Martin Luther King Jr. speaks in Atlanta in 1960. (AP file photo)

New Yorkers will honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s memory today by protesting the 45th president of the United States’ regressive and racist words and deeds in Times Square.


The Rally Against Racism event, organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, will be held at 3 p.m. to protest Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric, according to the New York Daily News.

Sharpton, who will lead the event, told the Daily News that it’s important to have officials “address the racism of Trump and what they are doing in their offices to address racial and class inequality.”


“The nation is on the brink of going backward if we don’t push forward,” Sharpton said. “That’s why it is important really to proclaim we will not go back.”

Immigration has been at the center of the national political conversation as U.S. lawmakers struggle to reach consensus on policy—particularly around what to do about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an executive action passed under President Barack Obama that allows the children of parents who immigrated to the U.S. illegally to remain in the country.

As Trump has done frequently during his short tenure, he killed the Obama-era policy last fall—letting the burden fall on a dysfunctional Congress to figure out a way to save the widely supported program.

It was during a policy meeting about DACA with lawmakers on Thursday that Trump drew international outrage for racist remarks in which he asked why the U.S. continued to let in immigrants from “shithole” countries like Haiti, El Salvador and African countries, rather than people from Norway.


While it is far from the first racist thing Trump has ever said or done, the comments have sparked a diplomatic crisis and marked a new low for the presidency.


The National Action Network will also host a breakfast in Washington, D.C., that features Baxter Leach, one of the sanitation workers who protested alongside King before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968.

Read more at the New York Daily News.