Kwame Kilpatrick speaks at Oakland County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner

NOVI — Kwame Kilpatrick, the former mayor of Detroit who was elected as a Democrat and convicted in 2013 of embezzling thousands of dollars from the city during his tenure as mayor, was a featured speaker at the Oakland County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi Aug. 21.

During his speech, Kilpatrick admitted to his past wrongdoings and told the audience that he had found God during the nearly eight years he spent in prison. He said that in the beginning of his sentence he was mad at God, mad at the world, mad at himself and contemplating suicide. However, he said it was at this time that God started speaking to him and showed him visions of his family and others who were close to him “smiling and OK” while in solitary confinement during the beginning of his 28-year sentence.

“I was waving my fists at God, saying all kinds of words that you can’t say to God or your wife, and he spoke in me,” Kilpatrick said.

“I sat down on that steel concrete bunk and I started to wonder about who he is. See, I heard about Jesus, but I never really heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I went to church my whole life, but I really didn’t know Jesus. If I would have died, I would have gone straight to hell.”

Kilpatrick said a visit to the prison chapel changed his direction and led to a job as a janitor in the chapel.

“Best job I ever had,” he said.

During that time, Kilpatrick said, he started to use his education as a lawyer to help his fellow inmates who were “trapped in the system.” He said he was successful in having convictions reversed.

“I also was growing in the Lord and people stopped asking me about politics and they started asking me about their own issues,” Kilpatrick said.

He said he also taught Bible study to inmates five days a week and preached on some Sundays.

“I spoke at conventions all over this country, but I have never been more nervous than standing in front of 50 guys in an old prison chapel and preaching my first sermon,” he said. “Because I couldn’t placate that position. I couldn’t politick my way through it. I understood that I had a responsibility that I never had before for people’s lives.”

Kilpatrick said he spent the last 200 days of his incarceration in solitary confinement praying Proverbs 21:1-9, “The heart of the king is in the hands of the Lord,” and asking God for then-President Donald Trump to pardon him. He said he hadn’t met Trump before, but that Trump pardoned him after being asked to do so by Alice Johnson, the woman for whom Kim Kardashian had successfully advocated to receive a pardon in 2018.

Kilpatrick said that he was once asked by a young man at Costco how he felt about Trump. He said that Trump was like a firefighter who had single-handedly rescued not only himself, but his wife and kids from a burning house.

“This election is about the survival of our nation, and when people are set against us in war, it matters that you sent the firefighter into the room,” Kilpatrick said. He said that during his time in prison he had to challenge his stance on various issues, such as abortion, identity politics and partisanship.

“God wants me to do in the government what he desires for us,” said Kilpatrick.

Kilpatrick’s position as a convicted felon and former Democratic elected official was enough for many to be skeptical of him. Many of the event attendees said they had their reservations about Kilpatrick, but that people deserve second chances.

“I was concerned. I followed all that went on with him (in the past), and I thought, ‘Why is he here?’” said Bernadette Walli, of Milford. “I hope that what he said was real, and I hope that everything that he said took. He turned his life around; everybody gets a second chance, we hope. I still don’t agree with what he did, but certain cases, second chances, his kids, his family. We’ll see.”

Walli said she was pleasantly surprised by what Kilpatrick had to say and will be watching to see what happens next with him.

“Everybody’s been watching the 30-something-year-old Kwame with all the old footage from the 2000s, but I’m 54, and 54-year-old Kwame wishes he could go back and talk to 31-, 32-, and 35-year-old Kwame. But you change,” Kilpatrick said when asked by media about people being skeptical of his change. “If you are the same way at 54 that you are at 31, then something that should have happened in your life didn’t.”

Angelina Esteban, of Wixom, said she thought it was “shocking” when she first heard that Kilpatrick was to be a featured speaker at the dinner. Her friend, Pam Dawson, of Milford, agreed, saying that she too was surprised Kilpatrick was selected to speak at the dinner.

“I know that they had said that he has changed. I don’t know really, even now. Even after hearing him, if exactly what his role is, if any, in Detroit with the lawsuits that he went through. Did he make restitution? I don’t know any of that background, but he seemed sincere. I was pleasantly surprised at his talk, that he stood up, admitted his wrongdoing and told his story of being in prison. That took a lot of strength for anybody to do,” Dawson said. “That was commendable and we always as Christians want to give somebody a second chance, and it seems like if he is true to his word, he’ll end up being a very good asset to humanity, and I’m going to be watching.”

“The things that he said resonated with me too. I’ve heard the voice of the Lord in my head,” Esteban said.

Kilpatrick said that this election is about coming together as a country and that differences should be put aside.

“It’s not about warm and touchy feelings. It’s about how we come together as a nation and preserve our way of life. We can fight about our differences later. But at some point we have got to act like the United States of America.”

Nancy Quarles, of Novi, is the chair of the Oakland County Democratic Party.

“It appears that is where he got his release from, so his giving a speech for the organization/party that helped him get out of jail, I’m sure he’s moving forward and doing whatever he needs to do to help them as they helped him,” Quarles said.

“I wouldn’t say that I was surprised because I think I read that since the former mayor’s been out, he’s done a couple things for the Republican party,” Quarles said.

“I believe in second chances,” she said.

Derek Albert is a businessman, Democrat and former co-chair of the National Organization of Black County Officials, and he has known Kilpatrick for a long time.

“I want the man to be able to have another chance at life. So if his views have changed and they’re the opposite of mine, it is what it is. So many people’s views are opposites. You and I won’t agree on everything. There’s some things we might have commonality on. So at the end of the day some people might be angry. Some people might be upset, but what is there to be upset about? I mean, the man has a second chance at life,” Albert said.