and the uncertain times ahead, now is our moment to pick those important issues and fights that really are symbolic for the future,” said Ferguson. “We’ve done great work — we’ve had incredible, incredible successes — but we have so, so, so far left to go. And as we look ahead with the change in the federal government and where we are headed, picking those battles is going to be more important now than ever.”

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