Linda A. Moore

USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee

MEMPHIS — Early in each semester, Gerald Green, an adjunct professor at LeMoyne-Owen College, hauls a small boombox to class and plays the 1971 Temptations hit “Ball of Confusion” for his American government students.

That song, with its references to racism, war and “cities ablaze on the summertime” is as relevant today as it was 45 years ago in the discussion on government’s role in unraveling the ball, said Green, an attorney who also teaches criminal justice and political science.

But a line in that song — “Vote for me and I’ll set you free! Rap on brother, rap on” — epitomizes the sincerity some see in Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s outreach to Africa-American voters.

In 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain got 4 percent of the black vote compared with President Barack Obama’s 95 percent. Four years later, Republican nominee Mitt Romney bested McCain by pulling in 6 percent of the black vote.

Recent polls show Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with an 80 percent favorable rating among African-Americans.

“I think she is the best choice between the two of them. She is very well qualified, she has worked her way up to this point. She has been through the ranks,” Sadie Heaston, a retired teacher, said. “We’ll get two-for-one or three-for-one. She has expertise plus her husband has expertise. And our president, who I have confidence in, endorsed her. I think she will get his help as well.”

Meanwhile, polls have put Trump’s favorable ratings with African-American voters at anywhere from 0-to-2 percent.

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And despite what would appear to be insurmountable odds, Trump continues to campaign as if he can swing a significant percentage of black voters.

Trump is trying, visiting majority-black Jackson, Miss., an African-American church in Detroit and speaking to black parents and students at a charter school in Cleveland on Thursday.

That’s not what resonates with voters.

“You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?” Trump said late last month while addressing a nearly all-white audience in Ohio.

It’s that kind of rhetoric that has professional political observers, political insiders and random African-Americans questioning the real estate mogul’s credibility and his knowledge about the African-American community.

“I’ll just say the black experience is a beautiful experience. I grew up in South Memphis, I go to a black church, I live in my own black community and black life is a beautiful life if you live it in accordance with your faith and in peace with everybody else,” said Robert Hill, a minister and the executive director of governmental and legislative affairs in the Shelby County Trustee’s office.

Trump wasn’t the best Republican option for mainstream America, said Hill, who is active in Shelby County Republican politics and plans to write-in a vote for Gov. Bill Haslam.

He won’t vote for Trump, and he doesn’t talk to other African-American Republicans about their party’s nominee.

“I think America should be a melting pot of ideals and ideologies and all races. I think America is too mainstream now to take us back to a draconian age. I think that’s what Trump’s ideology is,” Hill said.

Trump paints with too broad a brush, said attorney Yollander Hardaway, president of the Democratic Women of Shelby County.

There are problems in the black community, Hardaway said, but the vast majority of African-Americans are not living the wretched lives Trump has described.

“What it does do, it ignores all the blacks who have made very strong contributions to this country,” Hardaway said. “If you follow his way of thinking, if all of us need help because we’re all in this dire straits, it means those people (who) have done heart transplants, black astronauts, people who fought for this country, teachers, professors, it ignores a large segment of black leaders.”

Some have claimed the message wasn’t for the black community, but to make some white voters more comfortable.

“I think it’s a strategy. I don’t think it’s pure and noble. I think it’s a strategy to get votes under false pretenses,” said Sadie Heaston, a retired teacher.

Trump is a bully, she said, and has other behaviors she doesn’t like.

“I feel that his philosophies are not indicative of a leader of the United States of America. I think he’s rude. I think he will lead our country in a way that will not be reflective of diversity,” Heaston said.

Green wouldn’t call Trump racist, but points to endorsements from Ku Klux Klan leadership, white supremacists and white nationalists.

“When you see who else is supporting Donald Trump, and they’re certainly enemies of your views, you say what can be attracting them to him if he’s not saying things they want him to say,” Green said. “With his upbringing and affluence, he probably hasn’t’ been exposed (to African-Americans) except in servitude.”

Clifford Minor, 80, a security guard and retired from the military, was less diplomatic.

“I don’t think he’ll make a good president, and I think he’s a racist and I don’t think he likes black people really,” Minor said. “And you’ve got the Hispanics, you’ve got the Muslims. He doesn’t like either one of them. There are a lot of people he doesn’t like.”

Tarenzo Davis, 24, an artist, took great offense to this Trump tweet: “Dwayne Wade’s cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!”

For Davis, the tweet about his favorite NBA player (whose correct first name is spelled Dwyane) was another callous way to gain political advantage.

“He really doesn’t care about us, and if he does get in office, I just think he’s going to look past us and just continue to be an annoying, arrogant rich person,” he said.

As Clinton supporters, Heaston and Minor can easily rattle off her presidential qualifications as a former secretary of state, the U.S. senator from New York and as former First Lady. Davis will vote for Clinton too.

“The first reason is so Donald Trump won’t get in. The second reason is why not? I feel like we gave an African-American a chance, why not let a woman get a chance in the office. We can only go up. Hopefully, she can do the job if she does get the office,” he said.

Like many people, Keith Bolden, 56, a medical support assistant with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, hasn’t given the presidential race his full attention, but plans to tune in as election day gets closer.

Bolden has issues with Clinton and isn’t sold on Trump.

“She was the governor’s wife for a period of time. She was the president’s wife for a period of time. She was the secretary of state for a period of time. I think it’s time for her to just step back,” he said, although Clinton may be the lessor of two evils.

“It’s going to be a hard choice when I get into the booth,” Bolden said. “I don’t know what I’m going to choose.”

However, Green believes most African-American voters aren’t like Bolden.

African-American voters have helped deliver the presidency in the past for John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and with record turnouts for Obama, Green said.

They’ll weigh the candidates, dismiss what Green calls “overblown” issues on Clinton’s trustworthiness and vote for her in November, he said.

“She is a very dynamic woman. She’s smart, she’s paid her dues politically,” Green said. “If there is the possibility of having a resume' for president, I think she certainly has built one.”