In a heated response to former President Donald Trump’s recent remarks, Bernice King, daughter of the iconic civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., publicly criticized Trump for comparing his January 6th rally to her father’s historic “I Have A Dream” speech.
During an August 8 press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump made a bold and controversial comparison, equating the crowd size at his post-2020 election rally to that of Dr. King’s 1963 March on Washington.
“Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech. And you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people. If not, we had more.”
However, this comparison is far from accurate. Dr. King’s speech, delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, drew nearly 250,000 supporters, marking a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement.
In contrast, Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, held in the aftermath of his 2020 election loss, reportedly attracted around 53,000 attendees.
The remarks immediately sparked outrage across social media, particularly drawing the ire of Bernice King. As a 61-year-old lawyer and dedicated activist, King has been vocal in preserving her father’s legacy and ensuring that his message is not distorted for political gain.
In response to Trump’s comments, she took to X (formerly Twitter) to set the record straight, writing:
“Absolutely not true. I really wish that people would stop using my father to support fallacy.”
King’s response was not the only one. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also weighed in, posting a side-by-side comparison of the crowd sizes from Dr. King’s 1963 speech and Trump’s 2021 rally. The NAACP captioned the image with a powerful message:
“Donald Trump just said that he had a bigger crowd on Jan. 6 than Dr. Martin Luther King did when he delivered ‘I Have A Dream.’ …Not only is that completely false, but here’s what is more important: MLK’s speech was about democracy. Trump’s was about tearing it down.”
For many, Bernice King’s swift and pointed response is a reminder of the importance of protecting the integrity of civil rights history.
