WASHINGTON _ The Rev. Odell Cleveland has a Barack Obama hat and a bobblehead of the first black president on his desk. He supports the Affordable Care Act and voted for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
But Cleveland, the chief administrative officer at Greensboro's Mt. Zion Baptist Church, is also a supporter of Republican Rep. Mark Walker _ who most definitely is not a fan of Obama, Clinton or the ACA.
Walker recently attended a panel discussion at the church on the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., where a white gunman killed nine black parishioners during a Bible study. Walker, a former Baptist pastor, was the only Republican panelist and was peppered with audience questions about gun violence and racist chants at a President Donald Trump rally in Greenville.
"There are certain things I'm never going to agree with him on," said Cleveland, who endorsed Walker in the past. "He's willing to stand there and try to explain, give a good answer to tough questions. That's what the African American community likes about him.
"To expose himself to questions that are not kind to him and answer. That's the true measure of a man."
Walker, in his third term in the U.S. House representing a Greensboro-area district and now a member of Republican leadership, wants more of his Republican colleagues to engage in similar ways with communities of color.
Black voters overwhelmingly supported Clinton over Trump, 88% to 9%. The Republican conference in the House has just one African American member, and Rep. Will Hurd of Texas has announced that he will not run for reelection. The caucus has just 13 women, leaving the vast majority of its members as white men.
Of the eight Republicans from North Carolina in the House, seven are white men, including Walker. The eighth is Rep. Virginia Foxx, a white woman. The party's nominees in special elections in the 3rd district (Greg Murphy) and 9th district (Dan Bishop) are white men.
"It's important for Republicans to properly address these communities with correct terminology. That comes from genuine relationships, not talking points," Walker said. "For us to not have walked with these communities or built relationships with these communities for the last generation, it has manifest itself into the numbers we see today."
