U.S. Rep. Summer Lee speaks during an MLK Day Celebration in Kelly Strayhorn Theater on Jan. 20 (Photo by Amaya Lobato Rivas/PublicSource)
From Shaler to East Liberty to Oakland to Downtown, Pittsburghers took stock of a civil rights holiday, a pugnacious inauguration and the road ahead.
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Jo-Ann Zajackowski hosted a group of about a dozen neighbors and friends at her Shaler home to watch Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States on Monday.
Zajackowski, 86, energetic and wearing a Trump sweater, prepared a “Trump Lunch” of foods the president is known to enjoy: Burgers from McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken drumsticks and shrimp cocktail were arrayed on a buffet station. She laid out cookies from Oakmont Bakery with Trump’s face on them. Coke and Diet Coke sat on ice. There was a touch of Pittsburgh, too, with barbecue kielbasi on offer to her guests.
(Left) People gather in Pittsburgh’s Market Square during a protest by the Party for Socialism and Liberation on President Donald Trump’s inauguration day, Monday Jan. 20, 2025. (Right) Jo-Ann “Jazzy” Zajackowski, 86, celebrates watching President Donald Trump’s inauguration with neighbors at her Shaler home. (Photos by Quinn Glabicki and Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
Zajackowski’s house was decorated for the occasion, with life-size Trump cutouts, a blown-up photo of Trump with a bandage on his left ear, which he wore after being grazed by a bullet in a July assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., and a “Trump Tree” — a Christmas tree festooned with Trump hats and memorabilia.
“I have given away a dozen Trump hats” that don’t fit on the tree, Zajackowski said. “I buy them and give them away.”
The party was a long time coming. Zajackowski and her colleagues on the Shaler Township Republican Committee “worked [their] tails off” to get Trump and other Republicans elected in November, she said.
“Hey Erin, we did it,” she said after Trump took the oath of office, talking to Erin Autenreith, the chair of the township’s GOP committee, sitting in the next room.
Trump’s second inauguration fell on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a holiday first celebrated in 1984 to commemorate the pivotal civil rights activist assassinated in 1968. On a bitterly cold day, the confluence of a historic second term for the norm-shattering and polarizing Trump and the remembrance of a civil rights pioneer brought Pittsburghers together in a variety of settings to reflect on this moment in our civic journey.
At an East Liberty event honoring King’s legacy, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, said she is bracing for national policy changes and lauded art as a vehicle for advocacy with power to bring change.
“I’ve listened to my colleagues on the other side [of the partisan divide] talk about a mandate as their excuse to abuse and harass marginalized people, trans folks, queer folks, Black and brown folks,” she said. “So I think that weighs heavy on a day like today when we think about what not just Dr. King stood for, but the entire movement around him.”
Washington, D.C.: Eyeing Pennsylvania’s ‘liquid gold’
Trump’s inaugural speech struck a jolting tone that mirrored the tension suggested by the convergence on the national calendar.
He eschewed bipartisan pretensions off the bat by railing against the “radical and corrupt establishment” he said he inherited, and vowed to make the country “greater, stronger and far more exceptional than before.”
“My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal,” Trump added during a speech that lurched between calls for unity and intimidating proclamations.
He outlined a pending executive order that would curtail diversity and inclusion initiatives after thanking Black and Hispanic voters for their “tremendous outpouring of love and trust” and pledging to make King’s “dream a reality.” He previewed several executive orders designed to combat immigration and eject undocumented migrants, promising to deploy the “full and immense power” of the state to these goals.
He likewise branded himself as a peacemaker whose success as commander-in-chief would be marked by “the wars we end and, perhaps more importantly, the wars we never get into,” then outlined a foreign policy agenda that includes renaming the “Gulf of Mexico” the “Gulf of America” and retaking control of the Panama Canal.
He drew meaning from the assassination attempt “in a beautiful Pennsylvania field” that nearly claimed his life in July. “I believe I was saved for a reason,” he mused. In another nod to the region, Trump said he’d declare “a national energy emergency,” signalling sweeping support to the fracking industry that’s divided Pennsylvanians.
“We will be a rich nation again,” he said. “And it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”
East Liberty: Trump is no King
As Trump was inaugurated, performing artists in Pittsburgh honored King using art as an advocacy tool within a divisive political climate.
At a packed Kelly Strayhorn Theater, a crowd of about 350 was swept up in a celebration of the civil rights leader’s enduring influence as artists paid tribute to his life’s work with dance and music.
Rickia Davenport and her dance troupe from Alumni Theatre Company performed a dance play about reproductive health and Black women. “It was a topic that Dr. King was a big advocate for and it’s not really talked about when we talk about his legacy,” she said.
Davenport wants her performance to empower her students and those who watch them to advocate for themselves and ignite conversations.
Joy Sato, a resident of the Hill District and a volunteer at the event, said she was boycotting the inauguration and choosing to pay homage to King.
“[Trump] will never rise to who Martin Luther King is and what he’s done for social justice, what he’s done to elevate his own people, to bring us together,” she said. “I mean, he started a whole movement.”
Nikkole Terney, director of abortion care at Allegheny Reproductive Health Center, said she was nervous about the future of reproductive rights, gender-affirming care and trans care.
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, also among the speakers, called on the audience to look back at progress made since the Civil Rights Act passed. That progress, she said, testifies to the roles art and activism can play in pushing elected leaders and officials toward an ideal world.
“I love [Kelly Strayhorn Theater] because they marry that idea of art and performance, especially with young people, and talk about it in a broader sense, in a policy sense, in a way that kind of pushes us to imagine a better world and our role in creating that better world.”
Shaler: ‘Safe and secure’ but not in lockstep
The group at Zajackowski’s house cheered when Trump took the oath of office just after noon, ending what they considered four years of poor leadership by former President Joe Biden.
“We haven’t had a leader in a long time,” said Kathy Wagner, campaign manager for the Shaler Republicans. “It’s just amazing. Having Trump in makes us feel very safe and secure.”
The group delivered big applause when Trump vowed to put “America first” during his inaugural address, said he was “saved by God to make America great again” in the Butler assassination attempt, and pledged to change the name of the gulf and reclaim the canal.
They cheered when he said he would make King’s “dream come true.” No line in the speech, though, drew more applause at the Shaler gathering than Trump’s declaration that “there are only two genders, male and female.”
Autenreith has been present for two of the most memorable and historic moments in Trump’s political life. She was at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, to hear Trump speak, when he delivered false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, and members of the crowd later ransacked the Capitol, menacing lawmakers and disrupting the electoral count. Autenreith said she did not go from the Ellipse to the Capitol and that those who broke into the building were in the wrong.
Nearly four years later, Autenreith was in the front row at the campaign rally in Butler when Trump was shot, and one audience member was killed.
“I was kind of nostalgic about it,” Autenreith said of the Butler rally as she watched Trump assume the presidency Monday.
Bryan Loucks, a neighbor of Zajackowski who displayed his Trump-themed model train at the party, said he supports the president but not all of his positions. He is concerned about climate change, he said, and thinks the U.S. should support Ukraine against the ongoing invasion by Russia.
Oakland: Thrilled college Republicans, angry Fence
In Carnegie Mellon University’s Baker Hall, students ate McDonald’s while watching the president assume office. Ally Aufman, 20, thought an order of McNuggets, cheeseburgers and fries would be a fitting way to celebrate the inauguration.
The students, all members of the CMU College Republicans, sat quietly while Trump spoke of eliminating government censorship, putting the “stars and stripes” on Mars, carrying out sweeping mass deportation efforts and renaming the gulf.
“That’s crazy,” said freshman Sahana Patel, 18 and a self-described moderate, of the renaming. How is he going to change all the maps, she asked.
One student, Jimmy Jiang, who wore a red shirt adorned with a Trump-Vance sticker, was particularly thrilled. He videotaped parts of the livestream to post to his Instagram story and recited the oaths that Trump and Vance took, reveling in what he believes to be the start of a positive change for “the greatest nation on Earth.”
Jiang, 19, is Chinese-American but said he doesn’t bristle at Trump’s comments on China, including some made during the inauguration speech, because of his patriotism. However, he’s “sure China and America will be at peace during the Trump administration.”
In the small classroom, the students spoke freely about their political views in ways they felt they couldn’t elsewhere on campus. They said they’ve felt respected by each other, even when they disagree — for instance, not everyone who attended the watch party voted for Trump.
A sophomore, who declined to be named, said voting for Harris as a woman was more important than adhering to right-leaning values in the last election. She told another member that she felt neutral about Trump’s inauguration.
Patel, the group’s executive board member, is majoring in political science and said she sat in on the watch party mainly for entertainment. She and member Chris Perez, 18, often broke out in laughter as other members expressed their excitement about the change in power.
Conversation shifted to TikTok’s future. And while they discussed whether the app would be banned and continued their debrief about the event, steps away from the building where they were gathered, read a simple message painted on CMU’s iconic Fence: “F*ck Trump” with a fist replacing the first u.
Downtown: Showing face, creating space
Around 50 people gathered Downtown to demonstrate against Trump’s inauguration, framing the victory of the Republican candidate not so much as a domestic political swing, but as a global imperialist system taking off its mask.
Members of Pittsburgh’s Party for Socialism and Liberation [PSL] chapter gathered along with others at the City-County Building on Monday to voice concern with Trump’s proposed policies, including his promise to firm up the border and deport those who are in the U.S. without legal status.
“All of those people’s rights and lives are being questioned. So it was important to us to show up and show face and say, if you need a space to come in, you need a space to rally around, like this is where you can come and we will be here,” said Aerin Adams, who attended the demonstration and is the founding member of the Pittsburgh Lesbiyinz group, a sapphic social group.
Adams and others stood at the building entrance as representatives from numerous groups gave speeches.
The crowd then walked to Market Square chanting, “Trump’s lies, burn it down. Imperialism, burn it down. Endless wars, burn it down. Whole damn system, burn it down.”
Several speakers described Trump’s political ascent less as a break with American political traditions and more a revelation of longstanding power systems that control the country.
“The Democrats and the Republicans bipartisanly voted to invade countries,” said one speaker who did not state a name but said they were with the Peace Palestine Coalition.“Well actually, didn’t even vote. Just voted to send more money to the military. Iraq. Afghanistan. Funded money to overthrow governments. To destabilize them. To take them over. … [Trump is] the inevitable result of a system that we have.”
Pablo Dordal, a speaker with Veterans for Peace, demanded “real fundamental change in this corrupt system. We must fight back. There’s no way to reform this mess.”
Charlie Wolfson, Lajja Mistry, Maddy Franklin and Eric Jankiewicz contributed.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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