Trump’s Juneteenth controversy
Trump already criticized for handling of protests
The president’s plan to stage a rally in Tulsa on the day marking the end of slavery faces backlash.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s decision to hold his first rally in three months in Tulsa, the location of one of the worst massacres of African Americans in U.S. history, is triggering controversy as he wrestles with criticism over his handling of nationwide protests against police brutality and racism.
Trump plans to visit Oklahoma on June 19 for the first of several big campaign events. It will be his first rally since an event in Charlotte, North Carolina, on March 2. The trip comes after weeks of protests over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was pinned to the ground for nearly nine minutes under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.
Trump put his massive campaign rallies on hiatus for a few months while much of the country was locked down amid the coronavirus pandemic.
June 19, or Juneteenth, is also known as Emancipation Day and commemorates the date in 1865 when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger traveled to Galveston, Texas, to inform residents that President Abraham Lincoln had freed the slaves and that slave owners had to comply with the Emancipation Proclamation.
This month, Tulsa marked a grim date – the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre in which a white mob ravaged a thriving African American business community in the Greenwood District known as the “Black Wall Street.” Estimates suggest as many as 300 people were killed, and scores of homes and businesses were destroyed.
Alicia Andrews, chair of the Oklahoma Democratic Party, said Trump was
“thumbing his nose at the real issue of racial inequity.”
“There’s a man’s words, and then there are his actions,” she said. “Him coming here on that date, without making any outreach to the community, and saying it’s for unity, it is a slap in the face.”
Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, tweeted Thursday that holding the rally in Tulsa was “overt racism from the highest office in the land.”
Trump’s campaign said the timing and location of the rally were deliberate, and his team views it as a chance to tout his “record of success for black Americans.”
Trump faces rising criticism, including from Republicans, for his response to the growing Black Lives Matter movement – three words etched in yellow paint on a street outside the White House.
In the wake of Floyd’s death and the outrage that followed, Trump has said little about racial inequality, focusing instead on restoring “law and order” in American streets and lambasting protesters as “thugs” and looters.
Members of Trump’s own administration, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, distanced themselves from a decision to forcefully clear a park outside the White House of peaceful protesters so Trump could walk to nearby St. John’s Church and hold up a Bible before television cameras.
Mechelle Brown, program coordinator and tour guide for the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, said the organization had not heard from the president or the Trump campaign about his planned visit and does not expect to.
“The community doesn’t feel that Trump is genuinely interested in the history of the Greenwood district,” Brown said, “and that his visit to Tulsa during Juneteenth, as we are commemorating the 99-year anniversary of the massacre, is insulting.”
Brown said the black community in Tulsa was “incredibly anxious” about the rally.
“You have people who are proudly waving their Confederate flag against the backdrop of African Americans and others – white allies – who are continuing to protest George Floyd’s death and police brutality,” she said. “We just see the potential of there being a clash.”
Senior Trump campaign adviser Katrina Pierson said in a statement that Trump’s visit was entirely appropriate.
“As the party of Lincoln, Republicans are proud of the history of Juneteenth, which is the anniversary of the last reading of the Emancipation Proclamation,” she said. “President Trump has built a record of success for Black Americans, including unprecedented low unemployment prior to the global pandemic, all-time high funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and criminal justice reform.”
A USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll released this week found the walk across Lafayette Square appeared to be a defining moment for the president. Nearly 9 of 10 Americans heard about the incident. Two-thirds of Americans, 63%, oppose the show of force that swept the protesters from the park, and almost half, 44%, say they “strongly” oppose it.