In the interest of democracy, Johari Osayi Idusuyi and her friends decided to go to a Donald Trump rally to listen to the candidate give his presidential pitch to Illinois residents. They arrived just as the doors were opening and made their way to the front of the room. They asked about the seats behind the stage, but were told they were for VIPs only. Nevertheless, a few minutes later, Johari and her friends were approached by a Trump staffer and asked whether they wanted to be seated directly behind the candidate:
"It wasn't conniving, we didn't sneak in there. He asked us, probably for obvious reasons, but we went, we took the opportunity, and we sat and he told us to sit in the middle and we did," said Idusuyi.
Protesters interrupted Trump’s speech and playing the role of tough guy and bully, he ordered them thrown out—to the delight of the crowd. Everyone that is, except Johari.
"Some a mix of educated and uneducated, everyone on the spectrum cheering for such ignorance and that's when I was just taken a back and that's when my energy had shifted," said Idusuyi.
What does one do when they lose interest in a political speech? Johari decided her time would be better spent reading, so she broke out Citizen: An American Lyric, an award-winning book of poetry on race in America. Some in the crowd asked her to put it away, but she refused. She says she did not go to the rally intending to stage a one-woman protest, but after seeing Trump and his supporters in action, she couldn’t help herself.
"I came here, yes, to observe a man that I already had low expectations for, but I thought maybe he could change my mind. Maybe it was just a media thing and I'm judging too fast based on what the media says and I was wrong, I wasn't. He was exactly what I expected him to be and his supporters are exactly what I expected them to be," said Idusuyi.
You can see an interview with Johari Osayi Idusuyi at WCIS-TV.