CHICAGO — The country excoriated the National Association of Black Journalists this week after learning that former president and White House candidate Donald Trump would be speaking at the group’s annual convention on Tuesday.
But almost from the moment Trump sat down on stage at the Hilton Chicago, the Republican made clear there was little love between him and NABJ — a nonprofit organization of reporters, editors, anchors, correspondents and people seeking work in journalism. For transparency’s sake, NABJ owns Black News & Views, which operates independently.
The session opened with fireworks after Rachel Scott of ABC News, one of three moderators, reminded Trump of a string of incidents not well received by Black Americans: referring to Black journalists as losers and Black district attorneys as animals, among them. Trump chastised Scott for what he called a rude welcome.
“First of all, I don’t think I have ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” Trump said, drawing sighs from the audience. “You don’t even say, ‘Hello, how are you?’ Are you with a fake news network? A terrible network? I think it is disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country. I have done so much for the Black population of this country.”
Trump said he has been the best president for the Black America since Abraham Lincoln, adding that he has increased employment for Black people. He did not share figures.
Trump also blamed Scott for apparent equipment problems that caused a delay in the start of his appearance.
“You are 35 minutes late because you could not get your equipment to work, in such a hostile manner,” he said.
A source told BNV contributor Greg Morrison that the reason for the delay was that Trump balked at fact checking that PolitiFact was conducting in real time in collaboration with NABJ.
Trump also questioned Harris’ ethnicity, saying that she once portrayed herself as Indian and now as Black.
“I have known her a long time, indirectly, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said. “I did not know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she turned Black, and now she wants to be known as Black.”
Harris, who is in talks with NABJ to take part in a virtual conversation with the organization in September, said at an event Tuesday night in Houston that Trump’s comments were “the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect,” CNN reported.
RELATED: This is Kamala Harris’ “Mississippi Freedom Summer”
In the 35-minute conversation, Scott and two other moderators — Harris Faulker of Fox and Kadia Goba of Semafor — tried to get Trump to focus on issues such as immigration, the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol or the recent death of Sonya Massey, a Black woman fatally shot by a police officer. But Trump did not take the opportunity of speaking to a room full of Black journalists to show that he empathizes with Black America. Instead, he followed the lines that he has previously on such subjects, saying that immigrants are taking “Black jobs” and, in response to the Jan. 6 question, citing the unrest that erupted after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day 2020.
“You know people died in Minneapolis and nothing happens … but they went after the J6 people with a vengeance,” Trump said.
The appearance was the culmination of a firestorm that started on Monday night, after NABJ announced Trump had agreed to speak at the annual convention. NABJ President Ken Lemon explained that presidential candidates have been invited to speak at the group’s annual convention for every White House campaign, and that this time around, Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, had both been invited. Trump accepted while Harris said she had to decline because of her schedule, which included speaking at the funeral of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Houston.
NABJ President Ken Lemon released a statement Tuesday saying NABJ has invited candidates from both major political parties to speak, as it has done every four years.
“It has always been our policy to ensure that candidates know that an invitation is not an endorsement,” Lemon said. “We also agreed that while this race is much different — and contentious — so are the consequences.”
Nonetheless, people from all over the country used social media to attack NABJ — an organization intended to elevate Black journalists and journalism sensitive to Black issues — for what they saw as giving Trump, who has associated with white supremacists, a platform. One of the critics, journalist/commentator Roland Martin, talked to Black News & Views about his opposition.
“We are not dealing with a normal individual. We’re dealing with somebody who has viciously attacked the press, who has said journalists should be jailed, who has been so dogmatic about media, where literally we now have journalists who have to have security covering his rallies because his following has attacked the media,” Martin said.
“This man has hurled vicious, nasty insults at NABJ members — Jemele Hill, Yamiche Alcindor, April Ryan,” Martin continued. “NABJ has condemned his comments. And so, for all those reasons, he should not have been invited.”
Martin also noted that Fox News entered into an unprecedented $787.5 million settlement for knowingly reporting lies about Dominion Voting Systems, and he said for that reason, that Faulkner, a Fox News Channel newscaster and host, should not have been there. Martin also took issue with the fact that no Black men were on the panel. If there had been no Black women on the moderator panel, Black women would have been angry and he would have been angry with them.
“Thirdly, how are you in Chicago, where we are literally one or two blocks from the Ebony/Jet tower, and near the Chicago Defender (which Martin once headed as executive editor/general manager) … And you’ve got no Black-owned media on this panel? In Chicago?” Martin said. “That to me is insane.”