Tim Kaine accused Donald Trump of a history of racism. | AP Photo Kaine accuses Trump of history of racism The Trump campaign didn’t send anyone to Urban League event, leaving the GOP nominee without anyone to respond to Kaine's charges.

BALTIMORE — Tim Kaine showed up. Donald Trump’s campaign didn’t.

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee made a special trip here on Thursday, veering off the battleground campaign trail to address the National Urban League’s presidential plenary. He received a warm reception from city planners and elected officials for an address focusing on how friendly the Democratic ticket is to big cities across the country that grapple with crime, economic disparities and failing infrastructure.


And he was able to get in a tough jab at Trump without the GOP campaign being able to punch back. Kaine contrasted the efforts of his father-in-law, former Virginia GOP Gov. Linwood Holton, on integrating the state’s public schools with lawsuits alleging Trump and his family were hostile to black renters in the 1970s.

“Around the time my father-in-law desegregated Virginia’s schools,” Kaine said, “the Justice Department had filed suit after Donald Trump and his father were refusing to rent apartments to African-Americans. It was one of the largest federal cases of its kind at the time.”

The remark instantly rippled through the audience here and across social media, demonstrating to some Democrats that the Clinton-Kaine ticket is paying attention to cities that aren’t electorally competitive because they are overwhelmingly Democratic.

Kaine "realizes the pain. He may not be able to fully feel the pain, but he realizes there’s pain. And I don’t know that Trump even realizes there’s pain with regard to the African-American community and what we’ve been through,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) in an interview afterward.

Though Trump has vowed to help rebuild America’s inner cities, the campaign did not send an emissary to address attendees at this conference, despite invitations from Urban League President Marc H. Morial. And so the Clinton campaign got the stage all to itself.

“The Hillary Clinton campaign accepted our invitation and sent their vice-presidential nominee, Tim Kaine,” Morial said, stressing the organization’s unsuccessful bipartisan entreaties. “The Donald Trump campaign, who we spoke with and corresponded with a number of times, declined our invitation.”

Morial recounted how both Barack Obama and John McCain came to the group's 2008 conference. But in 2012, Mitt Romney turned them down, tilting the conference toward the Democrats.

Aides to the Trump campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment on why campaign representatives didn’t attend the event. Following the event, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks pointed to a previous statement from Trump attorney Alan Garten. "There is absolutely no merit to the allegations," the statement said. "This suit was brought as part of a nationwide inquiry against a number of companies, and the matter was ultimately settled without any finding of liability and without any admission of wrongdoing whatsoever.”

In his address at the “Save our Cities” event at the Inner Harbor, Kaine, a former Richmond mayor and Virginia governor, trained his remarks mostly on the nuts and bolts of how local leaders have the most tangible effects on the lives of everyday Americans. He gave his bio, describing coming up as a city councilman and mayor in crime-ridden Richmond who understood the nuts and bolts of urban life in America, including sending his children to Richmond’s public schools.

“I’d seen extreme poverty in Honduras. Some parts of Richmond weren’t that far off,” Kaine said.

He also highlighted his work fighting “redlining” practices that banks used to deny African-Americans from getting home loans in certain neighborhoods. At one point, he embraced the ascendant Black Lives Matter movement:

"If English lives in history matter, if Spanish lives in history matter, then African-American lives in history ought to matter to us too. African-American history matters because black lives matter."

He reprised many elements of his campaign stump speech and was not subtle in seeking to shore up the campaign’s support in metropolitan areas across the country.

“If Hillary and I win this November, you’ll have not one but two people in the White House who understand the challenges of America’s cities,” Kaine said. “We need your help this fall, and I’m not ashamed to ask for it.”