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President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a roundtable discussion about “Transition to Greatness: Restoring, Rebuilding, and Renewing,” at Gateway Church Dallas, Thursday, June 11, 2020, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Published 06/13/2020 | Reading Time 2 min 22 sec
By BWSTimes Staff
TULSA, Okla. — President Donald Trump said Friday in a series of tweets that he is rescheduling his first campaign rally in months to a day later so it won’t conflict with the Juneteenth observance of the end of slavery in the United States.
Trump had scheduled the rally — his first since early March — for June 19 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Black leaders said it was offensive for Trump to pick that day and place, a city that in 1921 was the site of a fiery and orchestrated white-on-black attack.
“Let me tell you what Trump should be doing. Trump should be visiting with the members of Congress to be trying to figure out how to pass economic packages to uplift and support Black communities that they have oppressed,” Mayoral candidate Greg Robinson II, said in during an anti-racist rally held Thursday in Tulsa.
Trump tweeted late Friday, “Many of my African American friends and supporters have reached out to suggest that we consider changing the date out of respect for this Holiday.”
“As we head into the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, a horrific and racist event, let’s make no mistake about it: our leaders did not care about Black lives then, and our leaders do not care about Black lives now. If they did, they would not be rolling out the red carpet, celebrating and capitulating to the most racist president we’ve had in our modern history,” Oklahoma 1st Congressional District candidate Kojo Asamoa-Caesar said.
Trump’s signature rallies often draw tens of thousands of people but have been on hiatus since March 2 because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now killed more than 110,000 people in the U.S.
He said he is moving the rally to June 20 “to honor their requests,” at the Tulsa BOK Center.
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