Pastor Jamal Bryant slams removal of fee-free entry to parks on MLK Day, Juneteenth

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Tuesday, December 09, 2025

Outspoken civil rights activist and megachurch pastor Jamal Bryant has criticized a recent move by the National Park Service to remove Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from its calendar of fee-free days to enter national parks and add "Flag Day/President [Donald] Trump's birthday," calling it a "slap in the face."

"Free admission days underscore what is the price our community has to pay. To take away all of the strides that America made symbolically under the leadership and direction of Martin Luther King Jr. really to make America great. This is a slap in the face, but not just to African Americans but to Americans at large," Bryant, who leads New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, told ABC News in a recent interview.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday observed on the third Monday of January each year, honors the life of the civil rights icon who led protests against racial discrimination at the federal, state, and local levels. Juneteenth is a federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States on June 19 each year.

In December 2024 during the final months of the Biden administration, the National Park Service waived entrance fees to national parks for six days on: Jan. 20 for MLK Jr. Day, April 19 for the first day of National Park Week, June 19 in celebration of Juneteenth, Aug. 4 for the Great American Outdoors Act Signing Day, Sep. 27 for National Public Lands Day and Nov. 1 for Veterans Day.

In 2026, the number of fee-free days has been increased, but the days honoring African American history have been removed from the National Park Service's calendar, according to the latest calendar.

Fee-free days in 2026 will be Feb. 16 for Presidents Day (Washington's Birthday); May 25 for Memorial Day; June 14 for Flag Day (the same day as Trump's 80th birthday); July 3 through July 5 for Independence Day weekend; Aug. 25 for the 110th Birthday of the National Park Service, Sept. 17 for Constitution Day, Oct. 27 for Theodore Roosevelt's birthday, and Nov. 11 for Veterans Day.

Starting in 2026, fee-free days will only apply to U.S. citizens and residents.

"Nonresidents will pay the regular entrance fee and any applicable nonresident fees," the National Park Service states on its website.

Bryant, who has been leading an ongoing boycott of retail giant Target over the company’s rolling back of their diversity, equity and inclusion policies, suggested the official inclusion of President Trump’s birthday among the fee-free days is “narcissism.”

“The narcissism unleashed to take it away from Dr. King and laud it upon himself says that America is going backward, is in tremendous danger,” Bryant argued.

When asked what he thinks should happen to address concerns about the changes to the fee-free calendar, Bryant suggested that Americans should speak up.

“We’ve got to figure out how it is that America takes it by the reins to say African Americans have paid enough at the back of the bus, on the lynching tree, at segregated water fountains,” he said.

“It cannot be lost … that the announcement was made at the exact same time that we honored the 70th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. So everything they did in the civil rights community is trying to be erased and dismissed as if it never happened.”