Black Lawmakers Slam Trump

JAMESTOWN, Va. (AP) – Black lawmakers in Virginia who boycotted a visit by President Donald Trump are blasting Trump for his recent disparaging remarks about minority members of Congress.  During an emotional ceremony at a Richmond site where a notorious slave jail once stood, members of Virginia’s legislative black caucus took turns criticizing Trump as the president spoke about 60 miles away in historic Jamestown.  Lawmakers who spoke at the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail site said they chose to boycott Trump’s speech commemorating the 400th anniversary of the first representative assembly in the New World so that they could mark another 400th anniversary. The first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619.  Del. Delores McQuinn refused to use Trump’s name and instead called him “the tenant in the White House.” McQuinn choked back tears as she said Trump’s criticism of minority members of Congress was also aimed at “every person of color in the United States of America.”