“I am here to listen to you”, the Republican nominee told the congregation at the Great Faith Ministries International church. He called for a “civil rights agenda of our time”, noting he was well aware that black Americans have “suffered from discrimination and there are many wrongs that should be made right”.
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Trump said to those in the church, “Our nation is too divided”. Reverend Wendell Anthony’s biggest worry is that you can not tell who Trump really is or where he stands on many issues. “We’re one nation. And when anyone hurts, we all hurt together”. “We talk past each other and not to each other”. Surrounded by a coterie of African-American surrogates – including former primary rival Ben Carson, spokeswoman Katrina Pierson and reality television star Omarosa Manigault – Trump swayed to the beat of gospel songs Saturday morning before he addressed the congregation directly.
But several of the participants at the meeting Friday with Philadelphia black leaders, many of whom identified themselves as Republicans, said they were Trump supporters. “I know it wasn’t deliberate, they have a job to do, but that could have been handled a little bit differently”, said Rev. Horace Sheffield, a protest organizer.
In this Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016, photo, Toni McIlwain stands outside the building that housed her Ravendale Community nonprofit that offered education and drug prevention programs in Detroit.
He hailed the African-American church as the “conscience of our country” and said that it was from black churches that the civil rights movement “lifted up its soul and lifted up our nation”.
Toni McIlwain believes that as a candidate for president, Donald Trump has a right to go anywhere he wants.
“With each passing Trump attack, it becomes clearer that his strategy is just to say about Hillary Clinton what’s true of himself”, Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said.
Jackson presented Trump with a Jewish Heritage Study Bible, a pin, and a shawl from Israel, in which he was wrapped. “It makes a much bigger impact”, Carson said, adding that he hoped the visit would also leave the people Trump meets with a better sense of the candidate, who tends to be far less caustic in smaller settings than he appears on stage.
“Becoming the nominee of the party of Abraham Lincoln. has been the greatest honor of my life”, he said.
Before the speech, protesters chanting “Dump Trump” and “We’re going to church” tried to push through police barriers to gain entrance.
“Are you here just to use Detroiters as props in a re-imaging campaign, or are you here to have a real conversation where you’re finally going to give us the specifics on what you’re going to do to make American cities better?” he said, according to MLive. His host was the prosperity preacher Bishop Wayne Jackson, who welcomed the GOP presidential nominee for part of a service, and spoke with Trump for an interview that was closed to media but is scheduled to be broadcast later in the month.
Trump wrapped up his trip to Detroit with a visit to Carson’s childhood home in southwest Detroit.
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Trump said he aimed to help “remedy injustice” and improve economic standards for black communities. The Tar Heel State population is 22 percent black.
