Navajo Pastor Runs For President Of The U.S.

By Laurel Morales
Published: Friday, May 31, 2019 - 1:10pm
Updated: Monday, June 3, 2019 - 8:13am
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Mark Charles
Mark Charles proposes a truth and conciliation commission in 2021. He talked about it in a TEDx Talk.

A Navajo pastor is throwing his hat into the presidential ring along with 26 other candidates. Mark Charles is running as an independent candidate in 2020.

Charles is running on a platform that seeks to "build a nation where 'we the people' means 'all the people.'" As he said in a YouTube video announcing his run for president, the constitution may say "we the people" but it actually means white landowning men who can vote.

"I believe we need a national dialogue on race, gender and class, a conversation I would put on par with the truth and reconciliation commissions that happened in South Africa, in Rwanda and in Canada," Charles said. "I would call ours truth and conciliation because reconciliation implies there was a previous harmony. And I think we need one sooner rather than later."

Charles' father is Navajo and his mother is Dutch American. He has lived on the Navajo Nation and Denver but is currently based in Washington, D.C.

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