President Donald J. Trump Is Delivering On His Promise to Empower and Lift Up Our Nation’s Forgotten Communities
President Donald J. Trump
PRIORITIZING EDUCATION: President Donald J. Trump has made supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) a priority of his Administration.
- Barely a month after taking office, President Trump signed an Executive Order to move the Federal HBCU initiative back to the White House – making sure it is a key priority.
- President Trump directed agencies across his Administration to develop plans to enhance their support for HBCUs.
- President Trump has signed legislation increasing Federal funding for HBCUs.
- The President signed legislation that added more than $100 million for scholarships, research, and centers of excellence at HBCU land grant institutions.
- The Administration relaunched the HBCU Capital Finance Board to make millions of dollars available to support HBCUs’ long-term growth and improvement.
Trump praised as ‘pro-black’ at White House prison reform event
This is probably going to be… the most pro-black president I’ve seen in my lifetime,” said Pastor Darrell Scott, a supporter of the president.
WASHINGTON — President Trump focused on efforts to reform the prison system Wednesday, meeting with faith leaders and lawmakers at the White House.
In a roundtable discussion with nearly 20 inner city pastors and faith leaders, Trump touted a low unemployment rate and booming economy that he said would make it easier for former prisoners to reintegrate into society.
We have passed the First Step Act through the House and we are working to pass that into law, and I think we’ll be able to do it. When we say ‘hire American,’ we mean all Americans,” the president told a group that included Trump supporters Paul White-Cain, Alveda King and Pastor Darrell Scott, along with celebrity pastor John Gray. White House chief of staff General John Kelly and son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner were also present.
The House passed the bipartisan prison reform bill in May.
By Chandelis R. Duster.
Black leaders forged alliance with Trump on sentencing deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — A rare bipartisan deal in Congress to overhaul federal sentencing laws passed after a few black ministers, leaders and lawmakers forged an alliance with President Donald Trump, who some have condemned as racist for the last two years.
The reforms could offer a path to freedom for hundreds of black and Latino inmates who were sent to prison by a justice system that critics say has long been stacked against minorities.
“It’s like threading a needle politically,” said Marc Morial, the National Urban League’s president and CEO. “It’s been very delicate to get us to the point where we are right now.”
Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland, still gets questions from fellow African-Americans asking him why he and other conservative black ministers went to the White House over the summer to talk about the issue with Trump.
“People are still mad at us about that,” Jackson said.
But the end result could be worth it to address what Jackson called “the defining civil rights issue of this era,” even as detractors complain that the legislation did not go far enough and could invite new problems for minority communities.
The bill, which is expected to go to Trump soon for his signature, gives judges more discretion when sentencing some drug offenders and expands prisoner rehabilitation efforts. It also reduces the life sentence for some drug offenders with three convictions, or “three strikes,” to 25 years.
Another provision would allow about 2,600 federal prisoners sentenced for crack cocaine offenses before August 2010 the opportunity to petition for a reduced penalty.
That will be a win for minorities who were caught up in a sentencing system that made crack cocaine a more serious offense than other types of cocaine, said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2020.
“When you correct an injustice in a biased system, it dramatically helps the marginalized people,” Booker said. “That provision alone, 96 percent of the people who are helped by that, are black or Latino.”
Among the advocates of the legislation was a diverse and unlikely group that included presidential adviser Jared Kushner, Kim Kardashian West, the National Urban League, black ministers and minority lawmakers and libertarian-leaning conservatives.
Some of the bill’s advocates say it was a tough decision to work with a White House that is deeply unpopular with black people. More than 8 in 10 African-Americans said they thought Trump was racist in a February poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
But even the supporters say they know this legislation is only the beginning, as reflected by its name, the First Step Act.
Groups such as the NAACP cheered the passage of the bill but also harbored reservations.
The legislation “offers some important improvements to the current federal criminal justice system, but it falls short of providing the meaningful change that is required to make the system genuinely fair,” said Hilary O. Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau.
The bill only affects the federal system, meaning anyone given harsh sentences at the state and local level will have no recourse. Those inmates make up the bulk of people behind bars across America.
Blacks constitute 38 percent — or about 68,000 — of the more than 180,000 inmates in the federal prison population, according to the Bureau of Prisons. Hispanics make up 32 percent — or about 58,000 — of federal prison inmates, with about 122,000 non-Hispanics in federal prison.
Some groups say the bill will open the door to increased surveillance of minority communities through electronic monitoring of released inmates. Others point out limitations in the bill on which federal prisoners will benefit from its changes.
The Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of more than 150 black-led organizations, called the legislation “custom-made for rich white men.”
“All of the carve-outs make the vast majority of our people ineligible for the benefits of the bill,” the group said.
Even with the limits, the bill’s advocates are thrilled to have made progress on an issue where reform has remained elusive for more than a decade. Jackson said any president willing to talk about even minor changes should be worked with.
I believe with all my heart, if Dr. Martin Luther King was alive, he would have been in that meeting,” Jackson said. “And he would have been advocating for the voiceless instead of playing politics and personality games.
Published 12:23 AM EDT, December 20, 2018
