Martin Luther King Jr’s daughter on Monday said that “God can triumph over Trump,” but the slain civil rights leader’s son struck a conciliatory tone after meeting with the president-elect on the US holiday that honors their father.
The comments by the children of King, who championed racial justice until he was assassinated in 1968 at the age of 39, punctuated an imbroglio involving US president-elect Donald Trump and African-American Representative John Lewis that broke out over the weekend.
The dispute started when Lewis, 76, a contemporary of King’s who endured beatings and jail time in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, said in a televised interview that he saw Trump’s election as illegitimate because of Russian interference in the campaign. That drew a scornful response from Trump.
Photo: Bloomberg
Bernice King, Martin Luther King’s youngest daughter, told a gathering at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta not to give up hope, adding: “Don’t be afraid of who sits in the White House.”
“God can triumph over Trump,” she said, drawing a standing ovation, one of several times she was interrupted by applause.
The service at the church where King once preached takes place every year on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a US holiday honoring his life. This year the holiday fell days before US President Barack Obama is to end his second term. Trump is to take the oath of office as his successor on Friday.
Obama and first lady Michelle Obama spent part of their last Martin Luther King Jr Day in office helping paint a mural in the “community room” of a Washington shelter, to which they donated a play set used by their daughters when they arrived at the White House in 2009.
Trump offered praise for King in a Twitter post on Monday, a few hours before meeting King’s eldest son, Martin Luther King III, at his Trump Tower offices in New York.
“Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!” Trump tweeted.
Trump and King III emerged from an elevator together, shaking hands.
Trump said goodbye to King III, then returned to the elevator without answering questions.
King III said they had a constructive meeting to discuss how to improve the US voting system, which he said he considers broken, but he skirted questions about whether he was offended by Trump’s comments on Lewis.
“First of all I think that in the heat of emotion a lot of things get said on both sides. I think at some point I bridge-build. The goal is to bring America together,” King III told reporters.
Lewis did not mention Trump in a speech in Miami about the civil rights struggle to honor Martin Luther King, who would have turned 88 on Sunday, but he urged young black Americans to view voting as a “sacred” act.
“We all must become participants in the democratic process. When you get old enough to register to vote, go and register and vote,” Lewis said in a half-hour address.
Gunfire during Miami holiday festivities wounded eight people ages 11 to 30 at Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Park, police said.
Two people were detained and two weapons seized and the cause of the shooting is under investigation.
The Trump-Lewis exchange began when Lewis told NBC News in segments of an interview released on Friday last week that he would not attend Trump’s inauguration in part because “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.”
He referred to the findings of US intelligence agencies that Russia used hacking and other methods to try to help Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Nov. 8 election.
Trump said in a tweet the following day that Lewis was “All talk, talk, talk — no action or results.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of