Here’s Why Critics Say Trump’s Juneteenth Rally In Tulsa Is ‘Overt Racism’

TOPLINE

President Donald Trump announced his first post-Covid-19 campaign would be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 19, drawing ire for scheduling the event on Juneteenth and in the city where 99 years ago to the month the U.S. saw one of the worst cases of racial violence in American history.

KEY FACTS

TANGENT

The Juneteenth holiday stems from the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which declared freedom for the upward of 3 million enslaved Americans living in the Confederate states. However, it took more than two years for the news to reach enslaved people living in Texas, the most remote state in the Confederacy. It wasn’t until Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, residents there finally learned of the abolition of slavery. According to tradition, the formerly enslaved Texans celebrated with prayer, food, song and dance, a tradition that has largely carried on into 21st-century celebrations. Juneteenth was named an official state holiday in Texas in 1980, and other states followed shortly after.

KEY BACKGROUND

Trump announced the campaign rally Wednesday, part of a series of scheduled stops in Florida, Texas, Arizona and North Carolina, his first in-person events since early March, before the U.S. shut down for Covid-19. It is scheduled to take place just two weeks from the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, one of the most deadly incidents of racial violence in America. In 1921, existing racial tension in Tulsa came to a head after rumors circulated that a black man assaulted a white woman in an elevator. Within days, a group of black men and a group of white men had a run-in at the courthouse where the black man in the elevator was being held, and shots were fired. The next day, a white mob destroyed the prospering “Black Wall Street” neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, a thriving community made up of more than 300 black-owned businesses and killed as many as 300 people. In just 24 hours, 35 square blocks and more than 1,200 houses are believed to have been destroyed. The massacre went largely unreported at the time, and was only added to Oklahoma’s state school curriculum in February. 

FURTHER READING

Trump To Start Campaign Rallies On Juneteenth In Tulsa, Oklahoma, Where Coronavirus Cases Are Spiking (Forbes)