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AFP
Jackson, United States
Donald Trump called for an end to racial hatred on Saturday at the launch of a museum dedicated to victims of white-supremacist violence in America's Deep South, a ceremony boycotted by several black leaders.
The Republican president's attendance at the gathering to open the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, which came at the invitation of the state's Republican governor, had triggered a backlash from some who marched in the movement to win those rights, including veteran Congressman John Lewis.
Lewis -- who also drew Trump's ire by skipping the presidential inauguration in January -- said Friday that the president's"attendance and his hurtful policies are an insult to the people portrayed in this civil rights museum."
Trump, in his remarks to invited guests prior to the museum's public opening, emphasised the new institution's recording of"the oppression, cruelty and injustice inflicted on the African American community, the fight to end slavery."
"We want our country to be a place where every child from every background can grow up free from fear, innocent of hatred and surrounded by love, opportunity and hope," he said.
Small protests turned out in Jackson against the president's presence, which was also boycotted by the city's mayor and the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Several racially charged controversies have beset the Trump administration in its first year, notably his reaction to an August rally of white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia.
