As Trump tries minority outreach, many blacks unconvinced

AKRON, Ohio (AP) - Black Republicans cheer Donald Trump for a newfound outreach to African-Americans, but say the GOP presidential nominee must take his message beyond arenas filled with white supporters and venture into the inner cities.

Many rank-and-file black voters, meanwhile, dismiss the overtures as another racially charged pitch from a campaign aimed exclusively at whites, from Trump's emphasis on "law and order" to his withering critiques of President Barack Obama, the nation's first black chief executive. It was Trump in 2011 who fiercely challenged Obama's U.S. birth.

"Any minority who would vote for him is crazy, ought to have their head examined," said Ike Jenkins, an 81-year-old retired business owner in the predominantly black suburb of East Cleveland.

Foluke Bennett, a 43-year-old from Philadelphia, went further, labeling the GOP standard-bearer's remarks as "racist," pointing, among other things, to his referencing African-Americans as "the blacks."

Trump was scheduled to appear Wednesday in Jackson, Mississippi, an 80 percent African-American city and capital of the state with the nation's highest proportion of black residents. It is unclear whether he will address black voters directly; so far, his appeal to them has been delivered before white audiences in mostly white cities.

Mississippi is overwhelmingly Republican because of whites' loyalties, as opposed to battlegrounds such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, states Obama won twice and where the largest cities offer at least a theoretical chance for Trump to pursue marginal shifts among significant black populations.

"He's got to take his arguments to the streets," said Brandon Berg, a black pastor who drove Monday from Youngstown, Ohio, to hear Trump at the University of Akron. Berg said he's an outlier: an undecided black Republican. For most African-Americans, Berg said, Trump must "meet them where they are."

Trump has scheduled an event today billed as a roundtable with black and Latino leaders invited to his New York offices, and his aides say he is considering more rallies in heavily minority cities in swing states. The Washington Post first reported those plans, specifically mentioning charter schools, small businesses and churches in black and Latino communities.