Rep. Byron Donald, a Florida Republican who Donald J. Trump is reportedly considering as a potential vice presidential running mate, tried Tuesday to persuade voters of color to support Trump by suggesting that there were some virtues to the Jim Crow era for Black people.
Donald, who has emerged as a key black surrogate for Trump, made the remarks at the “Congress, Cognac and Cigars” event in Philadelphia on Tuesday night. The rally, hosted by Donald and fellow black Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas, was aimed at promoting the Trump and Republican brands.
Donald said at the event that policies that followed the Jim Crow era of racial segregation and racial discrimination — the federal welfare program of the 1950s and President Lyndon B. Johnson's civil rights policies of the 1960s — had a harmful impact on black families.
“During the Jim Crow era, black families stayed together,” Donald says. “During the Jim Crow era, more black people didn't just become more conservative, more black people voted conservatively because black people have always thought conservatively.”
Mr Donald's comments drew criticism from officials in President Joe Biden's campaign, which is trying to make up for declining support among voters of colour, particularly Black men.
Biden campaign spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika slammed Donald's comments.
“Donald Trump has spent his entire adult life and his presidency undermining hard-fought progress in black communities, so it is no surprise that his campaign's 'black outreach' takes place in white neighborhoods and promises to return America to the Jim Crow era,” Chitika said in a statement to The New York Times.
She said black voters will reject Trump's “racist policies” in November.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, also criticized Donald, alluding to him in remarks on the House floor on Wednesday.
“That is a bizarre, outrageous and unjustified opinion,” Jeffries said of Donald's comments, pointing to the lynchings and inequality that defined the Jim Crow era. “How dare you make such an ignorant opinion? I urge you to look into yourself before you destroy yourself.”
A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment Wednesday.
In a video posted to X, Donald responded to Jeffries, calling Biden and the Democrats' criticism of his comments a “lie.”
“What I said was that under Jim Crow laws, there were a lot of black families, but Democratic policies under the welfare state helped destroy the black family,” he said, referring to the U.S. government agency that would eventually become the Department of Health and Human Services. “And I also said that today in America, we're seeing the black family thriving again, and that's a good thing.”
During the Jim Crow era, which lasted from the end of the Civil War until the 1950s, black people in the United States were subject to legal and social segregation and brutal treatment from racist authorities. Black people were denied the right to vote, could not stay in white-only hotels, or buy homes in majority-white neighborhoods. Discrimination during this period severely disadvantaged black families economically, often creating the need for larger families, and led to a widespread belief among black conservatives that blacks were more united.
The term “Jim Crow” originated in the 1930s when minstrel shows featured performers in blackface and became a racist slur.
Earlier that day, Trump's campaign opened its first field office in Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold that flipped the battleground state of Pennsylvania to Biden in the 2020 election.
Donald was making a broader point that black voters, particularly black men, feel increasingly leaned toward the Republican Party: He said he expects more than 20% of black voters to support the Republican Party in November's election because the GOP's message aligns with their culturally conservative values.
Both Trump and Biden have been devoting significant attention and resources to black voters, anticipating a close rematch.
A series of polls conducted by The Times, Siena College and The Philadelphia Inquirer in late April and early May showed Trump making inroads among non-white voters, with more than 20% of black voters saying they supported Trump, the highest level of black support for a Republican presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Trump has said he will likely choose his running mate closer to the Republican National Convention in mid-July.