The 2016 Republican National Convention, #RNCinCLE, held at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, had the world abuzz from Melania Trump borrowing content from first lady Michelle Obama’s 2012 Democratic National Convention speech to Senator Ted Cruz taking the world stage and utterly refusing to endorse Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s official nominee for President of the United States.
Adding to the shock-and-awe-hell-naw were five Black speakers on the program to showcase their support for Trump. Check out some of the highlights of their speeches at the unconventional convention here.
1. Dr. Ben Carson, the most prominent Black speaker on the roster likened Hillary Clinton to Lucifer based on her affinity for Saul Alinsky, a Democratic socialist writer, whose book, Rules for Radicals, references Lucifer on the dedication page.
“Are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer?,” Carson, a former neurosurgeon who needs his head examined, asked the crowd. “Think about that.”
2. Pastor Mark Burns. a prosperity preacher and televangelist from Easley, South Carolina, and the co-founder and CEO of The NOW Television Network, led the crowd with an “all lives matter” chant.
Busted! Burns, who falsely claimed to be a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. but was outed by journalist Marc Lamont Hill as a fraud is quoted as saying, “Listen, Republicans, it is so important that we come together to defeat Hillary Clinton and those race-baiting Democrats. And those Democrats will do whatever it takes to keep us Americans focusing on the colors that divide us and not the colors that unite us. And you know why? Because she is afraid… She’s afraid because she knows that together we will never allow Hillary Clinton to become the next President of the United States of America.”
“That means Black lives, white lives, Hispanic lives, Asian lives, Christian lives, Muslim lives — shout with me — all lives matter,” Burns added.
To add insult to injury, Burns borrowed content from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have Seen the Mountaintop” speech to get the crowd hyped.
“Together — not as black Americans, white Americans, brown Americans, yellow Americans, or red Americans, but just as Americans, — and together as Americans, we will get to the Promised Land. And the Promised Land is a place where jobs have returned back to this country, where college degrees replace mass incarcerations, and no matter what terrorist group that tries to destroy our way of life, we will rise from the ashes! We will never die! We will always fly! And you know why? Because we are the United States of America!” #BoyBye
3. Pastor Darrell Scott, a senior pastor at the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, had this to say: “Donald Trump knows that for all of the sharp elbows, and all of the sharp words, and all of the bruised egos, and all of the hurt feelings, the art of the deal is bringing people together, to unify, and to get them from no to yes. That means problem solving, it means finding common ground, and then moving forward. Donald Trump has done that for himself for 30 years: and he now wants to take that experience to get the best deal for America and the best deal for all Americans.”
Scott, a key African American advisor, has served as a liaison between the billionaire businessman and the Black evangelical community and is a board member of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, whom he believes “will now rebuild the broken trust that now exists between our citizens and our government, which over the last eight years has brought the rhetoric of hope, but the reality of higher minority unemployment, crime, drug use, with more civil unrest and national distress.”
He adds, “I truly believe that nothing will prevent Donald Trump from doing everything in his power to create an America and to become a president that everyone can be proud of.”
4. Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County delivered a Blue Lives Matter speech at the Republican National Convention.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make something very clear: Blue Lives Matter in America!” Clarke said.
“I stand before you tonight with a heavy heart, as the law enforcement community prepares to bury three of the Louisiana, Baton Rogue’s finest. But there is some good news coming out of Baltimore, Maryland, as Lt. Brian Rice was acquitted on all charges, and the malicious prosecution of activist state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby.”
He continued, “In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote passionately about ‘the interrelatedness of all communities and states’ and about our ‘inescapable network of mutuality, tying us in a single garment of destiny.
“What we witnessed in Ferguson, in Baltimore, and in Baton Rouge was a collapse of social order. So many of the actions of the Occupy movement and Black Lives Matter transcend peaceful protest, and violates the code of conduct we rely on. I call it anarchy.”
5. Republican candidate for US Senate Darryl Glenn delivered his speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016.
“This president ran to be commander in chief. Unfortunately his rhetoric has made him divider in chief,” Glenn said of President Barack Obama. “We can bring this country together. But we must realize that our heroes in blue are part of the solution, and not the problem.”
