With Trump, some African Americans to skip Mississippi event
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Many in Mississippi’s African-American community had waited decades for a civil rights museum.
But with President Donald Trump coming to the museum’s opening Saturday, some will skip the eagerly anticipated opening.
They say Trump’s policies are incompatible with honoring the African-American freedom struggle.
That slide into racial and partisan strife from what was supposed to be a moment of unity and atonement was punctuated Thursday with U.S. Rep John Lewis saying he would abandon his plans to speak, saying Trump’s presence was an insult. U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi’s only Democrat in Congress, announced his exit in a joint statement with Lewis.
The NAACP, led by a Mississippian, has said Trump should cancel his planned appearance because of his divisive record on civil rights issues.
“To come and somehow give the impression that things are all right, that we’re getting along, was absolutely the wrong message,” Thompson told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, saying he views Trump’s agenda as too destructive to paper over differences, even for just an hour or two.
The White House later issued a statement calling it “unfortunate” that Lewis and Thompson won’t join the president in honoring the “incredible sacrifice civil rights leaders made to right the injustices in our history.”
The White House said Trump hopes others will join him in recognizing “that the movement was about removing barriers and unifying Americans of all backgrounds.”
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a big supporter of Trump who invited the president, is urging Mississippians to embrace the visit, a rare presidential trip to Mississippi not linked to a disaster.
He told reporters Wednesday that Trump’s presence will bring worldwide attention and give the museums a big boost.
“We are going to celebrate his presence,” Bryant said. “I think he is going to have a testimonial speech that day and it will be a wonderful speech for all of Mississippi.
People can lay aside any political positioning or pandering that they may have.
This is a day for the president of the United States to come and honor Mississippi and that’s what he intends to do, and I intend to be there with him when he does that.”
Some African Americans, although opposed to Trump, still intend to go. The Rev. C.J. Rhodes, a prominent clergyman and son of one of the state’s top voting rights lawyers, said he’d still go.