In the late 1960s, much of Martin Luther King’s work was directed at improving the conditions for black Americans, with a pragmatic approach of eradicating poverty, unemployment and the many other dead ends that hindered a path to the American Dream.
Many of those hindrances remain, and not until now, with a President Donald Trump about to take office, has there been such an opportunity to demolish the constraints that have stifled opportunity in minority neighborhoods.
He considers it a personal challenge.
Last fall, breaking the GOP template, Trump had a conversation with parishioners at a largely African-American church in Detroit — a Democratic stronghold.
“We talk past each other and not to each other,” he told the congregation. “And those who seek office do not do enough to step into the community and learn what’s going on. I’m here today to learn, so that we can together remedy injustice in any form, and so that we can also remedy economics so that the African-American community can benefit economically through jobs and income and so many other different ways.”
Similarly in North Carolina, he rolled out a “New Deal for Black America”:
“That deal is grounded in three promises: safe communities, great education and high-paying jobs,” Trump said. “I will further empower cities and states to seek a federal disaster designation for blighted communities” to allow “the rebuilding of vital infrastructure, the demolition of abandoned properties and the increased presence of law enforcement so we have safety in our community.”
Trump intends to clean up crime-plagued neighborhoods across the country, make them safer and bring in jobs and prosperity.
He endeavors to give black Americans a real shot at the American Dream in a way that only a non-politician can.
Trump is bent on fixing what was thought to be unfixable.
“It is my highest and greatest hope that the Republican Party can be the home in the future and forevermore for African-Americans and the African-American vote because I will produce, and I will get others to produce,” he’s said.
Trump has had numerous conversations with prominent African-Americans since he was elected, including Steve Harvey, who said, “We’re going to team up and see if we can bring about some positive change in the inner cities, which I felt was my only agenda and he agreed. And he wants to do something.”
And he will do something.
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