By Trevor Hunnicutt
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Donald Trump speaks at the country's largest annual gathering of Black journalists on Wednesday, an effort to bolster the Republican presidential candidate's standing that has divided the group's members.
Trump's first-ever appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists' annual convention in Chicago comes a week after the 2024 election was shaken up by President Joe Biden's decision to drop out.
The group, founded in 1975, regularly invites presidential candidates to address its annual gathering, but Trump is the first Republican to accept the offer since George W. Bush spoke at a conference they co-hosted in 2004.
Trump is scheduled to be interviewed on Wednesday afternoon at the event by three Black women journalists, Fox News' Harris Faulkner, ABC News' Rachel Scott and Semafor's Kadia Goba.
Some members said the group should not offer a platform to Trump, who has denigrated the work of Black journalists, sometimes in personal terms. Trump has also used racist and dehumanizing language on the campaign trail.
Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah stepped down as a co-chair from the convention, saying on social media that she had not been "involved or consulted with in any way with the decision to platform Trump in such a format."
In Chicago, a protest was expected outside the venue where Trump was scheduled to speak. Trump has regularly criticized the city's largely Democratic political leadership for Chicago's levels of street violence.
"Here is what we need to 'normalize' - candidates for office standing before journalists, answering questions," said Leroy Chapman Jr, editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a newspaper.
The National Association of Black Journalists includes a range of members, from reporters with legacy media outlets that hope to preserve a working relationship with Trump to Black-owned outlets and journalists whose work takes a stridently anti-Trump tone.
Trump made his resentful relationship with many of the media outlets who cover him a focus of his 2016, 2020 and 2024 campaigns and sparred with members of the White House press corps during his 2017-2021 presidency.
Now, Trump's campaign faces a likely race against Vice President Kamala Harris as she seeks to be the first Black and Asian woman president, the prospect of which has drawn millions of dollars in donations to the Democrat's campaign.
Biden was planning to attend this year's convention before he dropped his presidential bid on July 21.
Harris, who was invited, could not make it to Chicago in person but is willing to participate in a virtual fireside chat with the organization, according to a person familiar with her plans.
As a candidate, Biden had been struggling to mobilize Black voters, especially Black men, allowing Trump to make inroads with that demographic.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday showed Harris slightly increasing her support from Black voters over Biden's numbers, with 73%, up from Biden's 69% earlier in July and Trump's support dropping to 10%, from 15%. Nine in 10 Black voters supported Biden in 2020.
Trump has been actively courting Black voters and has held events in cities with large Black populations, including Atlanta, where he plans a rally on Saturday.
"For us as journalists, people who go into and have very uncomfortable conversations for the sake of our members, this is an important time," National Association of Black Journalists president Ken Lemon said on social media. "This is a great opportunity for us to vet the candidate."
The organization picked the moderators, there were no preconditions for Trump to appear and he was not given questions in advance, according to people familiar with the campaign's planning for the session.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Tyler Clifford, Bianca Flowers, Tim Reid and Jim Oliphant; Editing by Michael Perry)
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