A Birmingham Alabama church, The New Era Baptist Church, is causing a lot of controversy after church signage which reads, “A Black vote for Trump is mental illness” on one side and the other, “A white vote for Trump is pure racism.”
The signpost is receiving mixed reactions as critics think that head Pastor Michael Jordan went too far with his message.
Daxton Kirk, a local Trump supporter, told local TV station WVTM that people “should not be able to come into a building and feel like you are hated or diversified just because you came here to worship the Lord.”
However, Pastor Jordan is unperturbed by the reactions as he avidly defends his message.
In an interview, he said, “God motivates me to take a stand for what’s right,” Jordan told WVTM of the sign, which he explains is a way to encourage people not to vote from Trump in next year’s election. “Read the Bible; if they call me a racist, look in the White House.”
A report by AL.com says Jordan is not new to controversial signage. In 2018, he put up a sign that read: “Black folks need to stay out of white churches.” This was to protest the church of the Highlands, a megachurch that planned to open a satellite in his neighbourhood, Birmingham, to combat crime.
He also defended that signpost stating: “It’s a slave master church…I call it plantation religion, slave master religion. The white rich folks start a church and put a Black pastor in charge of it.” This signage also garnered reactions on social media, and he was reprimanded by the Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin(D).
Michael Jordan is an African American who believes a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for institutionalized racism. He mentioned his messages on the sins that are meant for both black and white voters.
A Quinnipiac poll held on July 30 indicates that 80% of Black voters believe Trump is racist as opposed to the 11% who do not.
Ironically, Trump won Alabama in the 2016 election with about 63 percent of the vote. Jefferson County, where Birmingham is located, was among the other percentage that cast their vote for the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
