by Mary Spiller
August 10, 2024
Bernice King called out the former President for claiming he drew bigger crowds than Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have A Dream” speech.
The daughter of the late civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Bernice King, dragged former President Donald Trump for comparing his rallies to her father’s historic “I Have A Dream” speech.
During an Aug. 8 press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump compared the size of his Jan. 6, 2021, rally crowds to the crowd that came out to Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” Speech was delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, during the civil rights movement’s March on Washington. In a call for equality following the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, King gave voice to the defining ideals of the civil rights movement and was later a galvanizing agent for monumental legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year.
For Trump, his Jan. 6 speech was just as important and had just as many–if not more–attendees. Trump said, “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.”
He continued, “Look at it, and you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd, we actually had more people.”
However, this is not the case. The Root reports that Dr. King’s speech brought out nearly 250,000 people but Trump’s popular “Stop the Steal” speech after losing the 2020 presidential election only had 53,000 people in attendance.
Trump’s inaccurate comments stirred up social media, but particularly, it prompted King’s daughter, 61-year-old lawyer Bernice King to address Trump’s claims.
She wrote on X, “Absolutely not true. I really wish that people would stop using my father to support fallacy.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also spoke up to respond to Trump’s claims about his supporters. On social media, the NAACP posted a photo of the 1963 crowd at the “I Have A Dream” speech side-by-side to the crowd at Trump’s speech. The post was captioned, “Donald Trump just said that he had a bigger crowd on January 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.”
Donald Trump just said that he had a bigger crowd on January 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. pic.twitter.com/cyjmztKy1Y
— NAACP (@NAACP) August 8, 2024
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