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Photo Credit: Saul Loeb/DPA/ZUMA
Back in January, when Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term as president, one person stood out to me at the inauguration: Lorenzo Sewell. The Black pastor from Detroit hadn’t been on my radar, but he was now. That’s when I heard him give a benediction, a prayer that echoed Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
Here at Reveal and Mother Jones, we had been reporting on Black men supporting Trump and whether there was a shift happening among them toward the Republican Party. It was something I was always skeptical about. So when I saw Sewell give that prayer, I knew I eventually wanted to chat with him about why he was supporting a president who campaigned on rolling back DEI policies, spread racist lies about Haitian immigrants, and originated the “birther” conspiracy that America’s first Black president wasn’t actually born in the US.
This week, I finally got my chance. I sat down with Sewell to hash out why he’s become one of the most outspoken supporters of the president, even as Trump has worked to purge Black history from our schools and museums, dismantled DEI initiatives, and rolled back federal civil rights protections that have long helped Black Americans.
It was a lively—and sometimes heated—conversation about race, politics, and how Sewell got swept up in Trump’s orbit. Trust me, it’s worth the listen.
Check it out.
-Al Letson, host of Reveal and More To The Story
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