'I am here to listen to you': Trump tries to woo black voters with Detroit church visit

In his latest bid to woo African-American voters, Donald Trump visited a black church in Detroit today.

The Republican presidential nomineeswayed to songs of worship, read scripture, and donned a Jewish prayer shawl andcalled for a "civil rights agenda of our time" and vowed to fix the "many wrongs" facing black people in the U.S.

"I am here to listen to you," Trump told the congregation at the Great Faith Ministries International. "I'm here today to learn."

Trump has stepped up his outreach to minority voters in recent weeks as he tries to expand his appeal beyond his Republicanbase, and took the opportunityto tellmembers his plans for economic change, which he says "will be so good" for Detroit.

"As I prepare to campaign all across the nation and in every community, I will have an opportunity to lay out my plans for economic change, which will be so good for Detroit and so good for this community, because we're going to bring jobs back," he said to the congregation.

"Yeah, taking 'em back [jobs] from Mexico and everywhere else," the Republican presidential nominee added.

Trump promises jobs for Detroit

8 years ago

Duration 2:40

The Republican presidential candidate talks of helping African-Americans during a church service at Great Faith Ministries

Trump said he wanted to rebuild Detroit andwork with people in the African-Americancommunity to "remedy injustice and economics," so that theycan benefit through jobs and income.

ManyAfricanAmericansin the cityare still stung by hisvisit to Michigan last month, when he went before a mostly white audience and asked, rhetorically, what blacks had to lose by voting for him instead of Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Hedeclared: "You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 per cent of your youth is unemployed what the hell do you have to lose?"

"People picked up onTrump saying, 'you're all just crap,'"said Toni McIlwain, who for years ran a community centrethat offered education and drug prevention programs in one of Detroit's most distressed neighbourhoods.

"He generalized the total black community. How dare you talk to us like that and talk about us like that?" she said.

• 'What the hell do you have to lose?': Donald Trump to black voters

Trump's stop in Detroit appears to many as a late attempt to woo black voters, roughly two months before the U.S. general election.

Unlike his usual campaign stops where he confidently addressed mostly white crowds that supported him and his plans for the country, Trump's visit wasintimate.

Before the church service, also attended by his former rival and Detroit native Ben Carson as well as Omarosa Manigault, who appeared on Trump's former TV show The Apprentice, Trump was privately interviewed by Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, thechurch's media mogul pastor.

Carson, who has been advising Trump's campaign, told The Associated Press that the trip would serve as an opportunity for the GOP nominee to see first-hand the challenges residents face as he refines his policy plans.

"It always makes much more of an impression, I think, when you see things first-hand. It makes a much bigger impact," Carson said, adding that he hoped the visit would also leave the people Trump meets with a better sense of the candidate, who tends to be far less caustic in smaller settings than he appears on stage.

Protest outside the church

On Saturday, police pushed againstprotesters outside the church. Someprotesters called Trump a racist and a bigot, chanting "Dump the Trump."

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Democratic Rep. Brenda Lawrence both spoke outagainst Trump's candidacy on Saturday morning outside of Great Faith MinistriesInternational.

Duggan suggested Trump was just using Detroit as a "prop" in his campaign and challenged him to offer specific proposals to help U.S. cities.Lawrence, an African American and a Democrat, said Trump's earlier "rhetoric" served toimposeastereotype on black Americans.

In many parts of the United States, polls suggest Trump'sapproval rating among African Americans is practically zero.Trump needs all the votes he can get becausehe's currently trailing Clinton in the polls.

If Trump truly wanted to have a dialogue with blacks in Detroit and hear about their concerns, he would have "arranged an opportunity for people to speak" with him, said the Rev. Horace Sheffield, one of several prominent pastors, labour leaders and elected officials planning a silent march Saturday morning to Bishop Jackson's church.

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"That's why we're marching down the street silently because he doesn't want to hear our voice," Sheffield said. "We're ignored. We're invisible. We don't count. And we're not going to be used at the last minute."

Detroit is about 80 per cent black, and many are struggling. Nearly 40 per cent of residents are impoverished, compared with about 15 per cent of Americans overall. Detroit's median household income is just over $26,000 not even half the median for the nation, according to the census.

The city's unemployment rate has dropped, but is still among the highest in the nation. And public school students have lagged behind their peers on statewide standardized tests.