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  • Sgt. at Arms John L. Pearson, Jr. holds the Mace...

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    Sgt. at Arms John L. Pearson, Jr. holds the Mace as politicians and reenactors from the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation wait to march to the 400th Anniversary Joint Commemorative Session of the Virginia General Assembly at Jamestown Settlement Tuesday July 30, 2019.

  • Delegate Ibraheem Samirah shouts in protest as President Donald Trump...

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    Delegate Ibraheem Samirah shouts in protest as President Donald Trump speaks during the 400th Anniversary Joint Commemorative Session of the Virginia General Assembly at Jamestown Settlement Tuesday July 30, 2019.

  • Gov. Ralph Northam departs Memorial Church at Historic Jamestowne July...

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    Gov. Ralph Northam departs Memorial Church at Historic Jamestowne July 30, 2019.

  • President Donald Trump speaks during the 400th Anniversary Joint Commemorative...

    Jonathon Gruenke /Staff

    President Donald Trump speaks during the 400th Anniversary Joint Commemorative Session of the Virginia General Assembly at Jamestown Settlement Tuesday July 30, 2019.

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In a keynote address to the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, President Donald Trump lauded the efforts of Jamestown colonists as they established a colony and created a representative legislature there in 1619.

He spoke at a special joint session of the Virginia General Assembly, which was held four centuries to the day the body met in what was the first meeting of a representative legislature in North America.

The president and others also reflected on the horror of slavery, which began in Virginia that same year, as well as concern about the challenges facing democracy and optimism those challenges can be overcome.

In a scene that likely would have been familiar to their predecessors in 1619, elected representatives of Virginia communities gathered on a hot summer day in Jamestown. This time, it was to recognize the first time a representative legislature met in English North America, starting centuries of democratic governance in what would become the United States.

President Trump delivered his remarks to a tent packed with hundreds of people — including state and federal lawmakers, former Virginia governors and other invited guests in Jamestown Settlement. Others, such as Gov. Ralph Northam and Democratic House and Senate leadership and the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, were absent.

“From the first legislative assembly down to today, America has been the story of citizens who take ownership of their future and control of their destiny. That is what self-rule is all about — everyday Americans coming together to pursue the common good and to never stop striving for greatness,” Trump said.

President Donald Trump speaks during the 400th Anniversary Joint Commemorative Session of the Virginia General Assembly at Jamestown Settlement Tuesday July 30, 2019.
President Donald Trump speaks during the 400th Anniversary Joint Commemorative Session of the Virginia General Assembly at Jamestown Settlement Tuesday July 30, 2019.

The joint session was a main event of the 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution, a statewide recognition of several key events that took place 400 years ago that had major effects on the culture and politics of what would become the United States. In addition to the first assembly of a legislative body in English North America, 1619 was also the year the first enslaved Africans arrived on American shores and the first year English women were recruited in earnest to come to the fledgling colony.

In his remarks, Trump marveled at the independence, courage and faith of the first English colonists who came to an unfamiliar land to create a new community. He said those characteristics continue to drive America’s progress today.

“In America, no challenge is too great, no journey is too tough, no task is too large, no dream is beyond our reach. When we set our sight on the summit, nothing can stand in our way. America always gets the job done, America always wins. That is why after 400 years of glorious American democracy, we have returned here to this place to declare to all the world that the United States of America and the great Commonwealth of Virginia are just getting started,” Trump said.

But just as English colonists were establishing the foundations of representative government, Trump noted that same year was the first recorded arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia.

“It was the beginning of a barbaric trade in human lives. Today, in honor, we remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage,” Trump said.

Though the event sought to maintain a theme of unity and shared celebration of America’s long-standing tradition of representative democracy, some were upset at the president’s presence at the event.

During Trump’s remarks, Del. Ibraheem Samirah stood up in protest, gripping a sign that read “deport hate” and “go back to your corrupted home.” He was escorted away by police amid chants of Trump’s name from event guests.

“This is my session as a Virginia state delegate. We have the full right to protest inside our General Assembly,” Samirah said after the session ended. During the session, lawmakers passed a resolution commemorating the first legislative assembly.

After the event, House Speaker Kirk Cox issued a statement condemning Samirah’s action.

Delegate Ibraheem Samirah shouts in protest as President Donald Trump speaks during the 400th Anniversary Joint Commemorative Session of the Virginia General Assembly at Jamestown Settlement Tuesday July 30, 2019.
Delegate Ibraheem Samirah shouts in protest as President Donald Trump speaks during the 400th Anniversary Joint Commemorative Session of the Virginia General Assembly at Jamestown Settlement Tuesday July 30, 2019.

“All Delegates must conduct themselves respectfully, regardless of political differences. It’s a custom and practice dating back to the first meeting which we are celebrating today,” he said.

As reports surfaced last week that Trump had been invited to the event, Democratic leadership in the House and Senate declared they wouldn’t attend an event that featured the president. Northam, who was among those who invited Trump to the event in an August 2018 letter, didn’t attend the joint session. Northam did deliver remarks at another event related to the commemoration earlier in the day.

“The current president does not represent the values that we would celebrate at the 400th anniversary of the oldest democratic body in the Western world,” Democratic House and Senate leaders said in a statement.

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus followed suit on Monday, saying in a statement it would boycott the 2019 Commemoration programming scheduled for the early part of this week in favor of alternative events in Richmond.

“The commemoration of the birth of this nation and its democracy will be tarnished unduly with the participation of the president, who continues to make degrading comments toward minority leaders, promulgate policies that harm marginalized communities, and use racist and xenophobic rhetoric,” the statement read.

Several hundred people demonstrated against the president outside the museum. A group of the president’s supporters also demonstrated nearby in solidarity with Trump.

The joint session kicked off inside the recreated church at Jamestown Settlement before moving to the large outdoor tent where Trump gave his remarks. In the church’s pews sat the representatives of modern-day districts that encompass the original 11 major English settlements that sent delegations to Jamestown in 1619, among other guests.

Cox mused on the honor and responsibility of elected lawmakers with his peers and guests.

“We are fortunate to be among the many keepers of the flame of American democracy that was first lit … right here in Jamestown, Virginia, 400 years ago,” Cox said.

But while Americans looked toward the past at their country’s foundation, there’s still an uncertain future for that democratic foundation. It’s the responsibility of all Americans to preserve it, said Jon Meacham, a presidential historian.

“The work of America is not done. The American evolution unfolds still. That is our blessing and our burden. Extremism, racism, nativism, xenophobia and isolationism driven by fear of the unknown tend to spike in periods of stress, a period like our own,” he said.

Meacham noted that faith is fading in representative institutions amid strengthening partisanship.

“Our politics rewards the clenched fist and the harsh remark more than the open hand and welcoming word — yet history teaches us that we’ve always grown stronger the more widely we opened our arms and the more generously we’ve interpreted the most important sentence ever originally rendered in English: Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that all men are created equal.”

The General Assembly’s joint session followed an early-morning gathering at the Memorial Church at Historic Jamestowne. It was a fitting setting, given that the church sits on the site of the church where the first assembly met.

There, Sir David Natzler, former clerk of the British House of Commons, drew upon the connections between Parliament and the creation of a similar body at Jamestown, and noted representative government had spread throughout the world.

Gov. Ralph Northam departs Memorial Church at Historic Jamestowne July 30, 2019.
Gov. Ralph Northam departs Memorial Church at Historic Jamestowne July 30, 2019.

“Jamestown was in many ways a child of Parliament, and you can see the descendants of Jamestown throughout the world, from its cousin bodies throughout the United States, to the people of Hong Kong taking to the streets to demand representation today,” he said.

The governor noted the progress made by Americans and the progress that needs to come.

“Our doors are open and our lights are on, no matter who you are, who you love or where you came from, you are welcome in Virginia. There is nothing more American than that, and even as we stand here today proud of the progress we’ve made, let’s not forget we have a long way to go,” Northam said.

Staff writers Rodrigo Arriaza and Sean CW Korsgaard contributed to this report.