A push for black voters

Kim Klacik, an African-American congressional candidate from Baltimore, is a long shot to win her race, but she scored a prime speaking slot on the Republican convention’s first night.

Klacik was part of an effort on the first night of the convention to showcase Black supporters of Trump following a Democratic convention that highlighted that party’s diversity.

Trump received just 8 percent of the African-American vote in 2016. His opponent’s running mate, Kamala Harris, seeks to become the first Black woman vice president. Trump has regularly criticized the Black Lives Matter movement.

“The Democratic Party does not want Black people to leave their mental plantation,” Georgia state Representative Vernon Jones said. “We’ve been forced to be there for decades and generations. But I have news for Joe Biden. We are free. We are free people with free minds.”

Football legend Herschel Walker declared Trump his “friend” and not a “racist.”

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chamber’s only Black Republican, is scheduled to speak in the closing slot for the evening.

(Photograph:Reuters)