President Donald Trump moved a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so it would no longer fall on June 19th, or Juneteenth, the day commemorating Black emancipation from slavery.
The president had been criticized for planning a rally on the holiday, specifically in Tulsa, the site of a 1921 racist massacre of Black people by white mobs.
, who is Black, had called Trump’s rally, when it was planned for Juneteenth, a “welcome home party” for “white supremacists.”
Pressed about Trump’s decision to hold a rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Thursday that it was a “meaningful day” for Trump, adding, “The African American community is very near and dear to his heart.”
Trump has a long history of racism, including calling for the death penalty for the “Central Park Five,” the Black teens wrongfully accused of raping a white woman in New York, as well as pushing the racist “birther” conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. and could not become president.
