A pastor in Alabama is turning heads over a double-sided sign in front of his church that calls out black and white supporters of President Donald Trump for two different reasons.
“A black vote for Trump is mental illness,” the sign outside the New Era Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama reads, according to CBS 17 .
In addition to calling out voters of the 45th president who are black, the sign also takes aim at white Trump supporters.
“A white vote for Trump is pure racism,” the back of the sign outside the Alabama church reads.
According to the report, the pastor of the Baptist church, Michael Jordan, says despite the controversy that the sign has created, he is be standing behind the sign and its message.
“God motivates me to take a stand for what’s right,” Jordan said, per CBS 17. “Read the Bible, if they call me a racist, look in the White House.”
A supporter of the president interviewed in the article said he contacted the city in an attempt to have the sign removed.
According to a report earlier this month from Politico , President Trump is currently attempting to woo more African American voters in his corner as he tries to gain support in his bid for re-election in 2020. According to the report, the president’s campaign is attempting to get more support from black Americans by encouraging them to ignore the president’s rhetoric in favor of things like the stock market and a low nationwide unemployment rate.
According to data from Politico, the unemployment rate among African Americans was 7.7 percent when Trump took office in 2017 and was at 6 percent in July of this year.
Still, the president has faced accusations of racism for rhetoric he has used since he first campaigned for president in 2016, though calls have strengthened following a series of tweets the president has sent this summer.
Pastor defends the sign placed outside his church.
One side read “A black vote for Trump is mental illness.”
“A white vote for Trump is pure racism” was on the other side. https://t.co/sh3THwKsgS
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) August 30, 2019
First, the president came under fire for tweets attacking freshman members of congress, nicknamed “The Squad,” who are all women of color. In a tweet in July, the president directed the women, who are all U.S. citizens to “go back” to their ancestral countries following the Democratic congresswoman’s strong criticism of his policies.
The tweets about “The Squad” members sparked a house resolution condemning the president, per The New York Times .
The president took to Twitter also last month to attack Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, who is black, and called the lawmaker’s Baltimore district, which has a high population of minority residents, “infested.” Some cited a pattern in which the president had seemingly used similar language to describe areas with high populations of non-white people.
The president has insisted that he is not racist.