Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Alabama, who serves as the foundation's board chair, said the Black Caucus membership has grown from 13 to the current 60 members in Congress. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Buoyed by the prospect that one of their own could make history as the first woman elected president, the Congressional Black Caucus converged on the nation’s capital Wednesday for its annual conference of elected officials, allies and leaders in business, education and health care.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president less than three weeks ago, was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus while a U.S. senator representing California.? On Tuesday night, she faced former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, for the first time in a debate, where he defended his disparaging remarks last month about her race. Harris is Black and Asian.

The election was top of mind at the conference, which runs Wednesday through Sunday, as attendees spoke of the energy and excitement over Harris’ chances.

“Just a few weeks ago, we witnessed history happening in this country when we saw the first African American woman get the nomination for one of the major party tickets to be president of the United States,” Nicole Austin-Hillery, president and CEO of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, told the attendees who clapped and cheered inside the exhibit hall of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “We are a part of that history.”

Donna E. King, a vice president of the Foss Park District commissioners in North Chicago, Illinois, said Harris looked “presidential” during Tuesday’s debate.

“It touched my heart because I got to see an African American woman running for president…” said King, who served in the Army for two years, eight months and 28 days. “She prosecuted to the facts that this nation can’t have a 34-time convicted felon as our president. That’s unheard of. I’m sure that all of our forefathers are turning over in their graves.’’

Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Maryland, told Maryland Matters Tuesday that Harris’ ascension raises the importance of the caucus, its work and influence.

“It gives it a significant boost and an increased level of importance as a result of Vice President Harris being the party nominee, and being so close to what we think is the opportunity to alter the course of history and to focus us on the future and take us away from this ongoing focus on the past,” Mfume said.

Mfume is among the 60 Black congressional lawmakers that make up the largest class in the caucus’ 53-year history. The Black Caucus represents a major voting bloc, comprising nearly a fourth of the U.S. House Democratic Caucus.

The caucus’ longtime mission has been to amplify Black voices and policies to improve Black communities. Last year, there were 13,000 conference participants. With more than 9,000 participants registered, this year’s goal is 15,000, according to the office of Black Caucus Chair Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nevada).

Dozens of sessions will tackle issues and solutions in education, health, criminal justice and activism. Harris and President Joe Biden are slated to attend the conference’s Phoenix Awards Dinner on Saturday.

The conference’s theme is “From Vision to Victory: Amplifying Black Voices,” which Horsford said extends beyond Election Day on Nov. 5. A National Town Hall on Thursday will focus on protecting democracy and economic prosperity and wealth-building. The discussion will center around a report the caucus released Monday that includes recommendations for companies to adopt diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the workplace.

“That means victories for our people every single day around full economic participation and the opportunity to thrive economically and not just to survive,” Horsford said. “We recognize this is an ongoing work that is necessary for all of us to come together because democracy is a team sport.”

The caucus report calls on CEOs from Fortune 500 companies “to generate policies that create perpetual accountability for Corporate America, help close this massive gap of inequality, and support the values of our Caucus.”

“When we lift up Black America, we lift up everyone,” Horsford said.

Founded in 1971 with 13 members, the Congressional Black Caucus is an outgrowth of the Democracy Select Committee that brought together congressional representatives who often felt isolated. When Mfume took office in 1987, there were 17 members as he replaced one of its founders, former Rep. Parren Mitchell, the first African American from Maryland elected to Congress.

With Harris in the national spotlight, the conference will also focus on Black women in politics in a discussion Friday hosted by Rep. Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio).

Panelist A’shanti Gholar, president of Emerge, a national organization that helps train and recruit Black women to run for elected office, said the conference will allow for attendees to celebrate Harris’ Democratic nomination for president in person, which couldn’t be done four years ago, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

California-based Emerge was founded in 2002 before Harris’ run for San Francisco district attorney.

“This is a chance to really celebrate her and she’s on top of the ticket now,” Gholar said. “It’s just so powerful and inspiring. We finally get to give her her flowers that we weren’t able to do four years ago.”

For women seeking public office the obstacles are many.

“The reality for women is … that we cannot take the sexism, the racism, the misogyny out of politics. It is there,” Gholar said. “What we can do is make them competent on what it takes to run for office.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the group was not involved in Harris’ campaign.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump is questioned by journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. The event was moderated by, from left, Rachel Scott, senior congressional correspondent for ABC News; Kadia Goba, politics reporter at Semafor; and Harris Faulkner, anchor of The Faulkner Focus and co-host of Outnumbered on Fox News. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

CHICAGO — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Wednesday underwent questioning from a National Association of Black Journalists panel in a turbulent session during which he falsely claimed Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black” during her political career.

Through the roughly 35-minute combative event, the former president rarely answered questions, lied and exaggerated, attacked Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, and criticized one of the Black journalists interviewing him, ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott.

“I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit,” Trump said. “I love the Black population of this country.”

The discussion was also moderated by Kadia Goba, a politics reporter at Semafor, and Harris Faulkner, a Fox News anchor.

Many NABJ members strongly opposed Trump’s visit, especially given his treatment of high-profile Black women journalists, and the announcement of his appearance sparked a major backlash. Members were also critical about the lack of transparency around the invitation to Trump and the inclusion of a moderator from the conservative Fox network.

Trump attacked ABC’s Scott and called her questions “rude” and her media outlet a “fake news network.”

Scott asked Trump why Black voters should trust him, especially after Trump has made false claims that political rivals such as former President Barack Obama were not born in the United States, has dined with a white supremacist at his Florida residence and has slammed Black journalists.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” Trump said.

Scott pressed Trump about Republican members of Congress who have referred to Harris, who is the first Black woman and woman of Asian American descent to serve as vice president, as a so-called DEI hire. She asked if that was acceptable language.

Trump didn’t answer the question and asked Scott to define DEI, which she said stood for diversity, equity and inclusion.

Trump then questioned whether Harris was Black.

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump said. “So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

Harris attended Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, D.C., and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., a historic Black sorority. Her father is Jamaican, and her late mother was an Indian immigrant.

Harris in Houston

Harris, who was endorsed by President Joe Biden after he bowed out of a reelection campaign, was invited by NABJ to take questions as well, but her confirmation is pending, the organization said. She was traveling Wednesday to Houston for events including a campaign stop.

NABJ President Kenneth Lemon said that the organization is working on a virtual session with Harris in September.

On Trump’s participation in the panel, Harris campaign Black Media Director Jasmine Harris, who is not related to the vice president, said in a statement, “Let’s remember exactly who this man is.”

“Not only does Donald Trump have a history of demeaning NABJ members and honorees who remain pillars of the Black press, he also has a history of attacking the media and working against the vital role the press play in our democracy,” she said.

Harris campaign Communications Director Michael Tyler said in a statement that Trump’s behavior during the interview was hostile.

“Trump lobbed personal attacks and insults at Black journalists the same way he did throughout his presidency – while he failed Black families and left the entire country digging out of the ditch he left us in,” Tyler said. “Donald Trump has already proven he cannot unite America, so he attempts to divide us.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, asked at the White House press briefing about Trump’s visit to the convention, said, “That’s a campaign stop for him.”

The Trump campaign has used the invitation to argue that the former president has grown support among Black voters. Before Biden suspended his campaign in mid-July, a majority of Black voters aligned with voting for Biden, about 77%, and about 18% of Black voters indicated they would vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, according to a May Pew Research Center report.

NABJ fact-checking

In an email to members Wednesday morning, Lemon stressed that the organization’s invitation was not an endorsement and that there would be live fact-checking from PolitiFact during the session. Members who attended were not allowed to ask questions.

“While we acknowledge the concerns expressed by our members, we believe it is important for us to provide our members with the opportunity to hear directly from candidates and hold them accountable,” Lemon said. “We also want to provide our members with the facts.”’

Nichelle Smith, an independent investigative journalist from Virginia, said after the panel that it was clear where Trump stood with the Black community.

“I thought he was horribly rude to Rachel Scott and I commend her and the other woman on the panel for not soft balling and asking hard questions out the gate because I doubt he has rarely been confronted with hard questions by Black women,” she said.

NABJ tradition

Inviting a presidential candidate during an election year is an NABJ tradition since 1976. Former presidents have attended and participated in either a press conference or other question-and-answer formats, such as George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Obama. In 2016, Hillary Clinton attended, but Trump, who was also invited, did not.

The announcement late Monday that Trump would show up caused a firestorm among NABJ members. Karen Attiah, a columnist with the Washington Post, resigned from her position as NABJ Convention Co-chair.

“While my decision was influenced by a variety of factors, I was not involved or consulted with in any way with the decision to platform Trump in such a format,” Attiah, who was the 2019 NABJ Journalist of the Year, said.

April Ryan, a White House correspondent for TheGrio, a media company geared toward Black Americans, and NABJ’s 2017 Journalist of the Year, objected to the session in a social media post.

“The reports of attacks on Black women White House correspondents by the then president of the United States are not myth or conjecture, but fact,” she said.

During his first term, Trump often sparred with the White House press corps, but he was particularly harsh when it came to Black women journalists, such as Ryan, Abby Phillip from CNN and Yamiche Alcindor, a White House correspondent for PBS.

Ryan, who typically bore the brunt of those attacks, said the decision to hold a panel with Trump was “a slap in the face to the Black women journalists … who had to protect themselves from the wrath of this Republican presidential nominee who is promoting an authoritarian agenda that plans to destroy this nation and her democracy with his Project 2025.”

Editorial Director of Epicenter NYC Femi Redwood, who chairs NABJ’s LGBTQ+ task force, wrote in a social media post that the panel was not made aware of Trump’s invite and objected, “considering the damage he has caused Black queer and trans people — including those who are journalists and members of NABJ.”

“I’m disappointed that in a space where so many queer and trans members still feel vulnerable will now feel even more unsafe due to Trump being invited and the possibility of his most vicious followers coming to the hotel to support him,” she said.

Some defenders

Some NABJ members did defend the decision, such as Leroy Chapman Jr., the editor-in-chief of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Here is what we need to ‘normalize’ — candidates for office standing before journalists, answering questions,” he said in a social media post.

A handful of pro-Trump supporters were able to attend the event, such as radio personality P Rae Easley of Chicago, who cheered when Trump went on stage.

In a States Newsroom interview, she said that Trump has done a lot for the Black community.

“You got to be a fool to continue to support the policies” of the Biden administration, she said.

Goba asked about Trump’s support for giving police officers immunity. She asked about Sonya Massey, an unarmed Black woman who called 911 for help and was shot and killed by a deputy.

“Why should someone like that officer get immunity?” Goba asked.

Trump said that he didn’t know the case well and said an officer could make an “innocent mistake.”

“Sometimes very bad decisions are made, they’re not made from an evil standpoint, but they’re made from the standpoint of they made a mistake,” Trump said.

Scott, who covers Congress, asked about the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and about the law enforcement officers who were injured by the mob of pro-Trump supporters. She asked Trump if Jan. 6 rioters who have been convicted in the courts should be pardoned.

Trump didn’t answer the question and brought up Minnesota, criticizing protests there and across the nation that erupted after a video was publicized showing a white police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man, who died.

The officer, Derek Chauvin, was later convicted of murder.

J.D. Vance questions?

Goba asked Trump about his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, and his comments demeaning single women, calling them “childless cat ladies.”

Trump never answered the question and went off-topic, attacking Democrats and falsely claiming that they were allowing abortions after birth.

Scott also asked Trump about comments Vance has made about how people with children should be allowed to have more votes than those without.

“One of the bedrock principles of American life is, one person, one vote,” Scott said. “I just want to be clear here, is that the position of your campaign?”

Trump said that the campaign did not believe families should receive more votes and defended Vance.

“He is very family oriented,” Trump said.

Trump then veered into immigration and falsely claimed that noncitizens were voting in federal elections, which is already illegal and rarely happens.

After the event, Trump Senior Advisor Lynne Patton issued a statement, criticizing the media for “unprofessional commentary directed toward” the former president.

“Today’s biased and rude treatment from certain hostile members of the media will backfire massively,” Patton said. “This will be their undoing in 2024.”

Andrea Shaw contributed to this report.?