Noted economist and Hoover Institution scholar, Thomas Sowell, on how Republicans keep tripping up on their appeal to black voters. In his piece here, he urges the GOP to stop trying to outflank Democrats on the left in their appeals to the black voter and show them how much the GOP and they agree.
(See Portland examples below)

Instead, he says, meet black voters where you can make a difference and where the GOP is best.
There is plenty to talk straight about, including all the things that the Democrats are committed to that work to the disadvantage of blacks, beginning with Democrats’ adamant support of teachers’ unions in their opposition to parental choice through vouchers.
The teachers’ unions are just one of the sacred cow constituencies of the Democratic Party whose agendas are very harmful to blacks.
Black voters also need to be told about the tens of thousands of blacks who have been forced out of a number of liberal Democratic California counties by skyrocketing housing prices, brought on by Democratic environmentalists’ severe restrictions on the building of homes or apartments.
The black population of San Francisco, for example, has been cut in half since 1970– and San Francisco is the very model of a community of liberal Democrats, including green zealots who are heedless of the consequences of their actions on others.
Then there are the effects of tort lawyers in raising prices, liberal judges turning criminals loose and other influential Democratic Party constituencies whose effects on blacks are strictly negative.

Because a blog commenter is taking issue with Sowell’s claims on gentrification, I give you several examples from this blog in the past:
Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.