Why Trump's Juneteenth rally in Tulsa is a 'slap in the face' to black Americans

Donald Trump will resume his campaign rallies amid the coronavirus pandemic on a day that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people and in a city that recently recognised the anniversary of the worst race massacre on US soil.

The president will host a rally on 19 June, or Juneteenth — which celebrates the liberation of African Americans from enslavement — in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which observed the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre on 31 May.

Tulsa's own Juneteenth celebrations were postponed because of the pandemic, but the president — who has frequently been accused of appealing to and invoking white nationalism and nativism with his "America First" platform — has said his rally will be a "celebration" despite ongoing protests against racism and police brutality facing black Americans.

California Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said the president's chosen date and location is not "just a wink to white supremacists — he's throwing them a welcome home party."

The president's last rally was held on 2 March. He said he didn't chose Juneteenth for the rally because of its significance though he told Fox News that it's a "celebration".

"My rally is a celebration," he said in pre-recorded interview on Thursday. "Don't think about it as an inconvenience. ... The fact that I'm having a rally on that day — you can really think about that very positively as a celebration, because a rally to me is celebration. ... It's going to be really a celebration and it's an interesting date. It wasn't done for that reason but it's an interesting date and it's a celebration."

​California Congressman Al Green, who is a member of the Black Caucus, said a Trump rally in Tulsa "is more than a slap in the face to African Americans; it is overt racism from the highest office in the land."

Kamau Marshall, a communications director for the president's chief political rival Joe Biden, also slammed the president as a racist.

Prominent abolitionist and scholar Angela Davis told Democracy Now that the president "represents a sector of a population in this country that wants to return to the past ... with all of its white supremacy, with all of its misogyny."

"We cannot be held back by such forces as those represented by the current occupant of the White House," she said. "There is so much to be done, and I think that the rallies that the current occupant of the White House ... don't even merit footnotes in history."

Juneteenth marks the day that Union Maj Gen Gordon Granger and 2,000 Union troops descended upon the Confederate stronghold of Texas, where southern slavers had escaped as the Civil War raged and the Confederacy had collapsed, bringing thousands of enslaved people with them.

The general's order on 19 June 1865, two years after Abraham Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation, announced that "the people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free".

Slavery's formal end ushered in a decade of Reconstruction, which sought the continued emancipation of black Americans and inclusion of the secessionist states into the US amid white supremacist paramilitary terror and a devastated post-war economy.

While the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1865, had prohibited the enslavement of Americans, it exempted slavery for those convicted of a crime. "Black codes" in economically devastated southern states subjected harsh penalties for newly freed black Americans for crimes like loitering or breaking curfew, ensuring they would remain in chains for decades to follow.

Brutal regimes under Jim Crow laws and segregation granted racist violence, while the practice of "convict leasing" prisoners for labour to build railways and mines, among other private construction projects, became "slavery by another name" that is echoed in today's mass incarceration that disproportionately impacts black Americans.

And on 31 May 1921, a white mob stormed Tulsa's Greenwood neighbourhood, where 35 blocks of homes, businesses, libraries, hospitals, schools and churches were destroyed within 14 hours.

Dozens of families were left homeless, and hundreds were killed. The city's once-famed "Black Wall Street" never recovered.

New grave excavation projects to realise the scope of the massacre were postponed amid the Covid-19 crisis, though many human rights organisations are renewing calls for reparations through economic and other structural support for the city's black residents to revive the once-thriving Black Wall Street of Oklahoma.

Juneteenth, the nation's "second Independence Day", is still not recognised as a federal holiday, unlike the Fourth of July, which is celebrated a few weeks later.

In his own Juneteenth message in 2019, Mr Trump's proclamation read: "For millions of African Americans, Juneteenth has served as an opportunity to celebrate the fundamental truth that all people are created equal and that liberty is a right endowed by our Creator. Across our country, the contributions of African Americans continue to enrich every facet of American life. This Juneteenth, as we vow always to uphold the God-given rights of all Americans, we pay tribute to the indomitable spirit of African Americans."

Following his rally announcement, Tulsa mayor GT Bynum said in a statement: "In Tulsa, we protect the free and peaceful exchange of ideas. We did it during the last two weeks of protests, and we will do it during the president's visit to Tulsa next week. We will also continue to follow the State of Oklahoma's guidelines for a safe reopening.‬"

But black Tulsans are furious that the campaign is marking its return to rallies on Juneteenth.

Sherry Gamble Smith, the president of Tulsa's Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce, told the Associated Press that for the president "to choose the date, to come to Tulsa, is totally disrespectful and a slap in the face to even happen."

Oklahoma's black Democratic Party chairwoman Alicia Andrews said that "a day set aside to commemorate the freedom of enslaved people must not be marred by the words or actions of a racist president."

As Tulsans joined hundreds of US cities protesting police brutality in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Tulsa police announced an internal investigation into a 4 June incident in which officers had forced two black teenagers to the ground as they called out "I can't breathe."

In video capturing the incident, an officer can be heard saying: "You can breathe just fine."

On Monday, a Tulsa police major also dismissed the disproportionate number of police killings of black Americans by telling a radio show that police are shooting them "about 24 per cent less than we probably ought to be".

While the president said the date for the rally wasn't necessarily selected on purpose, his campaign and administration have defended holding it on Juneteenth.

"As the party of Lincoln, Republicans are proud of the history of Juneteenth," said Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser on the campaign.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that "the African American community is very near and dear to his heart" and echoed the president's frequent comments that he has "done more" for African Americans than any other president other than Lincoln.

But several other Republicans have criticised the move.

When asked about the rally, Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, told NBC's Today on Thursday that "the more diverse our staffs, the more we avoid these public issues that come about, so I don't have a good answer for that because I'm not on the staff, and I don't know what his plan is."

Before signing an online invitation to the rally, attendees also must agree that "an inherent risk of exposure to Covid-19 exists in any public place where people are present" and that "by attending the rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to Covid-19" and agree not to hold the campaign liable.