In less than one week, on Jan. 20, the country will mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office for the second time.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who represents Massachusetts’ 7th District, announced that she will not be attending the inauguration next week. She joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to share more about that decision and how she’s preparing for a second Trump administration. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Arun Rath: Before we get to what your plans for the day are, tell us about your thinking behind why you decided to sit this inauguration out.
Ayanna Pressley: Well, you know, the King family and many people of conscience and activists labored for many years to establish this national observance this day to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who, as you well know, has personal ties to the Massachusetts 7th [District], to the city of Boston and to the incredible neighborhood of Roxbury. So, I will be honoring my annual tradition [of] being in community.
Many are unaware that the event that takes place typically at the convention center — or annually at the convention center, hosted by two of our faith houses — is the longest-standing MLK breakfast in the country. So I will be rooted in community, beloved community for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and, in fact, will be hosting an event in Roxbury at 1:30 at the Bruce Bolling Building in Nubian Square.
The goal is to honor Dr. King by offering a message of hope and providing community members with resources to address what we anticipate to be wholesale harm of the incoming Trump administration. You know, Dr. King posed that question many years ago: Would we descend into chaos or community? I’m choosing community, and doing the work actively in building it.
Rath: Let’s talk a bit more about that because, you know, obviously, you’re not going to be alone in those kinds of activities on Monday with everything you talked about. We also have the great annual Boston Children’s Chorus on MLK Jr. Day.
But as you’re turning to community, what are the kind of things that you’re hearing? What’s the sense about where you’re putting your energies and where the community is putting its energies into post-January 20th?
Pressley: Well, the period that we find ourselves in right now, I would characterize as “in the meantime.” You know, we’re in between two events. We’re on the back end of an outcome that was not what we desired and what we worked for, and bracing for the impact of what’s to come.
My district, the Massachusetts 7th Congressional, was one of the hardest hit by the first Trump presidency. The only comparable example that I have, other than his first presidency, is the wholesale harm and impact of the pandemic, which my district was also disparately impacted by.
What I’m hearing from people as I talk to dedicated staff in our district office in Dorchester is that people are calling in with a sense of urgency about their requests — everything from intervention with Social Security, with the IRS, passports or immigration and saying, “What can you do to have this done before January 20th?” So it would seem that people are very aware that we are also “in the meantime,” and they anticipate that there is harm that is coming our way, and they’re trying to get ahead of it the best way that they can.
That’s exactly why we’re pulling this day of beloved community together on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in Roxbury — 1:30 at the Bruce Bolling Building in Nubian Square — so that we can do an event that is rooted in a future of love in the sort of commonwealth, city and country that we want to live in, in a beloved community, while also holding workshops with community-based partners and organizations that dispel misinformation about our rights, build community and empower people.
Rath: With less than a week to go, what are your hopes for the final days of the Biden administration?
Pressley: Well, I’ve been focused on everything from making sure that all of the federal dollars that were appropriated but have not yet been distributed from the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure package, that those dollars are getting out the door. That’s been top of mind for me and for my district.
Secondly, you know, [I am] advocating to halt all deportations to Haiti, for empty federal judgeships to be filled and, of course, for clemency. This is a very powerful tool. Mass incarceration is a crisis in this country. Our broken clemency process has contributed formidably to this. The president has the authority; he’s already used it in response to our advocacy with pardons and commutations.
This is life-changing — it’s about second chances. It’s about affording people an opportunity to make a positive contribution to society. So I’m advocating for [Biden] to use that clemency authority for women who are incarcerated because they were defending themselves against their abusers, for those that are disabled, that are elderly, who pose no threat or risk to public safety, people who are incarcerated because of sentencing disparities or cannabis convictions.
Using the tools of pardons, of commutations, of clemency as a way to redress systemic injustices is the right thing to do. He has the power to do it, and it’s also a matter of legacy.
Rath: Before we let you go, I wanted to ask you about your new role as co-chair of the Reproductive Freedom Caucus. This was, until recently, known as the pro-choice caucus, right?
Pressley: Yes. Since my time dating back to the Boston City Council, I’ve been an advocate for abortion and access to reproductive freedom. It’s a great honor to now be serving in this role. Throughout my six years in Congress, I fought alongside my pro-choice caucus colleagues to make reproductive freedom a reality for everyone in this country.
As we brace ourselves for a hostile White House and Republican Congress hell-bent on stripping away those freedoms, I’m really honored to continue this work as co-chair of the Reproductive Freedom Caucus and to follow in the footsteps of my friend — my big sister, my mentor, our Congresswoman Barbara Lee — is especially humbling. I’m excited to be working alongside the congresswoman.
And finally, I’ll just say that, you know, as we prepare for this new Congress, we have to be clear-eyed about the threats that lie ahead from a Republican Party’s extreme, anti-freedom agenda. I plan on leveraging every tool available — from litigation to legislation to mobilization — in an affront to these coordinated, draconian attacks because this is an issue that sits at the intersection of health care, economic justice and gender justice.
And, as the country has proven in this last election of ballot referendums throughout the country, it is an issue of prioritization for the majority of the people who call this country home.
