Keynote speaker Senator Corey Booker says “The time is now”
The South Carolina NAACP’s 2026 King Day at the Dome March & Rally drew hundreds of marchers to Columbia’s Main Street on Monday. This year’s event featured speakers who enlisted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy to press for voting rights, economic opportunity and political engagement ahead of a heated 2026 election cycle in a state that remains firmly Republican red.
The day began with church service at Zion Baptist Church. Clergy and community leaders invoked King’s memory and the event’s theme, “The Time Is Now,” before marchers moved toward the Capitol.
Sen. Cory Booker, the New Jersey Democrat and keynote speaker, used the backdrop of the State House dome to deliver a speech that mixed civil-rights history with present-day electoral stakes. He spoke on the need for Americans to “Redeem the Dream.”
“We are a powerful people, and the power of the people is greater than the people in power,” Mr. Booker told the crowd.
“I don’t care what they say from the White House,” he continued in a pointed reference to President Donald Trump’s administration. “We are the people, and in our generation, we shall overcome.” While speculation in Columbia swirled about a 2028 presidential bid, Mr. Booker, who previously spoke at the same event in 2019, told reporters he remains focused on his own reelection contest this year.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat also regarded as a possible 2028 contender, aimed his remarks at the pocketbook worries of voters who have watched inflation, housing costs and health-care bills outpace wages. “We need to remember not just what he said about racial justice, not just what he said about peace and war,” Mr. Khanna said from the podium. “We need to remember what he said about the economic development to build a beloved community.”
Local advocates tried to tether that message to specific policy fights in South Carolina, including debates over Medicaid expansion, publicschool funding and immigration enforcement that have divided lawmakers. “It is
my hope that those in South Carolina who are looking to the future will look at those candidates that are talking about moving forward and not moving backwards,” said Sue Berkowitz of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, whose nonprofit serves largely low-income residents.
The rally also functioned as an unofficial listening post for national and statewide campaigns testing messages before filing opens in March for a ballot that could reshape South Carolina’s political hierarchy. Democratic hopefuls used the event to introduce themselves to one of the largest annual gatherings of Black
voters in the state.
This year’s event has special meaning for many attendees. A large portion of the crowd were alumni and current students from South Carolina State University. Where the Confederate banner once flew, the American and South Carolina flags waved Monday alongside the flag of South Carolina State University, celebrating the historically Black college’s recent Celebration Bowl win. This was especially ironic, considering that the goal of the first King Day at the Dome March & Rally in 2000 was to remove the Confederate Flag from atop the State House.
