Most people assume that all Southern black women are liberal Democrats who can’t stand President Donald Trump.

It’s a common misperception, according to Huntsville-based executive chef Merle Phillip, who says she’s somewhat of a political “unicorn” – a conservative African-American woman who “got on the Trump train” early on.

That train is taking Phillip to Washington, D.C., this week where she’ll contribute her design and culinary skills as part of an elite volunteer team who were chosen, based on work samples, to prepare the White House for elaborate Christmas festivities including dinners, parties, and tours.

Phillip said in a recent Belle Curve podcast interview that she understands why people make snap judgments about another person’s political beliefs based on their race, but that she believes “you should never judge a book by its cover because you just don’t know.”

Being part of the decades-old tradition of decorating the White House is an opportunity Phillip said she’d have been thrilled to accept no matter who occupies the White House, though she agrees more with Trump than with former President Barack Obama.

Phillip, a mother-of-three grown children, said she was raised by “pretty Democratic parents” in New Jersey and used to be “a lot more liberal.” Her political views evolved as she matured and watched the country change.

She doesn’t believe she’s alone in that shift.

“I think the tide is changing,” she said. “There are a lot more African-Americans … who are walking away from the old Democratic guard, which is surprising but not surprising. …I often say to people, it’s safe to come out of the closet. You can embrace who you are.”

Phillip knows how it feels to take that risk – and be criticized for it.

Her husband Lester, who is also African-American, ran for the Republican nomination in 2010 for Alabama's 5th congressional district, which encompasses the state’s northern most counties.

It was during that race – which U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks won – that Phillip said she and her husband experienced community ostracization and “slight vilification” from black Alabamians, particularly from black church communities who “turned their backs” on the couple.

“They couldn’t wrap their head around [our conservative Republican beliefs],” Phillip said. “They’d say, ‘You’re a sell-out, why don’t you vote the way we all do.’”

At the time she was owner and executive chef of The Eaves -- a Huntsville restaurant that she eventually closed to focus on catering, special event dining, cooking classes, and personal chef services.

Phillip said she got fed up one day when a large table of black customers at her restaurant kept asking her to engage in the type of “woe-is-me” talk that she was sick of hearing.

“We were raised to [be doers],” she said, pointing to her parents’ work ethic and success. “You don’t worry about what the things are going to be against you, you persevere. Education and exposure are the great equalizers.”

Phillip said the “better part of her” told her not to react when some in the group said she “should know what it’s like to be an Uncle Tom.”

But the “big mouth part” couldn’t hold back.

“You know, all I’ve heard you all do is complain about what you don’t have,” she recalls telling them. “If you would just get off the mental plantation, your lives would be so much better … and then let’s talk about what you’re going to do for yourselves rather than what the government isn’t doing for you. Grow up.”

Phillip said such division often happens when African-Americans aren’t in political “lockstep,” but she’s hopeful that’s changing.

“The black community is not monolithic,” she said. “I’m finding many people are a bit more bold now and they’re voting with their families in mind, they’re voting with their pocketbooks, which is really what you should do.”

Meanwhile, she said her trip to the White House this week isn’t about politics.

It’s about the foods, decorations, and gatherings that make this time of year special, a perspective we could, and should, take with us year round.

“It’s pretty clear there’s a lot of division in this country and people need to get past that,” Phillip said. “We’re supposed to be a united front.”

Rachel Blackmon Bryars is a Huntsville-based writer, co-host of Belle Curve Podcast and managing partner of Bryars Communications, LLC.