Local Black leaders are reportedly feeling alienated after what some saw as a “missed opportunity” for President Biden to interact with more members of the community during his campaign stop in Saginaw, Michigan.
Organizers familiar with last week’s trip plans said that one of several original proposed sites for the president to visit was a Black church. The idea was to find a venue where union workers, Black community leaders, college students and supporters from other key constituencies could head out after the event and knock on doors for Biden. However, the president ultimately only went to the front porch of two local leaders, who are both White, then met with a Black family at a public golf course.
Hurley Coleman Jr., a supporter of Biden and a pastor in Saginaw, said the trip was a “missed opportunity” for the president’s campaign to engage with the community in a way that was “real as opposed to what we saw.”
“I can’t escape the reality of what was initially anticipated didn’t happen,” Coleman Jr., whose son and grandson met Biden at the golf course, told the Associated Press. “And what was initially anticipated really needs to happen. And sooner rather than later.”
Pamela Pugh, the State Board of Education president and resident of Saginaw, said Black leaders and religious leadership “felt like there was an opportunity that was missed for there to be back-and-forth conversation, but also room for it being more inclusive and inviting of the larger base.”
Pugh also called it a “slight on the Black American community,” especially because “he was coming to Saginaw, and it seemed like it was to meet with the communities of color.”
