It's Time for Black Americans to Step into the 21st Century and Accept Trump's Offer of a Practical Partnership

In an interview that aired last Sunday, civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis of Georgia declared that Donald Trump was not “a legitimate President....I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I don't plan to attend the inauguration. It will be the first one that I miss since I’ve been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right. I believe in forgiveness. I believe in trying to work with people. It will be hard. It's going to be very difficult." • President-Elect Trump's response on Twitter came quickly : “Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!” • • • TRUMP MEETS WITH MLK III. Trump's tweet was followed by news that the President-Elect was canceling a visit to the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture on Martin Luther King Day -- something Trump's team said was due to scheduling issues. But, what the mainstream media did not tell the public was why Donald Trump didn't visit the MLK memorial, while some called it a missed “chance for much-needed goodwill after his feud with a civil rights leader.” What Trump did instead on MLK Day paints a very different picture. On Monday, the President-Elect met with Martin Luther King III -- the son of the slain civil rights figure who has become a human rights leader in his own right -- for a conversation that reportedly focused on the legacy of MLK Jr. Brushing aside Trump's feud with Lewis by saying “that in the heat of emotion a lot of things get said on both sides,” King called his meeting with Trump “very constructive,” adding : "The goal is to bring America together and Americans. We are a great nation but we must become a greater nation. And what my father represented, my mother represented through her life, what I hope that I am trying to do is always bring people together.” Trump expressed a similar sentiment on Monday, urging Americans to celebrate “all of the many wonderful things that [Martin Luther King, Jr.] stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!" When asked what his slain father might have to say about the President-Elect, King instead addressed an issue that has been central to Trump's campaign -- the economy : "I think my father would be very concerned about that fact that we have 50 to 60 million people living in poverty, and somehow we've got to create the climate for all boats to be lifted. It's insanity that we have poor people in this nation. That’s unacceptable." Referring to Trump's promise that he will be a president “for all Americans,” King added : "He’s said that over and over again. We will continue to evaluate that. The nation supports. I believe that’s his intent. I believe we have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure. It doesn’t happen automatically, my father and his team understood that, did that." • • • MEDIA BLACKOUT OF TRUMP-MLK III MEETING. The media imposed a near total blackout of the President-Elect’s meeting on MLK day with King’s eldest son -- the mere fact of which would have been favorable to the President-Elect. As reported by the British Daily Telegraph of January 16, 2017, wrote : "Martin Luther King’s eldest son called his meeting with the President-Elect 'constructive,' and, in conciliatory fashion, attributed Lewis’ words and the President-Elect’s characteristically feisty response to the reality that 'in the heat of emotion a lot of things get said on both sides.' Reporters had tried to prod the annoyingly uncooperative King into criticizing the President-Elect, or the President-Elect’s comments about Lewis, but got nowhere. The meeting was obviously a triumph for Trump, showing at once his respect for Martin Luther King, Jr, his desire for American unity, and his ability to favorably impress an important contemporary black leader. But for all one might learn about it from major American media’s coverage, that meeting never took place." In the early evening, EST, Monday, January 16, 2017, American Thinker reviewed the websites of CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, Washington Post and New York Times. Here are the unsurprising findings about major American media’s January 16, 2016 treatment of Trump’s meeting with King : CNN: No mention at all -- CBS: No mention at all. -- ABC: The website’s January 16, 2017 lead article, complete with dramatic, eye-catching photo, was “Trump’s attack on Representative John Lewis spotlights tenuous relationship with African Americans” and buried three smaller headlines below that lead article, is the headline “Martin Luther King III calls meeting with Trump’ constructive.’” But, clicking on it brought up no article describing the meeting or quoting King’s favorable comments about it. Thus, ABC gave the meeting a headline but no actual reporting of it or of what the key participant said about it. -- Washington Post: No mention at all. -- New York Times: The Times’ website headlined with “As Trump era arrives, a sense of uncertainty grips the world.” Again three articles deep below the headline, and in much smaller typeface, is an article titled, “King’s son meets Trump amid tension over Lewis feud.” Clicking on that negative teaser brought up an article with the neutral headline, “With blacks alarmed by his tone Trump meets with Martin Luther King III.” Buried in the intensely negative editorial commentary that ran through the article were a couple of King’s obviously conciliatory comments. There you have it, said American Thinker : "Of America’s three self-designated TV custodians of important, reliable, non-fake news, two -- CBS and NBC -- altogether ignored President-Elect Trump’s apparently positive meeting with Martin Luther King III on the national holiday honoring King’s father. The third, ABC, deigned to give the meeting a headline (well below its lead article), but no actual article, and no quotation or report of King’s amicable words about it -- and, of course, no report of Mr. King’s dogged refusal to take reporters’ bait and criticize the President-Elect." • • • THE PROGRESSIVE LEFT MEANS TO DESTROY TRUMP. And major American media are in agreement with the goal of destroying Trump, who never gets any semblance of evenhanded coverage. The same MSM that was openly, unapologetically committed to destroying Trump’s candidacy is even more intensely committed to destroying his presidency. The Trump administration should remain as open and transparent as the security of the nation allows -- but that openness and transparency can only be achieved by expanding the organizations and giving individuals access to information needed for honestly reporting the news. It cannot be achieved, as in the past, by according undeserved favorable access to a corrupt establishment media that has elevated news distortion and concealment of major news stories to an art form. • The Progressive Left is mobilizing. There are rumors in online social media of offers of $2,500 plus expenses to those who are willing to march against Trump on Inauguration Day. Whether, this time, America will confront -- as it did in the 1970s -- violent actions by leftist radicals, such as bombings, bank robberies and other actions to fund domestic terrorism is anyone's guess. But we do know it did before. And we know that today #occupywallstreet and #blacklivesmatter are out there. They and their like have already tested their formula. The mass demonstrations two years ago against state labor legislation in Wisconsin and Ohio show that today's American left is perfectly willing to deploy those tactics to take over and occupy state capitols -- ask Scott Walker and John Kasich. And in North Carolina, the Democrats successfully held “Moral Monday” rallies at the state capitol for four years, resulting in the narrow defeat of the sitting Republican governor. Downtown Washington DC is plastered with posters calling for counter-demonstrations in DC on Inauguration Day. All these calls for “direct action” focus on January 20. But, on January 21, a "million-woman march" is being called for. • Americans who see these actions as an effort to delegitimize not only Trump but also America must stand firm with the new President. Support his rallies, his cabinet choices, his Inaugural Address, his plans to Make American Great Again. The fight is far from over. • • • DEAR READERS, as for John Lewis -- he was a key civil rights leader in the 1960s as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who has since 1987 represented Georgia’s 5th District, which is predominantly black and includes much of Atlanta and some surrounding suburbs. While the MSM will tell you that John Lewis' congressional district is doing just fine -- 87% of adults in the district are high school graduates, 40% are college graduates, according to Census data, which reports that the median household income is just over $48,000. But, Dr. Tina Trent, a former liberal Democrat activist who lived in Lewis's district for a long time, explains why she is not impressed by Lewis : "As somebody who spent almost two decades in John Lewis' district trying to fix the problems of crime, poverty, and family disintegration created entirely by Lewis' politics and his political party, I speak with authority when I say that Donald Trump is completely correct when he accuses John Lewis of being all talk, no action. But, I'd go farther than Trump. Nearly every time John Lewis has "acted" legislatively, life for the poorest in his district has grown more dangerous, destabilized, and tragic. While John Lewis spent the last 50 years growing rich and influential by repeating the same speech about being beat up on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965, the people living in the crime-ridden parts of his district have spent the 50 years since then being subjected daily to violent crimes and threats of crime at least as bad and frequently far worse than what Lewis experienced, day after day, week after week, year after year – decade after decade, unabated. There are no federal monuments to the crime victims of John Lewis' district. These victims are barely acknowledged by Lewis himself. For all his years in Congress, Lewis has "opposed every piece of criminal justice or welfare reform legislation that would make the people of his district safer, more self-reliant, and more prosperous." • Lewis is also taking heat from a woman who calls herself the “Conservative Black Chick." Crystal Wright told Fox Business host Stuart Varney that Lewis himself is an “illegitimate congressman” for saying something so “disrespectful.” And then she pierced the iconic bubble that encapsulates the civil rights leader who marched with Martin Luther King, Junior in Selma, Alabama back in 1965 : “And, you know, what I want to know is what has John Lewis done since he marched on Selma? Really. He's riding on the coattails of something that happened over 50 years ago. ...[T]o me, his position in Congress is illegitimate.” Wright says Congressman Lewis has been dining out on that march for the past 50 years : “John Lewis has done more for himself in the past 50 plus years than he's done for black people.” Wright told Varney that there’s a racial double standard at work : "If Donald Trump was not white and a Republican, John Lewis would have no problem with anything that he had said, how e’s conducting his presidency. If John Lewis was not black, nobody would care what he is saying." • While Wright went after Lewis, Black Republican Senator Tim Scott called for a cease fire : "Good conversation w/@foxandfriends this morning. John Lewis is an American hero. Trump is legitimate President. We need unity, not division." • American Thinker on Monday published a list of what it called Lewis's past efforts to delegitimize the opposition. Lewis falsely accused Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin of "sowing seeds of hatred and division" at their rallies in 2008, even invoking the name of George Wallace to shore up his attack. In 2010 he ratcheted up the hatred by alleging Tea Party protesters shouted racial epithets and spat on him during an anti-Obamacare rally. The late Andrew Breitbart offered to pay $100,000 to anyone with proof the racial incidents occurred. At a time and place where nearly everyone had a phone in their hands(I was there) not one video surfaced of Lewis' "spit-riddled" face. • The aging, former SNCC leader who likes to write for the Communist Party of the USA newsletter, is still trapped in his hatred of white America fueled by self-serving Progressive Democrats, still living in 1965 when America has moved on to 2016. After Trump responded to Lewis’ with tweets calling out the congressman’s “all talk and no action” record when it comes to fixing the mess in the inner cities, Lewis’s friends in the MSM came to his defense, effusing about Lewis' iconic status as a civil rights "hero" -- that was 52 years ago. And, isn't that Trump's point? It is time to move on -- to finally do the work that Democrats have for a half-century proposed and taken credit for without ever doing -- unchain Black Americans from poor schools, fatherless homes and generations of government dependency. Donald Trump has promised to do that. And, unlike his Progressive Left Democrat opponents, he will do it, given the chance by the Black community. It is now up to them to decide to accept President-Elect Trump's offer to take their rightful and long-overdue place in American society.