Uprising

by Diamond

  But we told her that we still wanted to go on with the event.

  By the way, don’t let anyone rain on your parade and mess up what you have going on. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: when people do that, it’s because of their own ignorance or because they may be envious or just greedy.

  That’s right.

  Move right on, and allow it to backfire in their faces. It sure did in our case, because whereas our two young facilitators tried to tell us how to play, Tressie Ham listened. Lord knows, when you can’t figure it out, it may be time to step back and let somebody else figure it out.

  And that’s exactly what we did.

  So we stepped back and we allowed this event planner named Tressie Ham to work her magic.

  She had the event space within two days.

  Yes. She also added two more events to our schedule: a coffee and conversation and a little dance party with cake and wine at night. There was a charge if folks wanted to be a part of that, but the main rally was free.

  She had everything lined up, and she said, “Girls, don’t worry. We’re going to have a nice event.”

  That’s right.

  So when we got to Bradenton, y’all, just like she promised, she had everything lined up professionally. Everything looked beautiful. Now, I can’t tell y’all that we had thousands; I can’t even tell y’all that we had five hundred people. We may have had a hundred people there that day, but it was a wonderful time, and the people who came out were happy to be there.

  The media was declaring that Donald Trump had no support from women. This just wasn’t true.

  To be able to be at that event, especially as a woman—even though some men were there and welcomed—but to be there as a woman declaring, “I’m supporting Donald Trump,” that was a magnificent event.

  It was a magnificent evening. We did our coffee and conversation that morning. After the rally, we were able to dance, eat cake, and drink wine. We had a great time.

  Yes.

  We went in the hole because we had to pay for everything.

  We were under the hole, hahaha, but we weren’t bitter.

  No, not at all. We were excited about it.

  So we paid for everything, and we asked Tressie how much her bill would be. Y’all, her bill to us was zero.

  She wouldn’t charge us anything.

  She essentially said, “I can’t charge you; I feel like I’d be wrong before God if I did. I can’t charge you anything.”

  She just wanted to help us. Out of everybody that has come along in our lives and crossed our path, Tressie Ham is still in our lives. She’s still our event planner; she runs the store for Diamond and Silk; she is like a jewel. She was what we needed when we needed it.

  Yes. She stepped in, and she wasn’t looking for anything. She was just happy that she was able to get it done.

  Tressie Ham has never used or exploited us, and she always tries to see how she can make things better.

  Mm-hmm. People ask us how we put our events together and how to do this and that, and we can’t even tell them because we don’t have anything to do with it. We just show up, and Tressie has everything set up. You have to go through Tressie if you want to know what’s going on with the events.

  You know, by her being a giver she has become a part of us, it seems like for life, because she has been with us ever since.

  Ever since 2016.

  And here it is, 2020.

  Exactly. She’s right there with us, along with her husband Bill.

  Yes. Now, Bill started coming along on our Chit Chat tours to sell the merchandise, and he just became a permanent fixture.

  That’s right.

  So on all of our Chit Chat tours, the guy that you see back there selling the merchandise is Bill Ham.

  Now, I want my black brothers and sisters to understand this: You can’t call everybody racist. These people are white people, and they go to bat for us. They make sure everything is done correctly and beautifully.

  That’s right. They show up before we get there to make sure everything is in place.

  That’s right. So, y’all want to tell me black lives matter? We know our black lives matter.

  Yes, we do.

  So do these white lives that really look out for us, and that is the truth.

  That’s the truth. All lives matter.

  So Tressie and Bill are just like part of the family. They’re loved. We’ll never find another like Tressie.

  And she makes the best crawfish and gumbo, y’all.

  Yes, she certainly does.

  Chapter 11 Rejection Is God’s Protection—and Redirection

  In June 2016, we received an email from someone who offered us money to stop stumping for Donald Trump. Y’all, they wanted us to publicly switch our support to a different candidate and stop stumping for him.

  Mm-hmm.

  So when I saw that, I was flabbergasted.

  When people want to make a contribution to us, that’s an investment that they’re making to donate to our cause. This wasn’t a contribution to invest in our cause; this was a fee being offered to stop us from talking about Donald Trump. The payback for the money would have been for us to shut up.

  That’s right.

  So it wasn’t somebody trying to invest in us.

  No, no, no.

  They were trying to create a deal with us. The deal was, I’ll pay you—bam—you shut up.

  And what they wanted to pay us was $150,000. They thought that we were that needy and lacking in integrity that $150,000 would make us publicly switch our support from Donald J. Trump. I could not believe I was actually looking at what I was looking at.

  Well, see, they thought we were token blacks.

  They thought wrong.

  Token blacks do what they’re told to do. We’re Diamond and Silk. We’re not token blacks, and we don’t owe anybody anything.

  You got that right.

  We can vote and stump for whoever we want to vote for, and that’s exactly what we did and continue to do.

  No amount of money would have stopped us from stumping for Donald J. Trump.

  That’s right. We were with him from the beginning, and we will be with him to the end.

  To the very end. That’s right. We’re absolutely not going anywhere. After looking at everything that has gone on within our country, Donald Trump had the solutions to the issues that had been plaguing America, especially black America. For us, it wasn’t about the party—and we’ve said this before—it was about the person, and we wanted him to be president.

  Well, you know, during that time, especially back in 2016, you would have black people talking about how they were still in chains. They actually felt like they were enchained.

  Yeah. I remember seeing one guy actually in chains.

  They didn’t realize that the more you stay chained to the system, the more you miss out on opportunities, blessings, and freedoms that exist around you. It’s time for black people to wake up. We should not be the poster children for lack and limitation.

  That’s right. So that was really a manipulative tactic. First came the email talking about how they loved our enthusiasm for the political race, how they loved us on social media, and how they tried to build us up. Then, in the next sentence, they asked us to denounce our beliefs. They couldn’t understand why we were supporting Donald Trump.

  It’s the stereotype that if a black person is doing something, they must be getting paid for it.

  What they didn’t realize is that we knew what the Democrats were about. We knew how the Left operated. We weren’t accepting any of it.

  None of it. We didn’t tell anybody about this. We didn’t make it public. We’re talking about it right now in our book so that y’all will know what Diamond and Silk have gone through and all of the different things that have come our way—but we continue to stand strong.

  Raleigh, North Carolina, Rally: Duke Energy Center, July 5, 2016

  Candidate Trum
p came to Raleigh, North Carolina, again in July 2016. We were due to speak at the rally. Trump’s North Carolina campaign director at the time was Earl. He greeted us and seated us in the audience. We were surrounded by a lot of doting fans; the crowd was excited, and everyone wanted to take pictures.

  We were finally called up to speak, and afterwards, y’all, he sat us back in the audience.

  Yes, he did.

  So we’re getting bombarded with people taking pictures and saying hello. Finally, you can tell there’s some movement going on, something was happening, and, all of a sudden, Earl comes and says, “You two, come with me.”

  Mm-hmm.

  “They want y’all backstage.”

  So we went backstage, and we’re just standing there. We saw some of the Trump team come in, and we waved at them and spoke to them. Out of the blue, in walked candidate Trump, and when he looked around the corner and saw that it was us, we all just started laughing.

  We were like kids at the playground.

  When he greeted us, we were standing next to Pastor Mark Barnes. I’ll never forget this: First, candidate Trump turned to Pastor Mark Barnes and said that he wanted him to speak at the convention. Then, Trump turned to us, Diamond and Silk, directly. He had a seriousness in his eyes and said that he wanted us to speak at the Republican National Convention.

  That’s right. He wanted us to speak.

  We were so excited. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves because this would be the first time we had ever done something this huge.

  Somebody that we’d basically come to genuinely love looked at us specifically and asked us to do this.

  That’s exactly what he did.

  So I remember going home, and I really wasn’t able to sleep because I just couldn’t believe it. There was no doubt we were going to do this.

  Cleveland, Ohio: Republican National Convention, Quicken Loans Arena, July 18–21, 2016

  So a few days later, some of the names of the speakers for the convention came out. Well, I was a little disappointed because Pastor Mark Barnes’s name was on the list, but ours were not. Even though candidate Trump had requested our appearance and asked us to speak, for some reason our names were left off the roster.

  Right.

  But even though we didn’t know what was supposed to be happening or where, we knew that we were supposed to speak. Before we got to the RNC, we reached out to a gentleman named Rick to see what day we were speaking on. I think he gave us a day, like either that Monday or Tuesday.

  That’s right. We asked because we needed to know when we were expected to be there, etc.

  Right. Because this was the first time we had ever been to a convention.

  Right. And this was like three full days; it was a long event. This wasn’t something that happened in a day.

  That’s right. So Rick told us he would get back with us and let us know exactly when we were supposed to speak.

  Now, a lady by the name of Ann Stone was going to be our point person at the convention because we really were brand new to this environment. Ann was a lovely lady whom we’d met previously when she picked us up at the airport for another Women for Trump event.

  Ann was so helpful and patient. We had a lot of questions because this was our first time really in the political arena, and we didn’t know a whole lot about the convention process.

  Exactly. She was always respectful and considerate as she explained things to us.

  But before we got to the convention, there was a rumor going around that Diamond and Silk wouldn’t be attending the event. The false media had hyped it up that people were going to be out there protesting, and it was going to be so bad that Diamond and Silk had canceled their plans to attend.

  Mm-hmm.

  Alex Jones’s people put that out.

  That’s right.

  Now, let me just say this: I don’t have anything against Alex Jones, but somebody in his camp used Twitter to make it appear as though we were not going to be at the Republican National Convention because we were receiving threats. That was a flat-out lie.

  A flat-out lie.

  We hadn’t received one threat, and I don’t know where Alex Jones’s camp got that story from or why they were spreading it around.

  Mm-hmm.

  So this was just another example of media lies. We said nothing; we knew we were still going to this convention, and we booked our hotel.

  That’s right.

  When we got to the particular hotel, though, we didn’t like some of the key features. Luckily, they had a room left at another hotel. Although it was pricey, we decided to switch. When we got to the new hotel, people were loving on us. They knew us, and they were happy we were staying at the same hotel as them.

  Now, even though Ann Stone was our handler, there were certain things that we had to navigate ourselves. And, really, I’ll tell you, we just didn’t know.

  That’s right. It was a little unorganized.

  So the first thing Ann Stone did, the night before the Republican National Convention, was take us to a media party, where we met media personalities.

  At this media event for the Republican National Convention, I was so tickled because there we were greeting people in the media that we had been talking about and going off on just days before.

  Hahaha.

  But this was like an everyday thing for them, and they were all very friendly and pleasant.

  They seemed excited about meeting us and wanted to take pictures and the whole deal.

  Mm-hmm. And that was the first night, y’all, that we met Omarosa.

  Oh… Omarosa.

  I was interested in meeting Omarosa because she was on The Apprentice. She was one of the first reality TV stars. It didn’t surprise me when she turned out to be a snake. I found her to be sneaky, envious, and cunning; we learned later on that night that she was allegedly upset that Ann Stone was showing us around and not her. Even though we had some good times, some exciting times, I felt from the first that I couldn’t fully trust her.

  Mm-hmm. For me, I was honored to meet Omarosa because I’d heard a lot about her. So meeting her was, like, “Wow, this is Omarosa”. We took pictures, and she acted like she was excited to meet us. It was a celebration moment. We just met briefly, and that was it.

  There was a young lady who came up to us, and she was supposed to be our go-to person for the speech. Because, remember, candidate Donald J. Trump wanted us to speak.

  That’s right. He wanted us to speak.

  She wanted us to call her the next day at a specific time.

  Mm-hmm.

  But when we called her the next day at that specific time, we could not get in contact with her.

  No answer.

  We called and called and called.

  We could not get in contact with her or any other person.

  We knew we were getting the runaround. Now, when we first got to this party, it was like, “Okay, ya’ll are going to be speaking; I’m going to be your go-to girl; I’m so excited for y’all.”

  Then, the very next day, we do exactly what she tells us to do, and she’s nowhere to be found.

  Yes. She disappeared like a thief in the night.

  So were we disappointed? Absolutely.

  Hell, yes.

  We were disappointed because candidate Trump wanted us to speak.

  And another thing, we’re prompt. If we’re asked to do something, we want to know when, where, how, and why so that we can be there on time and be present. We’re women of our word.

  Right.

  We wanted to be present and honor our word. So if we’re supposed to be somewhere on Monday at eleven o’clock, we want to be there at ten o’clock to make sure we are where we’re supposed to be and doing what we said we were going to do.

  Nobody could tell us what was going on, and I was not only disappointed, but I was pissed off because I don’t like to be in the dark.

  Yes. I felt like we were being given the runaround, and these
people were acting like cowards. They knew what was going on, but they wouldn’t tell us.

  Right. And these were people with the RNC in 2016.

  That’s right. So the next day, we went on media row, which is a big room filled with tables where the different media outlets are positioned. They conduct interview after interview. All major television, cable news, and radio stations are present.

  It was like a domino effect. Once we got on media row and did the first interview, somebody wanted the second, then somebody wanted the third and fourth and so on.

  Yes.

  We spent two days on media row, doing interviews.

  Yes, that’s how it happened.

  We came to really understand the power of the media: we were sitting in this huge room, talking to all of these media personalities one by one, but the whole world was hearing us.

  Yes.

  I think we had garnered about fifty thousand new fans and followers on social media, just from doing all of those interviews.

  That’s right. Just imagine sitting in that one room, but we’re all over the world at the same time.

  Mm-hmm. That’s just how it was.

  So, finally, we realized we weren’t going to speak at the convention. Our names weren’t on the programs; they had given us the runaround. Nobody answered our calls; nobody could tell us anything.

  Mm-hmm. We were very disappointed.

  So we reached out to George, one of our contact people, to ask him what was going on.

  Mm-hmm.

  He didn’t have the answers. He couldn’t get involved with what the RNC people were doing.

  Right.

  However, he made sure that we sat with family and friends.

  Yes, he sure did.

  So it was like we were home once we got up there. We were able to mingle; we were able to hear; it was comfortable. One day of the convention, they put us in the high-profile section, where you have to rotate, and we were able to sit there for a little bit before going back to the skybox.

  Mm-hmm. I remember a lot of people taking pictures.

  We had left the skybox and were sitting in the audience directly in front of the skybox when Ted Cruz went onstage to give his speech. That night he refused to endorse Donald Trump, and he was booed offstage.