SOUTHLAKE, Texas – Being present in communities and showing that conservatives have better ideas will help win the African American vote, black leaders said Friday.

“What conservatives need to do… we have better ideas when it comes to African Americans. School choice is an amazing idea. We have to figure out how to better articulate these messages and get these messages out to black voters,” said U.S. Army veteran and author Rob Smith.

He continued:

What really needs to happen is less incendiary rhetoric and more this is what we have got, because voters don’t care about what you say, they care about what you do. And so what conservative politicians, what they need to start doing is to tell African Americans, show them what they’ve done. 

The Iraq War veteran spoke with Breitbart News at the premiere of Director Justin Malone and Executive Producer Larry Elder’s film, Uncle Tom: An Oral History of the American Black Conservative.

The movie “examines self-empowerment, individualism and rejecting the victim narrative. Uncle Tom shows us a different perspective of American History from this often ignored and ridiculed group,” its website states.

President of the New California Governor Committee Major Williams echoed Smith’s statements and said being a teacher had been the most effective tool for him in showing people how the Democrat Party and progressivism were not what they appeared to be.

Williams stated:

Some of the politics that’s been detrimental for the black community versus what the Republican Party has done for the black community, especially with the Trump administration. And then you actually give them a better alternative to actually gauge that, and that has brought a lot of clarity to a lot of voters that didn’t understand that beforehand.

People from America’s inner cities who left and became successful would do well to return and help create more opportunities to add value to their neighbor’s lives, said Congressional Candidate for California’s 43rd District Joe E. Collins III, who is running against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).

“I know a lot of people are not used to having opportunities, they’re used to getting handouts to keep them depending on the government,” the U.S. Navy veteran told Breitbart News.

“But what the president has said is that, you know that same thing that everyone else has been saying, we have to utilize opportunities that are given to us to create our own, for our own families, and I definitely agree with that,” he concluded.