LOS ANGELES - Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (BOO’-tuh-juhj) is urging students to speak out against racial bias when they experience it, and he faults President Donald Trump for deepening the nation’s racial divide.

The South Bend, Indiana, mayor fielded a series of questions Thursday about race relations after encountering a group of students in Los Angeles while on a tour of a business that was co-founded by the late rapper Nipsey Hussle.

The apparently unplanned encounter with the group of mostly black students from the Midwest gave Buttigieg the opportunity to listen to their concerns about ongoing racial friction in cities and schools.

Buttigieg’s visit was squeezed in on a long day of fundraising — a typical pattern for presidential candidates in California, one of the nation’s fonts of campaign cash.