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Actions speak louder than words and one woman let reading be her power during a rally for presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

This week, a video of Johari Osayi Idusuyi, 23, went viral after she was seen reading the award-winning book Citizen by Claudia Rankine on stage while Trump spoke to supporters in Springfield, Illinois. The writer and student spoke with Jezebel this week about how the Vine came to be.

Idusuyi said she was invited to the event by a friend. Because she wanted to give Trump a chance, she decided to attend. There weren’t a lot of minorities among the 10,000 supporters, so Idusuyi was invited on stage to sit behind Trump. While she was interested to see if Trump was different from her perception, she became disheartened after watching him and his supporters bully protesters in attendance, causing her to whip out her favorite book — which just so happened to be about racism.

Jezebel reports:

“I think we were chosen for obvious reasons,” she said about being picked to sit on stage. “We are minorities and there weren’t a lot of minorities there. He also instructed us to sit in the middle, so we kind of already knew what this was.

“I got tapped on the shoulder” she said.  “I think it was a couple. The woman kept saying, “If you don’t wanna be here then leave. You didn’t even stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.” I said, “I do want to be here, that’s why I’m here. You don’t know who I am. I’m reading my book because I’m uninterested. Did you not just see what happened? This person disrespects women, minorities, everybody and you’re still supporting him. He’s not saying anything of substance.”

Idusuyi said she didn’t plan to protest the event, but once she realized Trump had no interest in ever advocating for minorities, she turned to her book.

Jezebel reports:

“We weren’t trying to start anything,” she said. “We weren’t trying to make a scene and it wasn’t originally planned to be a protest. We just wanted to go in with an open mind and it turned into something bigger.”

The Vine has been viewed over 7 million times. Rankine’s publishers took to Twitter to thank the writer for her “reading protest.”

The moment couldn’t come at a better time — Rankine will be at Howard University Friday to read and discuss her book.

SOURCE: Jezebel | VIDEO CREDIT: Vine 

SEE ALSO: 

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Donald Trump Live-Tweets Democratic Debate, Proves He Shouldn’t Be President

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