page_title: Mike Pence
section_title: Racial views
hierarchical_section_title: Mike Pence / Political positions / Racial views
caption_attribution_description: Vice President Mike Pence delivers remarks to officers Thursday, June 25, 2020, at the Youngstown Police Department in Youngstown, Ohio. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)
context_page_description: Michael Richard Pence is an American politician and attorney serving as the 48th and current vice president of the United States, since 2017. He previously was the 50th governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017 and a member of the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013.
  Pence was born and raised in Columbus, Indiana, and is the younger brother of U.S. representative Greg Pence. He graduated from Hanover College and earned a law degree from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law before entering private practice. After losing two bids for a congressional seat in 1988 and 1990, he became a conservative radio and television talk show host from 1994 to 1999. Pence was elected to the United States Congress in 2000 and represented Indiana's 2nd congressional district and Indiana's 6th congressional district in the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013. He served as the chairman of the House Republican Conference from 2009 to 2011. Pence described himself as a "principled conservative" and supporter of the Tea Party movement, stating that he was "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order."
context_section_description: On June 19, 2020—the Juneteenth holiday, and the day before a significant Trump rally held at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma—a television journalist asked Pence if he would say the words "black lives matter." Pence replied that "all lives matter." Pence added that no significant U.S. group would disagree, as he saw it, about "the preciousness and importance of every human life." He'd denounce the police abolition movement when speaking to a police union rally in Philadelphia in July 2020, commenting how "[w]e also don't need to choose between supporting our police and supporting African American families here in Philadelphia or anywhere in America. We can do both. We have done both".
caption: Pence speaks to police officers in Youngstown, Ohio, June 25, 2020.
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