Trump's campaign reportedly knew the significance of the Juneteenth Tulsa rally date, expected less blowback

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Trump's re-election campaign was expecting some raised eyebrows after scheduling Trump's first campaign rally in months on June 19 — Juneteenth — in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a state Trump is expected to win easily, two campaign officials tell The Associated Press.

"But the campaign was caught off guard by the intensity" of the blowback, AP reports, especially when people made a connection between the date and the host city, site of one of the worst white massacres of black Americans in U.S. history, at a period where Trump is defending Confederate symbols and attacking protests demanding an end to police murdering and terrorizing black people.

In 1921, an organized white mob in Tulsa ravaged the city's affluent and flourishing black community. When the massacre was over, up to 300 black people were dead and the Greenwood area — called Black Wall Street — had been looted and burned to the ground. Juneteenth is a celebration of the end of slavery, marking the day two years after the Emancipation Proclamation when Union soldiers told black slaves in Galveston, Texas, they were no longer someone else's property.

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Local and national black leaders have slammed Trump's rally and urged him to change the date, and "some Republicans and Trump allies were also upset after realizing the president's team had scheduled his first campaign rally since coronavirus outbreak for Juneteenth in Tulsa," The Washington Post reports. Campaign officials told AP they picked Tulsa because it was expedient and "they could all but guarantee a big crowd despite coronavirus concerns."

Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said that "as the party of Lincoln, Republicans are proud of the history of Juneteenth." Coincidentally, the Post notes, Trump will also be accepting the GOP nomination in Jacksonville, Florida, on the 60th anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday, when "a mob of about 200 white people armed with ax handles and baseball bats attacked a group of demonstrators after they left a sit-in at a local whites-only lunch counter."

"Trump has long sought to exploit class resentment and racial tensions for political gain," and now he's "gambling that taking divisive stances on Confederate symbols and policing will energize his mostly white supporters in November," the Post reports. But "much of the country appears to be moving in a different direction." Said one GOP strategist close with Trump's White House: "If he was trying to lose, he'd be doing basically what he is doing right now."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.