Meet some of Donald Trump’s black supporters

When a Black Lives Matter protester was kicked and punched at a Donald Trump rally in Alabama last year, the GOP presidential candidate gave his ringing endorsement.

"Maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing," Trump said.

It was around the same time that Trump came under fire for retweeting an image of a masked dark-skinned man with a gun beside bogus crime stats about the number of murders committed by blacks in the U.S.

Months later, Trump dragged his feet before disavowing white supremacist David Duke — and shocked the nation when he singled out a black supporter and called him "my African-American."

Through it all, Trump insists he is "the least racist person" around — and some black people have even bought it.

“If you really look at the facts, he's trying to promote policies that would help black people," said Dequan Shelton, 20, a music producer from Queens.

"He's saying things like, 'Let's send the illegal immigrants back.' What that is going to do is open up more jobs for the black community.”

Shelton is a member of one of the tiniest segments of the American electorate — African-Americans who back Trump over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Zero percent of African Americans support Donald Trump in the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls.

Zero.

And last week's Republican National Convention in Cleveland drew fewer black delegates and speakers than any in two decades, with one party count estimating that only 80 of the 2,472 GOP delegates were black.

One of those black delegates — Willie Dove, of Kansas — was inside the Quicken Loans Arena to hear Trump talk about crime and black unemployment, and how the nation's first black president failed the African-American community.

"I don't think there's anything he's said that is racist," Dove said.

"He has said things that people with other agendas have construed as racist. A guy like Trump, you don't get to where you are by being a racist. I don't think it's about doing things for the black community, because if you're doing things for the U.S. you're doing things for the black community."

California delegate Jonathan Husar, 26, is used to getting heat from his peers for his unabashed support for Trump.

On social media, he’s bombarded by messages asking how he could vote for “such a bigot.”

“People tell me I am a traitor to the black community,” Husar said.

Despite the backlash, Husar isn’t wavering.

“He's not a bigot,” he said of Trump. “He'll create jobs for everyone.”

Trump has made efforts — even if symbolic — to reach out to the black community, appointing reality TV star Omarosa Manigault as his director of African-American Outreach.

Manigault didn’t return a request for comment. But in an interview at the Cleveland convention, she claimed Trump was misunderstood.

“He takes heat on racial issues but he is certainly not a racist,” she told the local ABC affiliate. “I just think that people don't see him as a real person, they see him as a caricature, a cartoon character, too,” she added. "He's a real person. He has a sense of humor. He's very caring.”

Perhaps no black person was more enthusiastic about a Trump White House than the Rev. Darrell Scott, a Cleveland pastor, whose stem-winding endorsement electrified the crowd.

"I don't care if 99% don't support him," Scott told the Daily News after the speech. "I support him. And you know what, those polls ask for people who publicly support him. There's a very large number of African-Americans who support him privately."

If that is true, critics warn, they do so at their own peril.

"We know better," Rashad Robinson, spokesman for Color of Change, a black Political Action Committee, said in a statement after Trump's acceptance speech.

Robinson noted that Trump was demanding to see President Obama’s birth certificate five years ago — and had previously called for the executions of the Central Park Five.

“Tonight America got to see exactly what a Trump presidency would mean for black people — denial of justice, denial of peace,” Robinson added. “It's not black protesters, or the first black president, who are dividing America — it is the bigotry of Donald Trump."

But Trump’s African-American cheerleaders aren’t moved by such arguments.

"He says what a lot of people are thinking and afraid to say," said Barbara Myrick, 65, of Plainfield, N.J.

"I speak my mind, too, whether you like it or not. That's how he is. You make enemies and you make friends. Some people don't want to hear the truth. They prefer to be lied to."

Dana London, 58, worked for Trump for several years after being hired as a card dealer at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City in 1989.

She hailed Trump as a big-hearted businessman who often donated food to a nearby soup kitchen and always embraced black people.

"I would say 30% of the people at his opening for the Taj Mahal were African-American," London said. "Randall Cunningham had his wedding at the Taj. We had Patti LaBelle on a regular basis. And when that singer Jennifer Hudson's family members were murdered, he put them up in a penthouse suite free of charge.

"If he was such a racist, he wouldn't have all those people showing up and associating with him," she said.

"I get a lot of backlash,” London added, “but I'm voting with my conscience.”