Scott Turner in 2019 at The White House Opportunity Zones Conference with President Donald Trump. PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA

Miami – After facing backlash for excluding Blacks from joining his administration, President-elect Donald Trump finally added one African American to serve in his Cabinet.

Late Friday afternoon, Trump nominated Scott Turner to be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), making him the first Black to serve in Trump’s predominately white administration.

All of Trump’s picks for his Cabinet must be approved by Senate confirmation.

Scott, 52, served as executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council.

"I am pleased to nominate Scott Turner, from the Great State of Texas, as the Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)," Trump said in a statement. "Scott is an NFL

Veteran, who, during my First Term, served as the First Executive Director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council (WHORC), helping to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities. Those efforts, working together with former HUD Secretary, Ben Carson, were maximized by Scott’s guidance in overseeing 16 Federal Agencies which implemented more than 200 policy actions furthering Economic Development.

Under Scott’s leadership, Opportunity Zones received over $50 Billion Dollars in Private Investment."

After graduating from University of Illinois, Scott was drafted by the Washington Redskins and spent nine years in the NFL before he went on to win a state House race in Texas, where he was born and raised.

Scott is the Founder and CEO of his family’s foundation, Community Engagement & Opportunity Council (CEOC), working to revitalize communities across America through sports, mentorship, and economic opportunity. He is also on the board of the American Cornerstone Institute, and an associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church.

Trump was criticized for picking an all-white administration during his first two weeks after winning the November election, three of whom were tied to scandals.

About 29 percent of Black men living in the U.S., especially the key battleground states, voted for Trump, according to several polls, with most of them supporting his plan to boost the economy.

During the 2024 campaign trial, Trump reached out to Black voters by outlining his plan to improve the economy as some of them noted they were unemployed and blamed the President Biden-Vice President Kamala Haris administration for their economic downturn.

About 80 percent of Blacks voted for Harris who lost all the key battleground states and popular vote to Trump.

The Rev. Al Sharpton took note and criticized Trump for lacking Black Cabinet or high-level administration appointees before he picked Turner.

“In the two weeks since Donald Trump was elected to a second term, he has put forth a dozen troubling nominees, yet the most alarming factor in his proposed Cabinet is that not a single candidate is Black,” said Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network.

Sharpton accused Trump of using Black voters to regain power but picking his leadership team with checkered pasts that are not useful to the Black community.

“Instead of meeting the demands of more Black voters who supported him, Donald Trump has proposed an attorney general nominee wrapped up in an ethics probe over trafficking allegations and a Health secretary whose views on vaccines and other safeguards could devastate our community.”

Trump’s Cabinet includes Scott, Tom Homan as border czar, Florida’s U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Pam Bondi as attorney general, Fox News host Pete Hegeseth as Secretary of Defense, Karoline Leavitt White House Press Secretary, Stephen Mill Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy and Linda McMahon Education Secretary.

His initial pick for Attorney General Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination after he was accused of having sexual relations with a minor and paying money for sex, and said he didn’t want to be a distraction for Trump’s return to the White House.

Bondi was a former Florida Attorney General for 2011-2019 and one of Trump’s lawyers in his first impeachment trial.

Hegesth reportedly paid a woman, who accused him of sexual assault, a confidential financial settlement concerned he would lose his job.

McMahon reportedly separated from her husband, Vince McMahon, former owner of World Wrestling Entertainment who is facing a pile of sexual assault allegations by former employees.

Also, Trump is a convicted felon from his hush money trial but sentencing has been postponed indefinitely since he won the election.

Several Black Republicans and staunch Trump supporters including Southwest Florida U.S. Rep. Bryon Donalds, who was elected to Congress in 2020, were overlooked for Trump’s Cabinet.

Donalds, who worked in the finance, insurance and banking industries, is a member of the conservative wing of the Republican Party and was nominated for the speakership in the fourth through 11th rounds of voting.

Donalds voted to object to the certification of electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania in the 2020 Presidential election when Trump lost to Biden, and made headlines this year when he said Black families were together during the Jim Crow era and refused to sign a letter denouncing White supremacy.

Donalds, who was on Trump’s list for vice president, said he wasn’t surprised Trump didn’t select him.

“All I will say is I am not surprised that I have not been named, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do other things in the future,” Donalds said on CNN News.

South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Scott, who ran for president but dropped his bid after poor Republican Primary results, is also a rising star in Washington.

Though he was not a choice for Trump’s Cabinet, Scott did applaud the President-elect’s pick of Howard Lutnick as U.S. Secretary of Commerce and the rest of the GOP leadership.

"Howard Lutnick is a successful businessman who understands both the American economy and global markets inside and out," Scott said in a statement. "Howard will be a valuable part of President Trump’s team that will hold foreign bad actors accountable, empower our nation’s job creators, and unlock American innovation and opportunity. That’s good news for American families and small businesses that have been held back by the Biden-Harris administration’s burdensome, far-left regulatory agenda."

Scott arose above poverty in South Carolina to earn a degree from Charleston Southern University, started his own small business and got elected to Congress.

After the presidential election, Scott said Republicans are ready to carry out Trump’s agenda.

That includes launching the largest mass deportation in U.S. history and another attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“Without any question, President Trump set out to make sure that Americans felt like this country and the American Dream was alive and well and there for them," Scott said of Trump’s picks for GOP leadership. "From the border to fixing the economy, to solving the issue of crime and restoring confidence on the global stage, President Trump has been very clear on his agenda. Our goal is to make sure that we achieve those objectives.”

Scott voted against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to make her the first Black woman to serve on the highest court in the nation.

Dr. Ben Carson was the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during Trump’s first term.

Carson, considered one of the most prominent Black conservatives in the country, ran for President in 2016 but dropped his bid after poor results from the Republican Primary.

Carson became the director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in 1984 at the age 33, which at the time was the youngest in U.S. history.

In 1987, he led a team of surgeons in the first known separation of conjoined twins joined at the back of the head.

Carson’s additional accomplishments include performing the first successful neurosurgical procedure on a fetus inside the womb, developing new methods to treat brain-stem tumors, and revitalizing hemispherectomy techniques for controlling seizures.