No, he didn’t free the slaves.
But Donald Trump now claims he made Juneteenth “very famous” by agreeing not to hold a controversial political rally in Tulsa Friday on the day commemorating the end of slavery in America.
Trump bragged in a new interview that originally scheduling his first post-coronavirus rally on June 19 was a good thing because he claims now people know about the Civil Rights holiday Juneteenth.
‘I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous,’ Trump told the Wall Street Journal during an Oval Office interview. ‘It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it,’ claimed Trump.
Juneteenth, known in some circles as Freedom Day, marks the day, June 19, 1865, when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people were freed.
All but two U.S. states officially mark the event, also known as Emancipation Day, and younger audiences learned this piece of horrific American history when it was depicted on the HBO show ‘Watchmen.’
But Trump, who has never shown much interest in history, said he had never heard of it until a black Secret Service agent filled him in.
During an event earlier this month, where he was surrounded by black supporters, Trump revealed his first rally since March 2 would be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Friday, June 19.
He decided, however, to delay it by one day to June 20 after civil rights activists complained that it coincided with the date of Juneteenth and also happened to fall in the midst of massive nationwide protests over law enforcements’ treatment of black communities.
The location of Trump’s rally is significant to black American history.
In 1921, a mob of white residents in Tulsa attacked and killed black community members and destroyed, looted and burned to the ground a thriving black business district known as Black Wall Street.
Trump initially insisted that he did not intentionally schedule the rally for the same date, but later claimed the massive event should be considered a ‘celebration’ of Juneteenth.
He also told the Journal that after finding out his campaign rally date was controversial, it was a black Secret Service agent that alerted him to the meaning of the holiday to the black community.
Republican Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said he advised Trump to change the date from the day of Juneteeth, but still keep it on a date near the holiday.
The president insisted during his interview with WSJ that he polled people that surround him daily and found that none of them had heard of Juneteenth.
When he was informed that his White House put out a statement in each of his first three years in office to commemorate the holiday, Trump was pleasantly surprised.
‘Oh really? We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement?’ Trump queried. ‘Ok, ok. Good.’
Stores and homes were looted and burned. White assailants even used airplanes to drop firebombs, some eyewitnesses said.
There’s a continued search for mass graves.