WASHINGTON – Rep. Byron Donalds, speaking Tuesday at a black voter outreach event for former President Donald Trump, suggested that black families were more unified and better off during the Jim Crow era, sparking an immediate backlash from from senior black Democratic officials.
On the campaign trail in Philadelphia, Donalds, a Florida Republican like Trump, suggested that things got worse for blacks after they embraced Democrats following President Lyndon Johnson’s implementation of Great Britain’s programs. Society in the 1960s, including an expansion of federal food stamps, housing, welfare and Medicaid for low-income Americans.
“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more black people were not only conservative — black people have always been conservative — but more black people voted conservatively,” said Donalds, a top Trump ally in Congress and campaign surrogate , in remarks first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“And then HEW, Lyndon Johnson – you go down this path, and now we are where we are,” he said, referring to what was then the Department of Health, Education and Social well-being.
Ahead of his remarks, Donalds said he had recently seen “the reinvigoration of black families” — what he described as young people forming nuclear family units — who are “helping to spark the renaissance of a middle class black in America. » said the investigator.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the highest-ranking African American in Congress, appeared on the House floor. Wednesday and delivered a scathing speech, giving numerous examples of how black people suffered from racial segregation.
“I noticed that a so-called leader made a factually inaccurate statement that black people were better off under Jim Crow. It’s a wild, outrageous and blunt observation,” Jeffries said.
“We were not in a better situation when a young boy named Emmett Till could be brutally murdered without consequence because of Jim Crow,” he continued. “We were not in a better situation when black women could be sexually assaulted without consequence, because of Jim Crow. …How dare you make such an ignorant observation? You better check yourself before you destroy yourself.
Biden-Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika also criticized Donald’s remarks and the Philadelphia event in a statement: “Donald Trump spent his adult life and then his presidency undermining the progress that black communities fought so hard for – so this actually shows that his campaign’s ‘black outreach’ is headed to a white neighborhood and promises to return America to Jim Crow.”
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus released a statement Wednesday evening calling Donalds “a spokesperson who will say out loud the quiet parts that many will not say themselves” and demanding that he apologize to black Americans “for for distorting one of the darkest chapters in our history for his own political gain.
Donalds, who is sometimes mentioned as a possible vice presidential running mate for Trump, later released a video of his full remarks in response to Democratic criticism. In another video, he said President Joe Biden’s campaign was a “lie” and a “whitewash” because “they’re trying to say I said black people were better off under Jim Crow.”
“I never said that. They’re lying… What I said was there were more black families under Jim Crow and it was Democratic policies under HEW, under state providence, who helped destroy the black family.” he said in a video published on X on Wednesday.
Rep. Wesley Hunt, a black Republican from Texas who also spoke at Tuesday’s event, came to Donalds’ defense on X.
“Democrats have replaced the father in the black home with Uncle Sam and when powerful black leaders point this out, Democrats peel back,” Hunt wrote. “We’re trying to have a national conversation about strengthening Black families, about strengthening American families, and it makes the left VERY uncomfortable.”
The Federation of Black Conservatives, of which Donalds is president, also condemned criticism of Donalds’ statement.
“The Black Conservative Federation (BCF) condemns the attacks made against our President, Congressman Byron Donalds, by House Minority Leader Jeffries,” the group said in a statement. “Calling Congressman Donalds a ‘so-called leader’ for his statement on the conservative black family is in poor taste, insulting and, frankly, unbecoming of a parliamentary minority leader. »
Trump campaign spokesperson Brian Hughes posted on his social account that Donalds was a “respected black leader” and referenced comments made by Biden in 2020 that African Americans “aren’t black” if they vote for Trump.
The Trump campaign event was billed as “Congress, Cognac and Cigars” and is part of a broader effort led by the Trump campaign to make inroads with black voters in swing states like Pennsylvania.