REP. DANNY DAVIS (D-7th) and more than 30 ministers announced they will hold a march and rally honoring the 57th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. They will then march to Stone Temple MBC, 3622 W. Douglas Boulevard.
Objects to erasing Black History
Saying it is mostly Blacks who are under attack by Trump and his “puppeteers,” Representative Danny Davis (D-7th), joined by 30 ministers, said the group will hold a rally and march to honor the 57th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Davis added he wants to make it clear that Blacks are under attack in a social war with Trump and his “puppeteers.”
Congressman Davis made his remarks during a lengthy press conference on March 20 at Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church.
The planned King Memorial rally and march will occur Friday, April 4, at 9:30 a.m. at Divine Tree of Life MBC, 3837 W. Harrison St.
Supporters will then march to Stone Temple MBC, 3622 W. Douglas Boulevard, where Dr. King spoke several times in Chicago at approximately 11:00 a.m.
Davis was joined for the announcement by several ministers, including his assistant, Reverend Paul Jakes, chair of the Christian Council on Urban Affairs; James Moody, Presiding Elder of the North District of the AME Church; Reverend Al Sampson, who was ordained by Dr. King, and many others.
In a move to unify Black churches during the anniversary and resist Trump’s cuts to mostly Black programs and funding, Davis said because we are living in an era of “social war,” African Americans must unite to resist Trump’s attempts to “take us back to 1619.”
He and Elder Moody will compare Dr. King’s legacy to the unraveling of civil rights today by Trump and his advisor, multi-billionaire Elon Musk.
Asked by the Chicago Crusader to react to Trump’s hauling judges to court when they rule against him, Davis said, “We’ve had people down through history who disagreed about different things, but never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d see this coming from a chief executive, from Donald Trump.
“It’s not just Trump,” Davis said. “It’s Trump and Trumpeteers. It’s the whole bunch.”
He spoke of the history of Blacks, starting with slavery, emancipation, and a brief period during Reconstruction where unbelievable things happened, including Blacks going to Congress and there being two Black senators from Mississippi in 1870 and even a Black governor from Louisiana.
Davis said all those progressive advances changed with the 1876 election. “That is why this voting business is so important.” He said no one received enough votes to be president in that election, putting the election into the House of Representatives. It was the Tilden-Hayes election.
Davis said Hayes told voters that he would give them state rights if they voted for him. They voted for him, pulled the troops out of the South, and the KKK and the White Citizens Council got organized.
“They started taking away all the stuff that had been provided and established,” Davis said. This was the era when the NAACP got started. “We went through this period in progress. We fought the Klan off… We had the riots of 1919 and 1920 when whites killed Blacks in Chicago, and in Arkansas, they had a race riot.
Davis turned to the Civil Rights era, when progress was made, like the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president. “There are elements in this society” opposed to Black progress.
“They said we got to stop this stuff. That is exactly what Trump and his core supporters are attempting to do, and they are doing Blacks worse than anybody else,” said Davis.”
“They are taking mementos down. They took Jackie Robinson’s (military) record down” from the Department of Defense. “Trump is trying to diminish these examples of Black ingenuity. It’s a shame.
“They have high-price thinkers thinking up ways to try and keep America from seeing actual actualization of this idea that all people are created equal. Why would you erase Jackie Robinson’s contributions? They cut out all the commemorations of Black characters in the federal government.
“They cut out Black History Day. It’s social war, and if a war is going on and you are not fighting, you know what will happen to you,” Davis said.
Reverend Jakes said, “We will never forget Dr. King, who was able to combat rhetoric similar to what we see in the Oval Office today.” Jakes said organizations must unite to fight Trump’s moves to cut Medicaid, housing, and shelters, and hunger is prevalent.
Elder Moody said, “These United States of America have made a particular choice we are living with right now, a choice we are living with right now. Sacrifice democracy. It is a choice that we choose to sacrifice on the altar of greed, racism, and hatred. We sacrifice democracy in such a way that we choose to do things that affect people across the globe.”
He was referring to Trump’s closing the USAID office and, by doing so, “chose to stop feeding hungry children around the world…chose to stop building schools, universities, clinics, and hospitals in countries that were suffering terribly; we chose to hurt ourselves.” Quoting Dr. King, Moody said, “Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.”
Other speakers included Bishop Shirley Coleman, pastor of the Spiritual Wholistic Ministries, Rev. Dr. Regina Lewis, head of the Ashanti Residential Housing Systems, Inc., Rev. Dr. Phalese Binion, president of the West Side Ministries Conference, and Rev. Sampson, who also gave the closing prayer.
