Vernon Jones endorses Trump at RNC

Georgia Democratic State Representative Vernon Jones endorsed President Trump during the Republican National Convention on Monday.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

VERNON JONES: Hello, America. My name is Vernon Jones, and I'm a state representative from the great state of Georgia. As you can see, I'm a man of color, and I'm a lifelong Democrat, too. You may be wondering, why is a lifelong Democrat speaking at the Republican National Convention? And that's a fair question. And here's your answer.

The Democratic Party does not want Black people to leave their mental plantation. We've been forced to be there for decades and generations, but I have news for Joe Biden. We are free. We are free people with free minds. And I'm part of a large and growing segment of the Black community who are independent thinkers, and we believe that Donald Trump is the president that America needs to lead us forward.

This is no time for sleeping in the basement. Joe Biden has had 47 years to produce results. But he's been all talk and no action, just like so many of the Democrats who've been making promises to the Black voters for decades. We've been their captive audience. When President Trump sought to earn the Black vote, the Democratic Party leaders went crazy. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer literally started wearing kente cloths around the US Capitol, as if pandering were enough to keep us satisfied.

Let me tell you why I'm supporting our president. I grew up in the South, in Laurel Hill, North Carolina, Scotland County. The Green Pond community, to be exact. My parents, Robin and Rufer Jones, built with their own hands a four-room cinder block home with no indoor plumbing. They had very limited education, but they instilled in us a strong work ethic that drove me from those tobacco fields of North Carolina to those hallowed halls of the Georgia General Assembly. My parents taught me if I believed in God, worked hard, and treated every person fairly, there was no limit to what we could achieve.

I attended North Carolina Central University, an historical Black college. For generations, HBCUs have been the incubators that develop Black scholars in math, in science, in religion, engineering, and politics. They have been important springboards for the Black success. But Democrats haven't treated them that way. When President Trump took office, he changed everything. He delivered historic funding to HBCUs, and he guaranteed it for 10 years, something that has never happened in the history of this country. That gave our HBCUs stability, the chance to grow and produce the next generation of Black leaders. That's right, Donald Trump did that.