Black leaders stay away as Trump opens museum

US President Donald Trump flew to Mississippi on Saturday to attend the opening of a civil rights museum, but his visit was marred by the absence of top African-American leaders who stayed away in protest of his policies and record on race relations.

Trump toured the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and delivered brief remarks, paying tribute to African-Americans who fought institutionalized racism, including Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist who was murdered outside his home in Jackson in 1963.

“We want our country to be a place where every child from every background can grow up free from fear, innocent of hatred and surrounded by love, opportunity and hope,” Trump said in prepared remarks.

US Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a Democrat who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, said on Thursday that he would not go to the museum opening because of Trump’s presence.

“President Trump’s attendance and his hurtful policies are an insult to the people portrayed in this civil rights museum,” Lewis said in a statement with Mississippi Democratic US Representative Bennie Thompson.

Thompson also declined to attend.

The two men also cited Trump’s “disparaging comments about women, the disabled, immigrants and National Football League players” and said the president had shown disrespect to those who fought for civil rights in Mississippi.

However, US Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who is black and ran against Trump in the early 2016 Republican presidential primaries before dropping out, accompanied the president on his tour of the museum.