1 of 2 | A view of the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial on Sunday, the day before Martin Luther King Jr and the second inauguration of Donald J. Trump in Washington DC. Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI | License Photo
Jan. 20 (UPI) — The United States is paying tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy the same day a new president was inaugurated.
“Let’s use today to remember that even in the midst of Jim Crow, Civil Rights Leaders pushed on!” Rep. Jasmin Crockett, D-Tex., wrote Monday on social media about the nation’s 39th MLK Day.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2025 takes place on Jan. 20 and is celebrated on the third Monday of January each year to remember King’s birthday on Jan. 15.
However, the federal holiday fell on Donald Trump’s second inauguration day in Washington.
King was the driving force behind the U.S. civil rights movement.
On Monday, Rev. Al Sharpton held a rally in the nation’s capital starting at noon at Washington’s Metropolitan AME Church where Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks are laid to rest.
Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, held events in New York City over the week of King’s Jan. 15 birthday.
King’s nonviolent efforts to achieve social and racial equality came to signify a transformative chapter in American history, culminating in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“We have been here before & moved this country forward,” Crockett said. “We won’t let any temporary setbacks be anything more than temporary.”
King’s influence reached new heights as his peaceful protests exerted pressure on Southern lawmakers to dismantle racist and segregationist practices rooted in the era of Jim Crow, leading to many pivotal moments in the arduous journey toward civil rights, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 and the March on Washington in 1963, where King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
Events around nation
Meanwhile, a series of MLK Day events and celebrations across the nation Monday will honor the late civil rights leader, and a number of businesses and government agencies will be closed.
MLK Day is one of seven free entrance days this year for America’s national parks.
This year’s MLK Day Beloved Community Commemorative Service will be held at King’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta with 2025’s theme “Mission Possible: Protecting Freedom, Justice, and Democracy in the Spirit of Nonviolence365.”
“As we celebrate Dr. King today,” said Ebenezer Baptist co-pastor and Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia. “We must keep in mind his vision of the beloved community in everything we do,” he added, “not just today, but every single day.”
“This year it feels more pertinent than ever,” Rep. Summer Lee, D-Penn., said on social media of a need to understand a “full, unsanitized version” of King.
King, according to Lee, “called out racism, economic exploitation and militarism as the ‘three evils of society.'”
“I tried to love and serve humanity,” the late Dr. King