Donald Trump’s decision to attend the grand opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum has cost it the attendance of Reps. John Lewis and Bennie Thompson. It has been protested by the NAACP. But Trump is not backing down, even though—or maybe because—it’s clear that his presence will diminish the honor the event pays to the civil rights movement. Just as a Washington Post story by Marc Fisher makes clear that Trump’s presidency is hurting the black people living within miles of the museum.
“It’s hostile now, more hostile than in a long, long time,” said Pete McElroy, who employs three men at the auto repair shop that has been his family’s business for three generations. “People almost boast about it: ‘We got our man in the White House, and this is the way the ball’s going to roll now.’ ” [...]
“Don’t holler about Trump coming,” said Dorothy Benford, 75, a retired teacher who as a young college student worked with civil rights activists in Jackson. “Let him come. Maybe he’ll learn something. If you’re going to holler, holler about the fee, making black people pay to see our own people kidnapped, hung, beaten, killed. Holler about what we have to lose — medical care, day care. Holler about the racist things people are saying about blacks that you did not hear before Trump.”
But Sarah Huckabee Sanders has the nerve to claim that the museum’s opening, with Trump’s presence, “should bring the country together.” Because the Trump White House demands the right to determine how people who fought for civil rights should be honored, even over the objection of those people. The only real question at this point is whether Trump accepted the invitation knowing his presence would undermine the civil rights focus of the day, or whether that’s a side benefit he discovered later.