Too bad it wasn’t raining. Otherwise, the Associated Press could’ve led with, “It was a dark and stormy night.” Instead, the AP had to describe the first night of the Republican National Convention as nothing more than a straight shot of darkness.

Those dark Republicans were dark, mind you. Dark, dark, dark.

How dark? Check out this video compilation of Leftmedia talkingheads parroting the Demos’ “dark” memo.

Herschel Walker, though, didn’t get the memo. Nor did Tim Scott, Vernon Jones, or Kim Klacik. For each of these black Americans, it was an opportunity to address the Left’s noxious “Trump is a racist!” canard, and they did so resoundingly.

Take Walker, for example. The former Heisman Trophy winner and NFL star has known Donald Trump for 37 years, but he had just three minutes to share his version of the president with the American people. He made every second count. If you have some fence-sitting friends who might be inclined to vote for Trump were it not for his straight-up, flat-out, unambiguous racism, make sure they see this.

“It hurts my soul to hear the terrible names that people call Donald,” said Walker. “The worst one is ‘racist.’ I take it as a personal insult that people would think I would have a 37-year friendship with a racist. People who think that don’t know what they are talking about. Growing up in the Deep South, I have seen racism up close. I know what it is. And it isn’t Donald Trump.”

And there you have it. A million people who’ve never spent so much as a minute with Donald Trump can yell and scream about what a vile racist he is, but it all comes undone when a single black man who’s known Trump for decades shares his personal experience.

Walker, though, wasn’t content to take apart the “racist” myth. He also described a Donald Trump who appreciates human dignity in all its forms. “I watched him treat the janitors, security guards, and waiters the same way he would treat a VIP,” said Walker. “He made them feel special because he knew they were. … He told me, ‘Herschel, make an effort to get to know people. Remember their names.’ That stuck with me.”

Walker served as the blocking back for the speakers who followed. There was Vernon Jones, a black Democrat state representative from Georgia, who focused not on Trump’s personality but on the results he’s delivered for the black community. “The president also built the most inclusive economy ever,” he said, “with record-low unemployment for African Americans and record-high participation in the workforce.” He talked about Trump’s support of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, about opportunity zones, and about criminal justice reform. “He put the interests of America workers and especially black workers first. That’s right; Donald Trump did that.”

Finally, there was South Carolina’s Tim Scott, wrapping things up by telling us that we need to “paint a full picture” of the two presidential candidates: “Joe Biden said if a black man didn’t vote for him, he wasn’t truly black. Joe Biden said black people are a monolithic community. It was Joe Biden who said poor kids can be just as smart as white kids.”

That was Tim Scott. Senator Tim Scott. The guy whose family “went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime.” And he was speaking about Donald Trump’s America — an America about which Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats are in deep denial. Maybe it’s because they’re the ones so shrouded in darkness.

(Updated.)