It was unsurprising that President Donald Trump had to be goaded by civil rights leaders into issuing a statement acknowledging Martin Luther King Day 2026. The statement was released only begrudgingly, close to the day’s end, said little about Dr King, and appeared solely on the White House website, without the usual social media amplification. Mr Trump and the movement he leads have sought to whitewash American history through executive orders directing schools and federal programmes to ignore troubling aspects of the past and instead focus on glorious battles Americans have won, heroic leaders who fought them, and the values they represented.

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I disagree with this approach of burying our heads in the sand and glossing over troubling aspects of our past and present. Years ago, I was honoured to serve as an appointed member of Washington, DC’s Martin Luther King Holiday Commission. My mission was to ensure that the day served to remind future generations of the struggles led by Dr King and others against the injustices that have defined our nation’s history.

That movement secured voting rights for disenfranchised African Americans who, 100 years after the official end of slavery........

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