Monday, January 20, 2025: Martin Luther King Jr. Day/Inauguration Day
Monday, January 20, 2025. Seemingly by some unfortunate confluence or accidental convergence, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a hard-won federal holiday, and Inauguration Day are merging on the same day. This is an especially disappointing fact considering the individual being inaugurated. However, under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which was enacted in 1971, this is standard procedure “to provide for uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays”. Nevertheless, the entirety of my focus will be on celebrating the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights icon and one of the most admirable figures in human history. Not the convicted felon taking the oath of office once again and meaning not one word of it.
In my 81-year lifetime, fourteen US Presidents have placed their hands on the Holy Bible and taken the Presidential Oath of Office, pledging to defend and protect the United States Constitution. Although I was born during the final administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, I have no memory of him, even though my parents, who were staunch Democrats, kept a framed photograph of him on the mantle in the living room of our home in Montgomery Alabama. So, the first president I was actually aware of was Dwight D. Eisenhower, and I vividly recall his campaign against Adlai Stevenson because of an incident at school that resulted in a visit to the principal’s office. My third-grade teacher, Sister Agnes, a stern ruler-wielding nun, was not amused by a flyer I created in response to all the “I Like Ike” and “We Like Ike” images that were on display all over the city. My ‘I don’t like Ike. Stevenson is better’ flyer was roundly frowned upon and not appreciated at my school. The perp walk to the principal’s office and confrontation with the principal are equally memorable and were followed by notes of warning sent to my parents. But they supported my expression and responded to the note in kind. I had the advantage of growing up in a staunchly Democratic household during the FDR administration and our family, including grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins admired him tremendously. His successor, President Harry S. Truman, was also held in high esteem after he desegregated the military, which led to prominent positions of employment at Maxwell Field now Maxwell Air Force Base for my uncle, Lumpkin Frazier, Sr., a prominent Montgomery businessman who owned and operated several dry cleaners around the city, and my mother, Alberta Frazier Willis, as a hostess-event planner at the officers’ club.
The next political figure who captured my attention was Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. I was a sophomore in high school during his 1960 campaign and election, and too young to vote, but I had read his book, Profiles In Courage and I campaigned vigorously for him and earned extra grade points with several essays I wrote on his life and rise to prominence. The nuns at my high school in Detroit were thrilled that Kennedy was also Catholic and they kept my essays on display in the school library for several years.
After a short, by today’s standards, and vigorous campaign, on a frigid Winter’s Day, Friday January 20, 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, then age 43, took the oath of office from Chief Justice Earl Warren, to become the 35th President of the United States. His fourteen-minute inaugural address is best remembered for a single line: “My fellow Americans: “…ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” But in retrospect and more meaningfully, he ended with this:
“Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”
Today, “…with history the final judge of our deeds…”, the assessment begins at 12:01 p.m. when this country returns a convicted felon, narcissistic sociopath, white supremacist, adjudicated rapist, sexual predator, grifter, tax cheat to office. History will not be kind to his legacy. Whatever that is. And even less so to his enablers and those who normalized him.
The President’s Pledge:
The exact words of the presidential oath of office are legendary and powerful. Due to the clause enjoining the new chief executive “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Many honorable men being administered the oath took the oath very seriously. But as we all know, the person who placed his tiny hand on someone’s Bible and arrogantly repeated those words on January 20, 2017 meant not one word of that hallowed oath. Nor will he when given the opportunity again on January 20, 2025.
