Washington — Detroit Pastor Lorenzo Sewell quoted at length from Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I have a dream” speech during a Monday invocation at the close of President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration.
The comments, some almost word for word from King’s 1963 speech, came on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the commemoration of the civil rights leader’s birthday and a federal holiday.
Sewell, pastor of 180 Church in west Detroit, began his remarks thanking God for Trump’s “millimeter miracle” ― an apparent reference to the bullet that skimmed the president’s ear during an assassination attempt in mid-July at a Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally.
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“We are grateful that you are the one that have called him for such a time as this, that America would begin to dream again,” Sewell said.
Sewell prayed that God would use the country’s president and prayed that Americans can “live in a nation where we will not be judged by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character” ― a well-known line from King’s dream speech.
“We are so grateful today that you will use our 47th president so we will sing with new meaning, ‘My country tis of thee,'” Sewell said, before continuing to quote almost directly from the last three paragraphs of King’s address.
The Detroit pastor told The Detroit News after the Monday ceremony that he invoked King’s speech in prayer that Trump would “live out that dream” and finally fulfill it decades later. Trump’s presidency is “a presidency of freedom,” Sewell said.
“We know that Dr. Martin Luther King, he said, ‘Let freedom ring.’ We want to not only say it, we wanted to pray it,” Sewell said. “And now we need to act. These next four years are going to be a time of liberation. …
“People that are in political shackles, spiritual shackles, emotional shackles, mental shackles ― regardless of what shackle you’re in, we’re believing there will be freedom, and our country will unify in a way it’s never unified before.”
He wants in part to see Trump ensure that contractors receiving funding for Section 3 under the Housing and Urban Development Act dedicate a part of their contract value to hiring low-income individuals from the community where they’re working.
“President Trump, he can now hold accountable those who have been negligent in managing resources,” Sewell said. “That’s the beauty of having a president who you have a relationship with. Those federal funds can now be managed in a way that righteously regulates resources.”
After Sewell finished his prayer in the Capitol rotunda, Trump briefly embraced the pastor and told him: “‘You’re special. You’re so good,'” Sewell recalled. “And he’s told me that before, but obviously that is a very special moment because he’s stepping into office. It’s his time now.”
The pastor added it was “very humbling” that “God would allow us to be part of history.”
Sewell, 43, of Harper Woods worked to boost Trump’s campaign among Black voters in Detroit during the 2024 campaign, including by hosting a roundtable with him in June at Sewell’s 180 Church on Stansbury Avenue on the city’s west side.
The pastor said last week that his invitation to pray at Monday’s ceremony stemmed from a promise Trump made during the June visit to Sewell’s Detroit church.
“Can you imagine shaking the 45th president’s hand ― now the 47th president-elect ― and him looking at you and saying, ‘At the inauguration, you’ll be there.’ And then him actually doing it! Wow,” Sewell said.
Sewell grew up on Detroit’s east side, selling drugs on the streets and watching his father go to prison for murder, he said. He later became a Christian in 1999 and started preaching at age 19, he said. His 180 Church is now in its seventh year.
After hosting Trump last summer at his church, Sewell went on to speak at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and other GOP or conservative events including several organized by the group Turning Point USA. He also gave the invocation earlier this month at the opening day of session in the Michigan House.
Sewell credits Trump with taking him from a “vaguely known” pastor to an internationally known minister, saying he’s seen a growth not only in his political prowess but in the influence of his church.
Imam Husham Al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, was initially scheduled to speak at Monday’s ceremony but did not appear at the ceremony for reasons that remain unclear.
Al-Husainy, who last year endorsed Trump, leads a congregation of mostly Iraqi immigrants and is a friend of Lebanese-American businessman Massad Boulos, whom Trump tapped to be his senior adviser covering Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
