Exclusive — Inside the Inaugural Blexit Rally: ‘The Black and Latino Community Will Save America’

Hundreds of people from across the country came out wearing MAGA hats and waving homemade “build the wall” signs to the inaugural Blexit rally at the Globe Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, California, on Sunday.

The line outside the theatre nearly wrapped around the block hours before the event began, as eager attendees met and greeted each other.

“The conservative moment is way more diverse than the mainstream media would have people believe,” Ivan, 36, from Orange County, told, adding that his parents immigrated from Nicaragua. “As a minority, I wanted to be here to support the values this country was founded on. I’m here to stand with Blexit and against the Left.”

The line outside the Blexit event was diverse indeed. There were high school students from Los Angeles; Carlos, a first generation Mexican who drove nine hours from Tucson, Arizona, Pacific Islanders for Trump, Arizona; Chris, 31, a project manager at a tech startup who flew down from Oakland; and Verdell, 73, who lives 20 minutes outside of San Fransisco.

“I’m drawn to places where President Trump is supported,” Verdell told me. I’m here because Blexit is about getting more and more black Americans to realize why and how Democrats are hurting their future.”

Verdell, who was a young adult during the Civil Rights movement — and joke that she “was too busy partying” during that time — said she was a Democrat her whole life, voted for Obama twice, and walked away from the part in 2015. “I was inspired by Trump’s goodness. I felt God’s spirit when he spoke about Americans being hurt by Democrat policies and killed by people who don’t belong in this country. He was for Americans of all races. He was funny. I loved the idea that he couldn’t be bought.”

While interviewing Blexit attendees, Steven, a USC student, pulled me aside and ask that I post the group photo he took with other revelers but that I blur his face for fear that his professor would punish him for attending the event.

Billy, 49, who works at Amazon, took the hour-long drive west from San Bernardino, California, with his husband Mark, 49. The couple jokingly adopted Devon, 24, a college student from Los Angeles.

Inside the Globe Theatre, less than an hour before Blexit began, the movement’s founder Candace Owens was meticulously making sure everything was in place and set to go.

A group of Latino American activists from LEXIT held a group prayer before doors opened to the event and asked for the Lord’s grace to bring safety for everyone and to cover Sunday’s event.

The doors opened and the inside of the theatre morphed into a music concert. Blexit L.A. felt like a family affair, as attendees flooded in (some holding toddlers), grabbed B L E X I T gear, greeted friends and strangers, and took their seats. The place was packed and before long, Owens had taken the stage.

“I truly believe that the black and Latino community is going to save America,” Owens told the crowd in her opening remarks.

“I grew up in low-income housing, despite what the media tells you. They’re now trying to paint me as some rich white girl from Connecticut. The very first time I had sort of stepped out of my family life, growing up in a home with an exterminator and roaches and me and my two sisters sharing a little room, was my first playdate with a young white girl with blue eyes,” Owens said. “I went to her house and I was shocked. I was shocked at how big her house was. She had this beautiful Victorian home that was in the woods and she had a nanny and everything was so in place and it was beautiful. I was five-years-old and I just remember thinking ‘Wow. Are there really people that live like that? How is it possible that my family lives so differently from that?’”

“The public school system is trash,” Owens said to thunderous applause. “We’ve figured out that the left is lying to us. We’ve figured out that liberals are lying to us. We have figured out that they are using us to secure votes and to keep themselves in power and to keep themselves rich, right? Minorities have been used in this country and all of that changes today.”

“I want a piece of the American dream, too. That’s what we deserve for being in this country,” Owens continued. “It is not racism that is keeping us out of the American dream. It’s the lies that we’ve been told that is keeping us out of the American dream. It is us marrying ourselves to a party that doesn’t care about us and is keeping us out of the American dream.”

The crowd was treated to fiery speeches from conservative firebrands like Larry Elder, Ann Coulter, and Brandon Tatum, David Harris Jr., Rob Smith Jr., and Major Williams.

There were dozens of “build the wall” chants. Blexit co-founder Brandon Tatum, a former Tuscon, Arizona police officer fired up the crow to tears during his speech about “the War on Cops.” Activist David Harris Jr. brought the crowd to tears during his speech about “politics and the mercy of God.”

The event was a success, Owens told me, more so than she had imagined it would be.

“It really means something. It totally pulls at my heart. I’m just blessed to have this much support and love,” she said.

Asked where the movement will go next and what Blexit is poised to become, she said, “It looks like political parties that are actually competing on good ideas, not scarier narratives. That’s what it looks like.”

“Blexit looks like they know that our vote is never guaranteed, that we are going to pay attention to the issues. It looks like seeing this movement also be galvanized on campuses because as we know, we are being miseducated. And seeing perhaps BLEXIT groups pop up on college campuses. I just want to make sure we continue the discussion and that we debate the actual ideas and not emotions.”

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson