Trump was in Williamsburg on Tuesday to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the First Representative Legislative Assembly in the New World.
The celebration marks the birth of American democracy and free speech in Virginia’s House of Burgesses.
“The United States of America and the great Commonwealth of Virginia are just getting started,” Trump said in an event that he called “a momentous occasion.”
“We remember every sacred soul who suffered,” Trump said.
However a protester took this opportunity to give some ‘Home truths’ and his own right to free speech.
“Deport Hate”
I just disrupted the @realDonaldTrump speech in Jamestown because nobody’s racism and bigotry should be excused for the sake of being polite. The man is unfit for office and unfit to partake in a celebration of democracy, representation, and our nation’s history of immigrants. pic.twitter.com/0okD7eRVer
— Delegate Ibraheem Samirah (@IbraheemSamirah) July 30, 2019
The protester briefly interrupted Trump’s speech shouting “Mr. President, you can’t send us back, Virginia is our home!”
The protest reflected Trump’s tweets earlier this month to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Trump tells Democratic congresswomen of colour to go back to where they came from.
The commemoration kicked off earlier Tuesday with Gov. Ralph Northam speaking at the Memorial Church.
Northam said the ideals of freedom and representative government spread from Jamestown in 1619. But he also noted the first assembly was significant for those not included: women, enslaved Africans and Native Americans.
Northam called that the paradox of Virginia, America and its representative democracy.
“If you don’t know where you came from then you don’t know where you are going,” Northam said Tuesday morning. “We need to understand our history.”
As part of the festivities, the General Assembly held a joint commemorative session in the 1619 re-created church.
Many Democratic elected officials decided to not attend the event due to Trump’s invitation.
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney resigned from the event’s planning committee when an invite was extended to the president.
“A president who labels those who disagree with him as un-American and ignorantly advocates for duly elected congresswomen, all United States citizens of color, to be sent back to their countries of origin has no place at this commemorative gathering in our Commonwealth this weekend,” Stoney said in a resignation letter.
[ Stoney resigns from Jamestown committee, citing Trump invitation ]
Leadership of the Virginia House and Senate Democratic Caucuses released a statement Friday that said, “We will not be attending any part of the commemorative session where Donald Trump is in attendance. The current President does not represent the values that we would celebrate at the 400th anniversary of the oldest democratic body in the western world. We offer just three words of advice to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation: ‘Send Him Back.’”
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