In a new interview, President Donald Trump talked about how he had an impact on the renewed interest in Juneteenth and the economic turnaround. His comments were made after he originally scheduled his first rally in months on the holiday, which honors the last day of slavery.
His perspective on his impact on the popularity of the holiday has become the subject of fodder online Thursday afternoon.
The president said he was not aware of the historical significance of June 19, sharing that one of his black Secret Service agents explained the holiday to him. On that day in 1865, Major Gen. Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas, to inform a reluctant community that President Abraham Lincoln two years earlier had freed the slaves and to press locals to comply with his directive.
Earlier this month, the president had planned to hold his first campaign rally in three months in Tulsa on June 19, but he soon changed the date once he faced backlash from voters saying it would be insensitive to campaign on that day.
Despite the backlash, Trump said his plans and the discussion around the holiday had a positive impact.
“I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous. It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it,” Trump said in the interview.
Trump suggested that news coverage of the rally brought much-needed attention to the date, even though all but two U.S. states officially mark the day, also known as Emancipation Day.
“It’s actually an important event, an important time,” Trump said, “but nobody had ever heard of it.”
Despite Trump’s comments, the White House has released a statement all of the last three years of his presidency commemorating the holiday.
When asked in the interview about the holiday being celebrated by the White House, Trump still seemed unclear about it.
“Oh, really? We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement?” he said. “OK, OK. Good.”
Since 1980, Juneteenth has been celebrated officially as a holiday in Texas. Years later, more than 45 other states and the District of Columbia began recognizing the holiday. It still has not been designated as a federal holiday, but several states and cities, including Albany, New York, Delaware and Philadelphia, have recently made the day an official holiday in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
Some folks Thursday questioned Trump’s stance that the holiday was little-known, including Sen. Kamala Harris.
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