President Trump plans to appoint the Georgia pastor who leads former President Jimmy Carter’s church to a role in the White House’s new prison reentry effort, overseeing programs on reducing recidivism for former prisoners.
Pastor Tony Lowden, the first black pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, will be the council’s executive director, two White House officials told McClatchy.
Lowden, 53, has worked on prison reform efforts in Georgia and as the director of the Faith and Justice Initiative in Republican Gov. Nathan Deal’s Office of Transition Support and Reentry, according to his church biography. Trump is expected to announce Lowden’s appointment this week.
The Trump campaign is courting minority voters ahead of the November election with policies aimed at showing positive outcomes for the black community. The White House team that Lowden is expected to join includes policy adviser Ashley Bell, deputy assistant to the president Ja’Ron Smith, the White House’s Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities lead Johnathan Holifield, and White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council lead, former NFL player Scott Turner.
“We’re committing a real team that’s not just talking about results but creating opportunity now,” Smith told McClatchy.
In 2016, Trump won just 8% of the black vote. And current support among African Americans is low, with more than 8 in 10 respondents in a Jan. 2-8 Washington Post-Ipsos poll describing the president as “racist.”
Trump has sought to counter critics of his record with black voters with messaging on the economy, employment and unemployment figures, business development, and criminal justice reform.
The campaign’s Super Bowl ad featuring Alice Marie Johnson focused on Trump’s commutation of her sentence in 2018.
I promised to restore hope in America. That includes the least among us. Together, let’s KEEP AMERICA GREAT!
Text TRUMP to 88022 if you liked our Super Bowl ad! pic.twitter.com/Lgjt53B7QX
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2020
Trump’s bid for black voters has included a push to explain how his law enforcement and economic policies will benefit small business owners and individual voters, efforts that Lowden will support in his role working with local communities, businesses, faith-based and community groups, and law enforcement in helping former inmates succeed once they leave the prison system.
On Feb. 7, Trump will deliver remarks at the North Carolina Opportunity Now Summit in Charlotte, North Carolina, the first in a series of “opportunity now” summits that mark the administration’s efforts to explain their policy at a local level. Friday’s event will include workshops on inmate reentry to society, economic development for low-income areas, and discussions of how to apply for federal and state funding. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and Small Business Administration Administrator Jovita Carranza will speak at the event.
Last year, a criminal justice forum at the historically black Benedict College in South Carolina was upended when one week before the event, Trump was announced as the opening speaker. Former presidential candidate and current California senator, Kamala Harris, pulled out of the event once Trump’s participation was announced.
