“I can’t believe in my heart of hearts that America is gonna put him in the White House.”

Martin perches on the edge of a chair, on the front porch of a large house in downtown Asheville. “I’m gonna vote for Hillary Clinton,” he says, “Because I’m old school. Look, the most important thing to me are the Supreme Court justices, and if Trump gets to choose, he’s gonna put someone prejudiced in there.” Martin, to put it frankly, is not a fan of the Republican candidate. “Trump is a fool. I think he’s a big fool,” he says, “First of all, he doesn’t have the character I look for in a candidate. You got to have some moral compass and character. Look, my grandma told me a story, ‘A tiger never changes its stripes,’ and Trump’s not for the Black man. He’s never been for the Black man.”

Martin used to be a Certified Nurses Assistant, but these days he does restaurant work. He still puts in the hours to keep his nursing certification up to date, but the work isn’t as steady as he’d like it to be. Martin says there are a lot of elderly women who need care in the area, but it’s tough as a male in the industry — people have a tough time trusting a man to take care of their mothers, he says. These days, he pretty much sticks to the restaurant work.

Martin is well-traveled, has lived all over the States, and keeps up with the news. Born and raised in New Orleans, he attended Bowling Green State University, lived in Minnesota, San Francisco, Chicago, to name a few. He says he liked both Minnesota and Chicago, until it started snowing. “It was pretty cool, but it was too cold up there. You have to keep in mind that I’m from New Orleans.”

Although Trump’s rise has been unsettling to Martin – “Can you imagine him having the nuclear codes?” he asks – but he’s not sure how much longer Trump’s fame is going to last. “When that last tape came out,” he says, referring to the tape in which Mr. Trump was candidly speaking about groping women, “He was done.”

Martin believes Hillary Clinton is, first and foremost, qualified to be president, and he’s paid attention to the policies and initiatives of both Clintons over the years. “Even though she’s got a silver spoon in her mouth,” he says, “She’s fought for poor people and Black folks her whole life. And, Bill Clinton appointed more Black folk to cabinet positions than anybody else.”

Martin never married and has no children. “Life is pretty simple,” he says, “laid back. I’ve traveled the country, and I’ve seen pretty much everything.”

Asheville, NC:
• Population: 87,882.
• Per capita income: $29,195.
• 76.7% white, 12.3% Black, 6.7% Latino, 2% Asian.
• Percentage below poverty line: 25.3%.

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Asheville, NC

Running On Empty

Andover, OH

The Great White Hope

Flint, MI

Thanks, Obama.