DURHAM, N.C. _ Immanuel Jarvis has spent most of his life in sales. Cellphones. Life insurance. Real estate.
He comes at it naturally, with a warm smile, clever wit and outgoing personality. He's hard not to like.
And yet Jarvis gets taunting emails, nasty phones calls, dirty looks. He recalls people standing so close he felt their hot breath on his face as they told him, "If I was your mother, I'd be ashamed of you for who you are."
Jarvis is a Republican. He is Black. And he's a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump.
After 3 { incendiary years in office, the president is deeply loathed by many Black Americans. Polls suggest less than 10% of Black voters back his reelection and more than 7 in 10 of those surveyed not only disapprove of Trump's job performance but do so strongly.
Still, there are millions of Black Americans who will cast their ballots for the president in November, many enthusiastically. As chairman of the Durham County Republican Party, one of Jarvis' goals is to increase that number.
It may be the toughest sales job the 43-year-old has ever faced.
Durham County, located near the dead center of North Carolina, is nearly 40% Black. Trump lost here to Hillary Clinton by a crushing 78% to 18%. There is not a single GOP member of the County Board of Commissioners or Durham City Council.
"Not just Democratic," Kerry Haynie, a Duke University political scientist, said of the local political breed. "It's a progressive kind of Democrat."
Trump won't come close to winning Durham County in November. At best, he might lose in a less-big landslide. But the president hasn't helped himself by doing things such as retweeting a video of a supporter shouting "white power," equating the words "Black Lives Matter" with hate speech, or defending the heritage of the slave-holding Confederacy. And that's just of late.
Jarvis, however, is undeterred.
He harbors no illusion about the racist roots of this country, the inequality that Black Americans persistently face, the rampant discrimination and the casual bigotry that has become so normalized that, for some, it's almost second nature.
"My heart grieves for where Black America is going," he said during one of several long conversations about politics and the presidential campaign.
He sees one remedy residing in the White House.
"How many people do you know that are standing up for us?" Jarvis asked rhetorically. "I know one. It's a person that the media hates. His name is Donald Trump."
