According to North Carolina NAACP President Rev. William Barber, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump saying black communities are poor is coded language to blame black people for white poverty.

“[Trump]’s not just speaking to suburban whites, he’s also speaking to whites particularly in the South who, for years since Strom Thurmond took the Dixiecrats to the Republican party, have used a kind of divisive politics to suggest that poor white’s problems are because of black people. That’s why he said, ‘Your communities are poor.’ That’s coded language,” Barber said Saturday on MSNBC’s “AM Joy.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent