“In the midst of this anti-Blackness on steroids, attacks on Black people, Black bodies, Black votes, Black history, Black power and progress, what calms me is knowing that somebody already wrote the blueprint for our survival.”

“Though we find ourselves at an acute crossroads as a nation and as a people, I believe what Dr. King said, ‘right temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.’”

Video (YouTube)

BOSTON – Today, at Boston’s 56^th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) delivered powerful and deeply personal remarks in which she honored the life and legacy of Dr. King, the enduring strength of Black communities, and the urgent imperative to resist authoritarianism and hate with collective action. Congresswoman Pressley invoked the story of her great-grandmother, Mamma Eliza, whose handmade quilts became a metaphor for Black wisdom and protection, and discussed how Dr. King and our ancestors left us the blueprint for our survival.

A full transcript of the Congresswoman’s remarks is available below, and the video is available here.

Transcript: Rep. Pressley’s Remarks at the 56^th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast in Boston
January 19, 2026
Boston, MA

Good morning. Y’all, it feels good to be home. 

Good to be in the Massachusetts 7th, good to be in Boston, the city where the union of Martin and Coretta was first forged, a union, a love, a radical Black love that birthed not only four children, Martin, Bernice, Yolanda and Dexter, but gave birth to a movement.

Now last night, we celebrated the divine embrace of Coretta and Martin, an embrace that laid the foundation for a divine assignment. 

As I travel the country and our Commonwealth, I love reminding folks, “before there was Atlanta, before there was Montgomery, there was Boston.” 

And of course, Boston is no stranger to making history. This 50 Year breakfast tradition is historic, both in its inception and the longstanding nature of it. 

Thank you to these two dedicated faith houses. Thank you to the Memorial Breakfast Committee. Thank you to our volunteers, and thank you to our banquet wait staff. And finally, thank you to our keynote speaker, my dear sister friend, the singular Nikole Hannah Jones, who’s also so very fly.

Now, it is certainly a humbling honor and intimidating prospect to be between the genius of Miss Hannah Jones and the award ceremony for our gifted young people in today’s program. 

A wise man once advised when addressing a crowd, “be brief, be sincere, and be seated.” And then church folk in advance of today’s program told me, “Congresswoman, you’ve got five minutes,” seriously. Well, y’all, I better get to it.

Now, do me a favor if you’ve heard some of this before, just pretend it’s the first time. Just like I need you to pretend like this is the first time you’ve seen this outfit. 

Now, as a child, my mother would send me down south to Selma, Alabama to spend time with my great grandmother, Mamma Eliza. She chopped her own firewood, ate what she grew in her garden, kept a snuff tobacco spit can next to her recliner, and was swift with a switch on your behind with a hint of disrespect. 

Now, Mamma Eliza wasn’t formally educated beyond the sixth grade, I don’t think, but she was smart, strong and God fearing. She was nearly six feet tall, but stood even taller to me because she was proud. 

When I returned home from vacation Bible school while I snacked on her homemade whole cakes, y’all don’t hear me, she would rock in her recliner, quilting and humming. I would stare in awe at the nimbleness of her hands, and as an inquisitive child, I peppered her with questions about her life and about the story behind each square she was stitching together. 

When she would finish a quilt, I would wrap it around my shoulders like a cape. I felt as if the life behind each patch was being transmitted to me and I was drawing superhero strength, safety, and freedom from its patchwork covering. I can feel the essence of those moments now. I felt proud and loved wrapped up in Mamma Eliza’s quilt. 

Now, the walls of Mamma Eliza’s Selma home were adorned with our family photos spanning years, and one faded eight by 10, black and white portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

It was appropriate that he was featured among our family, a literal reminder that Martin was ours. He was us, his courage, his brilliance, his faith and pride, all a powerful and beautiful reflection of us.

Family, I know these are chaotic and uncertain times. It is easy to find oneself consumed by the cruelty and dysfunction of it all, but it is essential that we not allow despair to take over. Now, true, there are people who mean our collective humanity harm, who mean Black folks harm, who animate their hate through dangerous rhetoric and policy violence.

And yet I’m no longer asking myself, how low can they go?

Folk who fear DEI more than a dictator. Folk who speak with a mouthful of scriptures but walk with a heart of hate. Folk who claim to be patriots but lead insurrections. Folk who sow chaos, terrorize communities in the name of so-called public safety. 

No, I’m no longer asking how low can they go, only how hard can I and can we fight? And fight we must. 

History has already shown us that appeasement does not work. The only way to beat a dictator is with defiance. 

I don’t know about y’all, but in the midst of this anti-Blackness on steroids, attacks on Black people, Black bodies, Black votes, Black history, Black power and progress, what calms me is knowing that somebody already wrote the blueprint for our survival. 

The blueprint is written in our elders’ strategies for change like that of Byron Rushing and Frieda Garcia and Karen Holmes Ward. 

It’s written in the marches and the boycotts and the mobilizations of our ancestors. 

The blueprint is written in the words of Dr. King, who instructed us, especially our young people, like today’s MLK scholars and art awardees, to have a belief in one’s own dignity, in your worth, in your own somebodiness.

Your life matters. It has ultimate significance. Dr. King said “you should never be ashamed of your color. You are Black and beautiful.”

The blueprint is written and the prayers sent up and the blood that was shed.

So you see, I don’t care what the insecure man with a small mind, small heart—and he hates when I say this—even smaller hands, has to say at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who thinks he is a king.

I care about the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, the man, the Black man, who was an original architect of Black Lives Matter, who wrote the blueprint for the Civil Rights Movement, for me, for our survival. 

250 years of enslavement, we are still here, covered by our ancestors’ quilts. 

88 years of Jim Crow, we are still here covered by our ancestors’ quilts.

Pandemics and insurrections, we are still here covered by our ancestors’ quilts.

During and after the current occupant of the Oval Office, we will still be here.

Family, we are so much more than resilient. We are miracles manifest. 

Though we find ourselves at an acute crossroads as a nation and as a people, I believe what Dr. King said, “right temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

Now it is no secret that we are being pulled apart at the seams all around us, but there will come a time when we will get to the other side, and we will need to do that radical reimagining and that radical work of Reconstruction.

And we will need, just like my Mamma Eliza, some master quilters that know how to piece together something beautiful from what’s been discarded. 

As I close, I’m reminded of the January 6th insurrection. When I was on the floor in the dark, barricaded in my office, and the voices were getting louder and closer, I remember many, many hours later, an image of Black custodians in the U.S. Capitol cleaning up the mess left behind by this white supremacist mob, wearing t-shirts with antisemitic slogans, brandishing Confederate flags, erecting nooses on the west lawn of the Capitol.

Black custodians cleaning up the mess left behind by this white supremacist mob. It was as literal as it was figurative, because as Black people, we have been doing that. 

But because of those Black custodians, the work that they did made it possible for us to return to the House, to do our business, to ratify those election results. 

Their actions were that of patriots, but we have always been patriots, innovators, defenders of democracy. 

Black people, put on your ancestors’ quilts and keep fighting for freedom and justice. 

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

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