“Trump loves attention,” said state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, who is also president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, which co-hosted the forum. “I thought all of the conversation gave Trump too much airtime. It really wasn’t about Trump. It’s about criminal justice.”

Sen. Kamala Harris of California, the only HBCU graduate in the Democratic field, threatened to boycott the forum until the host group — 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Club, which gave Trump the same Bipartisan Justice Award on Friday that it had given Harris years earlier — was removed as a sponsor.

With other candidates considering boycotts as well, Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin — another co-host — spoke to all the campaigns and Benedict College President Roslyn Clark Artis before ultimately announcing on Saturday morning that the college had taken over the candidate portion of the forum.

Artis wasn’t consulted before Harris announced her plans to boycott. So it came as a surprise. According to Ceeon Quiett Smith, Benedict College’s chief of staff, Artis’ concern was, “If you don’t attend, you’re letting down these students,” who were involved in planning meetings and were set to help with media, production, logistics planning, questions and serving as delegates for the candidates.

“It is not a Dr. Artis-Sen. Harris thing at all,” Smith said when asked whether Artis took personally Harris’ cancellation since she wasn’t contacted beforehand. “It was an ‘I can’t disappoint these kids who have worked and who are looking forward to her coming.’ That’s what that was. No, not personal.”

Critics saw Harris’ threat as a political move to get attention and avoid taking tough questions about her record as a prosecutor and state attorney general, though she later reconfirmed her participation.

Harris had originally announced her boycott over Trump’s award and the number of students who were excluded from being inside the room where the president made his remarks on Friday. And, unlike the Democrats, Trump left without taking any questions. After the college took over the forum, more students were given access to the Democratic candidates and chances to ask them questions.

“I totally agree: He not only should not have received but did not deserve an award for anything to do with criminal justice,” said Cobb-Hunter, the state representative. “But I think people should just ignore Donald Trump because he craves attention, and the more the conversation is about him, the more he likes it. I’m glad she rethought her decision and arrived at a way to attend.”

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who worked with the White House and fellow lawmakers on the First Step Act legislation, held the same position as Harris but took a different tack. He reaffirmed his commitment to speak at the forum but also planned to do a separate forum with Benjamin, Columbia’s mayor, elsewhere on campus, an attempt to fulfill his commitment but also reach a broader audience of students and community members.

Benjamin was going to host Booker, Harris, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Vice President Joe Biden at a competing forum on campus. But those events were canceled after the school took charge of the events.

In his remarks, Booker applauded Benedict College for taking over the cattle call and criticized the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center for its role in Trump’s appearance.

“Donald Trump was given an award. He was given a platform. He was unchecked for close to an hour,” Booker said. “The Bipartisan Justice Center allowed him to create an illusion that he had support from HBCUs or this community when in fact … he does not have the support of communities like this that he actively demeans, degrades and disempowers.”

With a set of candidates who largely agree on issues of criminal justice, the weekend was yet another opportunity to court a key constituency in a critical primary state. Black voters made up more than 60 percent of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina’s 2016 primary. That same bloc of voters will be critical in determining who wins the state’s primary in late February and, ultimately, the Democratic nomination for president.

While Booker and Harris took divergent paths, each hoping to gain ground with voters, Biden made several references to a popular figure to remind black voters why they should support him in 2020: former President Barack Obama.

Biden began his remarks by joking that attendees, who had sat through hours of speakers before he took the stage, might feel as though they were incarcerated. But he used the duration of his speaking time to tout the Obama administration’s record and defend “my president” from Trump.

“I understand he had some things to say, like he’s done more for African Americans than President Obama,” Biden said of Trump. “Whoa. Whoa. I mean, come on.”

“The president of the United States that I served with deserves enormous credit,” he added, “and I won’t stand by and let President Trump tell lies about his record or make outrageous statements and receive awards that I don’t quite understand.”

Biden and Warren, who lead the field in national polls and are first and second in the most recent survey of South Carolina Democrats, were more low-key outside of the forum.

Biden was among the candidates who met with students either before or after speaking at the forum. Warren, meanwhile, had breakfast with about 10 female leaders on Sunday morning.

"I won’t stand by and let President Trump tell lies about his record or make outrageous statements and receive awards that I don’t quite understand.”

Biden and Warren are top-polling candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire, but South Carolina is a must-win state for Biden, Booker and Harris, who are each counting on the black vote to power them to victory in the state’s primary. Booker and Harris have stumped in South Carolina more than any other candidate, but the state is still Biden’s race to lose.

“I’m very surprised that Cory and Kamala are so behind everybody else,” said Columbia City Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine, who added that she’d been hearing a lot more about Warren and Sanders in South Carolina than she thought she would.

Devine attended the breakfast with Warren. She said the senator was asked about why she hadn’t been in the state as much as other candidates and whether she was too polarizing to unite people.

Warren noted that her campaign wasn’t focusing only on the first four early states but did plan to show up more between now and February, and she denied that she was a polarizing figure, Devine said, instead casting herself as someone who’s unapologetic about calling out things that need to be addressed.

“She does have to show up more, but one of the things she has done and I think is good is she has really built a good group of South Carolinians that are on the ground all the time,” Devine said, pointing to state Reps. Wendy Brawley and Kambrell Garvin as leaders who have been in the community for a long time and built wide reaches.

Summarizing the weekend and different candidates’ strategies for standing out, Cobb-Hunter said, “This is politics, and all of it — whether it’s South Carolina, New Hampshire or Iowa — is about posturing, period.”

The program was scheduled to end with a straw poll. But it was scrapped because the focus of the weekend had gotten away from criminal justice.