Hundreds honor Martin Luther King’s legacy in 46th annual Raleigh memorial march
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- Hundreds marched through downtown Raleigh in the city’s 46th annual MLK event.
- Marchers sang hymns, displayed King quotations and held an ecumenical service.
- Attendees invoked King’s teachings as unity and urged continued activism amid division.
Hundreds of families, activists and politicians marched through downtown Raleigh on Monday in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
In a political era many attendees described as bleak and divisive, marchers looked to King and his teachings as an inspiration for hope and unity.
“We’re in such a mess right now,” Constance Walker, a Wake Forest resident, told The News & Observer. “But if we could go back to one verse, it’s ‘Love your neighbor,’ not politics.”
The march, the city’s 46th annual King day event, began outside the historic State Capitol building and continued down Fayetteville Street.
Marchers sang “Amazing Grace” and “This Little Light of Mine” while holding up signs quoting some of King’s teachings.
The march ended outside the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, where an ecumenical service was held in King’s honor.
While some marchers focused on King’s historic legacy, the shadow of modern politics hung heavy over the day — with Monday’s march coming almost exactly one year after President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term.
Dawn Pretlow of Raleigh said that King would be “extremely disappointed” to see the current state of the world.
“There’s so many people who died, who worked so hard for equality — and now it’s all for naught,” she said.
Asked how she thought King would have responded to Trump’s presidency, Pretlow said, “I honestly don’t think he would have addressed him at all.”
“Sometimes, with people like our president, the best thing you can do is just turn your head,” she said. “He’s trying to provoke, and the best thing we can do as African-Americans is not to be provoked. Stay on the plan of equality, progression — real progression — not at the expense of others.”
U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, who represents Raleigh in Congress, also attended Monday’s march, telling The N&O that it was “an uplifting way to take care of a very difficult time in our history.”
Ross said that if King were alive today his advice would be to “keep on keeping on. We cannot stop, we cannot give up, and we all must work together.”
Travis Boone of Fuquay-Varina, a member of the Freemason Legacy Lodge, said that despite today’s division, King would have been proud to see the process the country has made.
“Martin Luther King had the dream, and now I see that we are living the dream,” Boone said. “Now, people are trying to go back into the segregation and isolation, which is not the right way, I believe.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2026 at 12:41 PM with the headline "Hundreds honor Martin Luther King’s legacy in 46th annual Raleigh memorial march."
