You are invited! Monday, Jan. 20, 12 pm ET/9 am PT
Join a Multifaith Prayer Circle during the Inauguration co-sponsored by Rabbis for Ceasefire, Christians for a Free Palestine, Muslims for Just Futures, Mennonite Action, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Hindus for Human Rights, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Collective Loss Adaptation Project, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and the Waging Peace Project. On January 20th, MLK day, while the 47th U.S. president is inaugurated, we will gather. We will honor what we are feeling as we face into the next four years. We will remember we are not alone. Together, we will recommit to taking courageous action in solidarity with Palestinians and to showing up for one another, fighting for collective safety and liberation for all. Register for the Zoom link here.
This week, the United States will hold its 74th Presidential Inauguration. The handing over of the office from the previous President to the incoming President has been a hallmark of democracy: the peaceful transfer of power.
But things are a little more complicated now: even writing that sentence was harder than it’s been for centuries because we can no longer confidently claim that our democracy has always had a peaceful transfer of power. The 73rd Inauguration in 2021 was preceded by January 6, when Donald Trump and his supporters violently attempted to overturn the election.
They failed, and the will of the voters prevailed. And the will of the voters has prevailed again: on January 20, 2025, President Trump will become only the second man in U.S. history to have been elected to a second term after leaving office.
Things are not as they usually are in our democracy. The inauguration on Monday, January 20, will be held inside the Capitol rotunda where only a few witnesses can be present. This is different from an outside event before a huge crowd on the mall. But arctic weather has made the outside event too cold and too dangerous.
Even the timing of the inauguration mixes signals and symbols. When Trump is sworn in, some American flags will continue to fly at half-mast in continued mourning for President Jimmy Carter, the great humanitarian who died on December 29, 2024. Others will be ordered to fly at full-mast to appease complaints from the President-elect.
And, as Trump is sworn in, the nation will be observing the Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday. King organized the Civil Rights Movement and promoted love and justice for the marginalized; in President Trump’s first term he called himself “the least racist person you know” and called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries.
Jimmy, Martin, and Donald. Only one of these men represents the current tone of our democracy, and it is difficult to think of what that man has in common with the other two.
We will all have to do our part to keep the ship of democracy sailing against the prevailing wind. One symbolic way to do that this week is to spend some time with the Inaugural poets, and add some meter and rhyme to a disordered day.
Poetry can connect us with what is best in us and in the country, and give us the music we need to dance and hope our way into a better future.
No Inaugural poet has used words to move us and get us moving like the young Amanda Gorman, who memorably performed “The Hill We Climb” in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2021.
Unfortunately, Trump, like modern Republican Presidents before him, has apparently not included a poet in his inaugural program.
We feel this is a loss. To compensate, we suggest reading Gorman’s piece and “every inaugural poem ever performed (there are fewer than you think)” to add some syncopation and imagination to an otherwise poetry-less inauguration.