#Desegregation activist Clarence Henderson says at RNC Trump represents US he fought for

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Clarence Henderson gives his remarks during the RNC tonight.
AP

Lunch counter desegregation activist Clarence Henderson on Wednesday endorsed President Trump in a 2020 Republican National Convention speech.

Henderson, who is black, recounted taking part in the 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina, sit-ins at the Woolworth Department Store — and said Trump represents the America he was fighting for.

He blasted Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for saying this year that voters “ain’t black” if they don’t vote for him.

“I’m a Republican. And I support Donald Trump,” Henderson said

Trump “has done more for black Americans in four years than Joe Biden has done in 50,” he said.

“Joe Biden had the audacity to say if you don’t vote for him ‘you ain’t black.’ Well to that, I say, if you do vote for Biden, you don’t know history.”

Henderson praised Trump for signing the prison and criminal sentence-reforming First Step Act, legislation that incentivizes investment in poor areas and permanent funding for historically black colleges and universities.

“These achievements demonstrate that Donald Trump truly cares about black lives. His policies show his heart,” Henderson said.

The appeal to black voters follows similar speeches on Monday by African-American US Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and on Tuesday by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Blacks generally vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

The five-month series of Greensboro protests that Henderson joined inspired similar acts across the South. The sit-ins began with four black activists sitting at the counter on Feb. 1, 1960. Henderson said he joined on Feb. 2.

“My friends had been denied service the day before because of the color of their skin. We knew it wasn’t right. But when we went back the next day, I didn’t know whether I was going to come out in a vertical or prone position — in handcuffs or on a stretcher, or even in a body bag,” he recalled.

“Donald Trump is offering real and lasting change … a country that embraces the spirit of the civil rights movement of the ‘60s, a place where people are judged by the content of their character, their talents and abilities, not by the color of their skin,” he said. “This is the America I was fighting for 60 years ago. This is the America Donald Trump is fighting for today.”

Many speakers at last week’s Democratic National Convention denounced Trump’s remarks on racial issues, including on national unrest following the May police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Biden said in his acceptance speech last week that “the moment I knew I had to run” was when Trump in August 2017 said there were “very fine people” on both sides of clashes over a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia. The clashes ended in the vehicular murder of an anti-racism activist by a white supremacist.

Trump advisers, and even opponents, say he could boost support among minorities by talking about criminal justice reform. Biden authored a 1994 crime law credited with contributing to “mass incarceration.” His running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) oversaw 1,900 convictions for marijuana alone as San Francisco district attorney.

Henderson highlighted the First Step Act’s impact. “Ninety-one percent of the inmates released are black,” he said.