WASHINGTON, DC — Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon will headline a fundraising luncheon for Black Americans for a Better Future (BABF) on Tuesday at the Willard InterContinental Washington hotel in Washington, DC.
The event, “A Business Luncheon with Stephen K. Bannon: A Republican Vision for Minority Business Growth,” will see approximately 200 minority entrepreneurs from throughout the United States.
Bannon is slated to speak at 1:15 pm eastern. You can watch here (a video will appear a few minutes before). Breitbart News will also be streaming live on our Facebook page.
Bannon, who previously served as senior White House adviser to President Donald Trump and was the CEO of his presidential campaign, has stated that a large part of his vision for economic nationalism is helping extend opportunities to black and Hispanic workers.
“Steve’s knowledge of the black community is incredible,” Raynard Jackson, founder and chairman of Black Americans for a Better Future, told Breitbart News. “If you were Stevie Wonder, being blind, and you could sit and talk with Steve and didn’t know his color, you would swear he’s from the black community because of his understanding of the dynamic, the business and community dynamic.” Jackson recalled how the “first words out of Bannon’s mouth about the black business community was, ‘Your biggest issue is access to capital. That’s it. That’s the foundation of the issue.'”
Jackson said BABF is the “only registered 527 super PAC, and their goal is to get more black entrepreneurs involved in the Republican Party. They focus on how they can help black businesses grow their firms.”
He is also the president of Black Americans for a Better Future Education Fund, a 501(c)4 that is co-hosting Tuesday’s event.
“What’s amazing is, I took about 20 blacks and Hispanics to meet with Steve last month, and about one-third of them were Democrats. And every person, without exception, said I want to work with Steve Bannon,” Jackson told Breitbart News. “They heard him unfiltered by the liberal media. They asked him any question they wanted, sitting face-to-face with him for two hours, and not one person said they disagreed with anything he said.”
“Steve Bannon is the biggest threat I’ve seen to liberalism in decades,” Jackson said. He will look at the lack community, point blank, and say, ‘What has 40 years of liberalism gotten for you? A higher murder rate, higher black-on-black crime, higher unemployment, higher teen pregnancy rates.'”
Despite attempts by the left-wing media to smear him as a racist, white nationalist, and anti-Semite, it is known that Bannon’s longtime personal assistant is also African American and that many of his employees at Breitbart News are Jewish.
In a video conversation with author Keith Koffler about his new biography of Bannon: Always the Rebel, Bannon said, “The whole purpose of this economic nationalism and populism is to give voice to the voiceless. The deplorables are also the black and Hispanic working class.”
In the book, Bannon said, “I come from a black working-class neighborhood. I know what they want—it was in the inaugural—they want safe streets for their families, good schools for their kids, and a great job for themselves. That’s all they want.”
“What Steve is doing on Tuesday is letting these entrepreneurs know that we are not here to lecture you guys. We know what the problems are in the small African American business communities. And here is what I am willing to do through my network to help open doors.”
He added, “These entrepreneurs are already very successful. They don’t need help, but we want to take them to the next level of success not just through government contracting, but also through private contracting. We, as Republicans, know the government.”
The same could not be said for previous administrations.
“Barack Obama did nothing specifically for the black community in his eight years in office,” Jackson said. “But he did plenty, albeit illegally, for the Hispanic community. He also did a lot for the homosexual community.” He added, “Obama did nothing for the black community by executive order. Under eight years of Obama, the black community has regressed, not progressed. And I find that astonishing that he has bent over backwards to do things for everyone except for his own people.”
Jackson stated, “He never even thought of interviewing a black female judge for the Supreme Court,” adding, “Even if you don’t want to nominate her, at least interview her for the optics of it.”
Painting a starkly different picture, Jackson noted that President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway invited the African American community to the table to help shape the GOP’s tax bill. “They invited us to the table. Under Obama, we weren’t even invited to the table.” He added, “Republicans, under Trump, have asked us to be there while the tax bill was being formulated. That has never happened before in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.”
“This is historic ground we’re treading on with Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway,” Jackson said. We brought 25 minority leaders to the Capitol, and we did the event there, and we highlighted two black entrepreneurs and one Latino for the tax discussions before the House completed their bill and sent it over to the Senate.”
Asked what the goal is for Tuesday’s luncheon, Jackson said, “We expect the takeaway from the audience to be for Steve to tell us the three things he’s willing to do going forward to help us move the agenda forward. And then, we want him to tell us what are the three things as a group you need from us so we can keep the momentum moving forward.”
Jackson also held a luncheon event in September, where Corey Lewandowski spoke. “Every single person who spoke at our September event has followed through on their promises.”
In closing, he said, “We’re going beyond tokenism and talk to action. And I can’t emphasize that enough, of how historic this is, and all this is coming under a first-time president with no political experience and people like a Steve Bannon.” He continued, “It’s a two-way street, and this is historic.”