Rev. Al Sharpton on Saturday called for organizing like “never before” in the wake of Donald Trump’s reelection, beginning with a rally in Washington on Inauguration Day, which will fall on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“While they are on one side of Washington, swearing in Trump, we need to be in Washington saying that we’re going to keep the dream alive,” Sharpton told a crowd of supporters at the National Action Network headquarters in Harlem. “We need to mobilize and organize like we never did before.”
“I want them to be able to see that thousands of us are not broken and are not gonna back up…. What Dr. King stood for, we are not going to let anybody turn it around,” Sharpton said, adding that the protest will be nonviolent, unlike the 2021 insurrection on the US Capitol.
Noting the Republican control of the Senate, and possible control of the House, he said the country is entering a “new age that will challenge and in many ways harm our communities.”
“You can pass whatever bill you want,” he said. “We are not going back. We fought too hard, we suffered too long, we took too many beatings, we spent too many nights in jail. We’ve been to too many funerals.”
Sharpton pointed a finger at white voters, particularly white women, for Trump’s win. He said many voters had claimed to be voting against Trump over the issue of women’s rights, but polls show 53% of white women voting for him after all.
“The real problem is that many whites said one thing went and voted another, and they betrayed their own people,” he said. “Not people in terms of race, but people in terms of their commitment…. To vote against a woman standing up for your right to choose is voting against your own interests.”
Racism, he added, played a clear role.
“Everyone that voted for Trump is not a racist, but every racist voted for Donald Trump,” he said.
The activist stressed the significance of the next midterm and local elections, saying they could help “protect us from what they may do in city after city from the White House,” and vowed to keep fighting.
“We can lose a round, but the fight ain’t over,” he pledged.
“We came here designated as property. We went all the way to being president,” he said. “We will not crush the dreams of our children.”
