Democratic National Convention Chair Jaime Harrison speaks outside the Statehouse during the annual King Day at the Dome on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — Nearly 60 years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, Democratic leaders called on Black South Carolinians to take up his fight for civil rights once again.
Speaking while President Donald Trump was sworn into office for a second term, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison called on the several hundred attendees of the NAACP’s annual King Day at the Dome event to keep fighting for their freedoms, just as King did.
“This is the civil rights movement of our time,” said Harrison, the event’s keynote speaker, who took the stage around noon. “What was once Dr. King’s fight has now become our fight, our cause, our mission.”
Trump’s inauguration drove home Monday’s theme, “There Is No Winning In Giving Up,” Harrison said.
The speech comes as he ends his national role. The Columbia Democrat has said he’s not seeking a second term leading the Democratic National Committee. A new chair will be elected Feb. 1.
After Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris in November, the future for Democrats is uncertain, Harrison said from the same spot on the Statehouse steps where Harris spoke a year ago. Last year marked the first and only time tall security glass separated speakers from the audience.
Unlike in previous years, such as the 2020 event when Democratic presidential hopefuls walked together down Main Street to the Statehouse grounds, Harrison said he “woke up concerned about the future of our democracy and the security of our fundamental freedoms.”
What might happen with Trump in office is uncertain, Harrison said.
But people should continue to stand up for the issues they care about, including access to abortion and improvements in public education, he said.
That mentality of refusing to give up in the face of struggle is a familiar one to Black people who come from a history of slavery and oppression and had to fight for equal rights, said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the national NAACP.
“For those of us of African descent, we’ve seen this before and we have defeated the evil that came upon us,” Johnson said.
The 2000 compromise
Harrison pointed to the removal of the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome 25 years ago as an example of what can happen when people are working together. During the first King Day at the Dome, the NAACP called for the flag to be taken down. Six months later, it did.
The law that took the flag off the dome also made Martin Luther King Jr. Day a mandatory state holiday. At the same time, it restored the permanent status of Confederate Memorial Day. Prior to 2000, state employees could pick between MLK Day (the third Monday in January), Robert E. Lee’s birthday (Jan. 19), Jefferson Davis’ birthday (June 3) or Confederate Memorial Day (May 10).
The legislative compromise also put a smaller, square version of the battle flag in a more visible spot on the Statehouse’s front lawn, beside a monument.
It would be another 15 years before legislators removed the flag completely, following the massacre of nine parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
That was progress, however slow, Harrison said.
Biden ends his term by again thanking SC for putting him in the White House
“Every year we can point to another step forward in our movement,” Harrison said. “When you look at the big picture, you can see that even when we are down, we are never out.”
Having hope
While Harrison repeated a message of having hope during difficult times, he added that people need to take action. The best thing they can do is help register more Black voters and get people to the polls for every election, Harrison said.
That includes in municipal and county elections this year, as well as in the governor’s race next year, he added.
Getting involved in local issues is just as important as national issues, if not more so, said Barbara Johnson-Williams, first vice president of the state’s NAACP conference.
“We must not come together just this one day a year, but we must continue the work that needs to be done here,” Johnson-Williams said.
Under Joe Biden’s presidency, the country took major steps forward, Harrison said.
He noted Biden appointed a historic number of Black females to the bench.
Judges from South Carolina include Michelle Childs, confirmed in 2022 on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia; Judge Jacquelyn Austin who took Childs’ seat for the District of South Carolina; and DeAndrea Benjamin, wife of former Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, who was confirmed in 2023 to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Harrison also thanked Biden for forgiving billions of dollars in student loan debt and credited him with expanding broadband and creating rules to remove lead from pipes.
“Each one of these accomplishments give me hope, my friends, that when we have the right leadership in America, they can do right by our community,” Harrison said.
Harrison spent the day with Biden in Charleston on Sunday, as Biden spoke at a historically Black church and the International African American Museum during his final day in office.
Biden’s exit from office was emotional on a personal level, as Harrison reflected on his journey from growing up in poor Orangeburg to a teenage mom, to leading the Democratic Party nationwide and shaking hands with the president, he said.
“That only happens in this country, and that’s the greatness of this country, and that’s why we have to fight so damn hard to make sure that the windows of opportunity are open to all,” Harrison told reporters.
Watching speeches about fighting for unity and equality while Trump was sworn into office felt like a prank, said Earl Porterfield, who works in economic development in Columbia. He had hoped for Harris to win so she could fight for a higher federal minimum wage and more affordable health care, he said.
But he wanted his daughters, who are 11 and 13, to see what the event was like and learn more about the issues facing them, he said.
“It just felt like the right thing to do,” Porterfield said.