At ‘Day of Beloved Community,’ Pressley Offers Message of Hope, Shares Resources, Lays Out Roadmap for Governing Over Next Four Years

Pressley Did Not Attend Inauguration in DC

Video (YouTube)

BOSTON – Today in Roxbury, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) delivered remarks in which she reflected on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and the presidential inauguration, and laid out her vision for governing over the next four years.

The remarks came at a ‘Day of Beloved Community’ hosted by her office to mark the holiday, offer a message of hope, and provide community members with resources to address the harm of the incoming Trump Administration.

Congresswoman Pressley did not attend the inauguration in Washington, DC.

Excerpts from her remarks as delivered are available below and the full video of the speaking program is available here.

Transcript: Skipping Inauguration, Pressley Delivers Remarks at MLK Day Event in Roxbury
January 20, 2025
Boston, Massachusetts

Today, America is facing a painful contradiction – honoring Dr. King while also seeing the former occupant of the White House return to the highest office in the land. 

A president who is poised to inflict more hurt and harm on the vibrant yet vulnerable communities I was elected to represent. 

This is a stark reminder of the fragility of our progress, of democracy, and everything that King fought for. 

Reflecting on the question Dr. King posed time and again: will we descend into chaos? Or will we build a beloved community? 

The answer must always be community, and as a people, we must always do the work of actively building it. 

That’s why today we’ve been intentional about spending this weekend and today at community events that feed our collective soul and recommit us to building a future rooted in love.

Do y’all have a radical enough imagination to believe that that is possible? 

And that’s why today, as our new President lays out his hateful vision for America and Republicans in Congress prepare to enact it — because Project 2025 was not a blueprint, it was a playbook — we are coming together in beloved community to organize and mobilize our collective power. 

To everyone in this room – thank you.

YOU chose to be in community to honor Dr. King, the man, the social architect, the movement builder, the visionary, the revolutionary, and the movement he sacrificed his life for.

YOU chose to channel your fears, your anxieties, and uncertainties into collective action.

YOU chose to never surrender your right to joy.

YOU chose to continue to march, to put justice and righteousness ahead of your own personal comfort. 

And as we face the challenges of another Trump presidency, we will need radical love and a cooperative spirit now more than ever.

You know, we often say we find ourselves in unprecedented times. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m ready for some precedented times. 

But the truth of the matter is that it’s unprecedented for our lifetime. It’s not unprecedented for the lifespan of the existence of us. 

The path to justice has never been a linear one. It is a jagged algorithm and we are just in the algorithm. 

So if we are truly in unprecedented times, at least for our lifetimes, what that demands of us is unprecedented organizing, unprecedented mobilizing, unprecedented hope, and unprecedented love. 

If we are to honor King’s legacy of beloved community as an antidote to cruelty and chaos, we must grow our movement centered in love and righteous indignation. 

We must fight for our neighbors and our loved ones. 

We must dig deep and begin the process of healing at the local level.

One quote of King’s that I have revisited throughout this weekend has been a reminder. It says that “our most fruitful course is to stand firm, move forward nonviolently, accept disappointment and cling to hope.”

Accept disappointment and cling to hope. 

And we have proven that those actions are most effective when done together. 

Today, we stand firm. Firm in our values and our commitment to every one of our neighbors, because an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, and our destinies are tied. 

Today, we move forward non-violently. A peaceful transfer of power in Washington, unlike the violent insurrection that found me on the floor, in the dark, barricaded in my office four years ago. 

Today, we accept disappointment. Yes, the past election was a painful result, but we’ll continue to do the work necessary to earn back voters’ trust and to retake power in Washington. 

And I’m telling you, I’m going to make sure when we get that power back that we use it. 

Because scared power isn’t power at all. 

And today, we must cling to hope.

And I won’t sugarcoat it, family, it will be difficult during these next four years.

The fear, uncertainty, and weariness in our community is real. 

Some of our neighbors are making sobering contingency plans for their families and their loved ones.

I’ve had people calling our district office seeking help like they do every day, on Social Security matters, on IRS, on immigration, passport, housing matters. 

And every single person that calls says, “whatever you can do for me, can you do for me, can you do it by January 20th?”

Because they are aware of a line of demarcation, a shift that is occurring beneath their feet, and a fear about what is to come. 

I have met constituents who have developed plans and told their children what to do if they come home from school and they’re not there because they’ve been deported or detained. 

Elders who’ve been here for many years carrying all of their medications with them for fear that they might abruptly be stolen from their families and their community. 

These are unprecedented times that we will meet with unprecedented organizing, unprecedented mobilizing, unprecedented community, unprecedented hope, unprecedented love. 

And I promise you, no matter what the next four years bring, this Congresswoman is going to do everything she can to protect our most vulnerable.

Our workers, our families, women, Black, brown, LGBTQ, disabled, and immigrant neighbors, and everyone who stands to be harmed by this new administration. 

We will lean into mutual aid, we will ready every stopgap, pull close our Governor, Attorney General, State House, and city and town halls to protect our fundamental rights.

And we have the resources, expertise, and heart in this room and across this district to take care of our neighbors the best we can and work towards a future where we love thy neighbor as thyself.

We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again.

So on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, let us reject chaos and commit ourselves to building community. 

Let us honor Dr. King not with empty platitudes, but with collective action and transformative legislation. 

Let us have the imagination to envision a more just world, the strategy to bring it to fruition, and the stamina to see it through.

So thank you for being here this afternoon to continue to intentionally building community, there is a lot of work ahead of us, but as you’ve heard me lift up many times before, as the proverb reminds us, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.

I know where we are heading–towards community and away from chaos, but we can only get there together. 

Thank you! 

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