PHILADELPHIA _ GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump told a handful of blacks in North Philadelphia on Friday that the perception that he is a racist is because the media have interpreted his comments that way.
"He does not see himself as a racist and neither did the people around the table," said Renee Amoore, the deputy chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
Trump supporter James Jones, the GOP nominee for the Second Congressional District, said he was one of 12 to14 blacks at the luncheon at The View, a catering hall run by People for People, a nonprofit operated by the Greater Exodus Baptist Church at Broad and Brown. The small gathering dined with Trump, eating meatballs over rice, tilapia with crabmeat eggs stuffed with curried chicken and carrot cake.
"He's not a racist. He's not a bigot," Jones told reporters and protesters outside.
Asked about Trump's recent "What do you have to lose?" question to black voters, Jones called that a "sound bite pulled out of place" when Trump was trying to discuss jobs and the economy over the last eight years.
"Unfortunately the media didn't give him a chance to break it all the way down," Jones said before engaging in a brief curbside debate with Blacks Lives Matter activists. Asked if Trump addressed the perception that he is bigot, Jones said the candidate blamed that on the media.
"He said he is not a bigot," Jones said. "And he said you guys, the press, tend to take words out of place quite easily."
Jones said Trump spoke at the luncheon in "broad strokes" but not specifics about issues.
"You know what? I was completely satisfied that he is going to address crime, poverty, drugs," Jones said. "He's going to be the guy who is going to help us."
Amoore, like several of the attendees, had to weather withering verbal abuse from a small group of protesters who followed them for blocks.
Trump, she said, "was there because he wanted to hear what we had to say," as three people tried to shout her down. "We're going to do the best we can to have a Republican win in Pennsylvania, which hasn't happened in a long time."
Pennsylvania last supported a Republican for president in 1988.
Ryan Sanders, an RNC staffer heading up black voter engagement in Pennsylvania, coordinated invitations to the event. He said about half of those who attended were Republicans.
Sanders said Trump discussed gun violence and job development, specifically mentioning blighted abandoned industrial buildings in Philadelphia that once were filled with employees.
"This was an African-American event on African-American issues," Sanders said. "We hear a lot about Republicans who never actually go into these communities. And here he was, smack-dab in the middle of North Philadelphia."
The Trump visit was met with anything but Brotherly Love when he arrived.
Profanity was shouted at Trump as his SUV arrived in a police motorcade down Broad Street.
Before then, Carla Griffin, 54, sat on her front porch, wondering how anyone could take seriously Trump's brief dip into Philadelphia.
"He's an embarrassment. This is a photo opportunity for him," Griffin said. "This is what politics has been reduced to."
Supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, assembled local leaders _ City Council President Darrell Clarke, Council members Helen Gym and Maria Quinones-Sanchez, state Rep. Dwight Evans and church pastors _ "to discuss Trump's divisive rhetoric, dangerous agenda and embrace of hate groups," according to a notice from Clinton's campaign.
"This whole thing about 'make America great,' that little stupid hat that he's walking around with, that's all about turning back the clock," said Clarke. "And us as minorities in these communities understand what it used to be like when there were really no opportunities for us in the workforce, really no opportunities for us for education. That's what that's about."
Clarke accused Trump of waiting to age 70 to begin a dialogue with blacks.
At-Large City Councilwoman Helen Gym said Philadelphia is a "sanctuary" city that stands up for the rights of all people while Trump has offended and targeted immigrants and minorities on a regular basis. "As an Asian American community member, when I hear words like ideological vetting or extreme vetting, when I hear about standards for who is or is not a citizen, we hark back to the times of Japanese American internment, when U.S. citizens of Asian descent were interned into camps and treated less than not only U.S. citizens but less than human."
Outside The View, Black Lives Matter activist Asa Khalif said protesters arrived early, creating signs for their "solidarity march against Trump."
The Rev. Herb Lusk II, pastor of the Greater Exodus Baptist Church, is a prominent conservative and former adviser to former President George W. Bush. But Lusk said Trump's event is a rental agreement with the nonprofit, not an invitation from him or his church.
Lusk said he has not decided which candidate to support for president.
"I'm like a lot of Americans who thinks the best candidates are not running," said Lusk, who told reporters he learned about the Trump event Thursday from the media.
Protesters gathered outside the church hall before noon, some holding signs saying "Slavery made America Great," a play on Trump's campaign "Make America Great Again."
As many as 100 Philadelphia police officers were assembled on North Broad near Fairmount.
Bobby Farms of North Philadelphia said "men of color must be out of their minds" to support Trump. "A tiger can't change his stripes."
Erica Mines of the Philadelphia Coalition for Real Justice said her group came out "to let Donald Trump know he's not welcome in our community." She said the GOP candidate is only interested in "raping, pillaging and bringing nasty-ass diseases into the community."
Her group and Juntos, a Latino immigrant advocacy organization, prepared long cloth signs, stenciled with black chain-link fence and red brick designs and the words "#wall off Trump." In a news release, Juntos spokesman Erika Almiron explained the group would use the sign to "wall off the Trump visit," a response to "Trump's insults, threats and his promises of mass deportation and building a border wall ... The only walls we need are to wall off hate."
A brief scuffle developed when a white-haired Bucks County man, Jerry Lambert, held a sign proclaiming "I love walls" _ and Khalif snatched it away and tore it. After police broke up the confrontation, Lambert said he wanted Khalif arrested for assault.
"I came here to express my First Amendment rights, peacefully," Lambert told police. "That was not peaceful." He then took another sign with the same slogan across the street to shout his support for Trump.
Many protesters, including Khalif, called out black leaders who agreed to meet with Trump in the city.
"I can't even understand why the church would host him here," said Derwin Ridley, 57, of North Philadelphia. Democrats gathered in a Hillary Clinton campaign office on Cecil B. Moore Ave. in the heart of Temple University to denounce Trump.
"I'm scared. I'm honestly scared, when I listen to Donald Trump talk," said the Rev. Janet J. Sturdivant, presiding elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church South Philadelphia District. "I'm just amazed the Republican Party just had a Sarah Palin, now they have Donald Trump. We all need to be scared ... This world needs someone sitting in the Oval Office who will not turn back the clock."
The Rev. Wayne Weathers, pastor of Vision of Hope Baptist Church in South Philadelphia, said Trump is a wolf in sheep's clothing on issues important to blacks. "One minute, he's saying he wants to reach out to African Americans. But back in 2011, 2012, or even when President Obama was elected president of the United States, he questioned his American citizenship," said Weathers. The minister also recalled Trump saying he would pay the legal bills for a white supporter arrested for punching a black man during a campaign rally.
"I could not fathom myself to vote for a leader who is courageous in Phoenix, Arizona but a coward in Mexico. So I give my support to Hillary Rodham Clinton, because we are stronger together."
State Rep. Dwight Evans said Trump "is talking about building a wall when he should be talking about building bridges."
Evans said Trump is "very divisive, and underpinning his whole message is fear to get people to vote for him. He does not give us what we need. He goes to the lowest common denominator."
City Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez said Trump "is someone who has been able to unite the hate and everything that is ugly, even within our democracy. As a Puerto Rican woman _ and he called Puerto Ricans the worst of the Mexicans _ I can tell you that this unacceptable. This is not what America stands for." Over the last several weeks, she said, Trump has unleashed "rhetoric on steroids."
State and city Republican Party officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The Trump campaign declined to comment.
Clinton has cast Trump's campaign as built on "prejudice and paranoia."
Trump has been stepping up his outreach to minority voters, repeatedly asking from the podium at campaign rallies, "What do you have to lose?" in supporting his candidacy.
Trump is scheduled to speak Saturday at a predominantly black church in Detroit.
