TRUMP REMEMBERS JAMESTOWN IN SPEECH
President Trump marks the 400th anniversary of the rise of democracy in Jamestown, but black Virginia state legislators stay away.
JAM E STOWN , VA . » President Donald Trump on Tuesday marked the 400th anniversary of American democracy and its gift “of the country we love,” but his celebration of what began as an experiment in selfgovernment was boycotted by black Virginia lawmakers incensed by Trump’s continued disparagement of a veteran black congressman and the majority-black district he represents.
The uplifting rhetoric from Trump marking 400 years of representative government contrasted sharply with his stream of attacks against U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, including before and after the event.
Trump said in remarks to Virginia’s General Assembly that the United States has had many achievements in its history, but “none exceeds the triumph that we are here to celebrate today.”
“Self-government in Virginia did not just give us a state we love — in a very true sense it gave us the country we love, the United States of America,” he said.
The General Assembly, considered the oldest continuously operating legislative body in North America, grew out of a gathering that convened in July 1619.
But as Trump addressed state lawmakers in a tent on the lawn of a history museum near the site of the original Jamestown settlement colony, members of Virginia’s legislative black caucus held an emotional ceremony about 60 miles away in Richmond, at the site of a once notorious slave jail, where they took turns condemning the president.
Del. Delores McQuinn, who refused to say Trump’s name and instead called him “the tenant in the White House,” choked back tears as she said his critiques of minority members of Congress were aimed at “every person of color in the United States of America.” She urged the crowd to “reclaim the soul and fabric of this country.”
Trump said as he departed the White House that lawmakers participating in the previously announced boycott were going “against their own people.”
The Republican president claimed African-Americans “love the job” he’s doing and are “happy as hell” with his criticisms of Cummings and his majority-black Baltimore-area district.
Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that African-Americans are happy with him contradicts polling showing that blacks continue to be overwhelmingly negative in their assessment of his performance. According to Gallup polling, approval of Trump among black Americans has hovered at about one in 10 over the course of his presidency, with 8% approving in June.
In his speech, Trump offered a nod to the beginning of slavery in the U.S. by noting the arrival of the first slaves to Jamestown in 1619.
“We remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage,” he said.
Trump’s speech was briefly interrupted by a Muslim state lawmaker, Del. Ibraheem Samirah, a Democrat, who stood holding laminated signs that said “Deport Hate,” “Reunite My Family” and “Go Back to Your Corrupted Home.” Samirah later told The Associated Press that he wanted to protest Trump’s policies and rhetoric.
Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox, who had introduced Trump, said Samirah’s protest was “inconsistent with common decency and a violation of the rules of the House.”
Virginia Black Caucus chairman Del. Lamont Bagby told The Associated Press that the group of about 20 lawmakers had reached a unanimous decision to boycott the event more than a week ago, before Trump began to assail Cummings.