\u201cUnlike racist Joe Biden, I have spent my entire life working hand in hand with Black Americans to create jobs, build buildings, invest in our communities and expand opportunities and freedom for citizens of every race, religion, color. I built a lot of buildings. I want to tell you, a Black worker is a great worker. You\u2019ve done an incredible job.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Former president Donald Trump, remarks during a speech to Black Conservative Federation gala, Columbia, S.C., Feb. 23<\/p>\n
During his presidency, Trump often claimed he had done more for Black Americans than any other president \u2014 or, he sometimes might concede, since Abraham Lincoln. Historians scorned his claim. Many cited Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was Johnson, the historians said, who after Lincoln was the president who made the most lasting impact on the lives of African Americans.<\/p>\n
To make his case, Trump would cite achievements like a low Black unemployment rate, increased funding for historically Black colleges and universities (a congressional initiative, not an executive branch one) or passage of an opportunity zone program.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s so-called accomplishments will not even be noticed by historians five years from now,\u201d said H.W. Brands, historian at the University of Texas at Austin, in 2020.<\/p>\n
Trump recited those claims yet again when he addressed a group of Black conservatives last week, even if the talking points have become woefully out of date.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe achieved the lowest African American unemployment rate ever recorded,\u201d Trump declared, apparently unaware that Black unemployment under Biden has fallen even further. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate under Trump hit a low of 5.3 percent in August 2019, but had inched up to 6.1 percent before the pandemic struck in March 2020. Under Biden, the Black unemployment rate dipped to as low as 4.8 percent in April 2023; it was 5.3 percent in January.<\/p>\n
But rather than fact-check Trump\u2019s golden-oldie material \u2014 or his assertion, without evidence, that Biden is a \u201cracist\u201d \u2014 Trump\u2019s reference to his career as a real estate builder who supported Black people prompted us to take a walk down memory lane. Trump\u2019s troubled history with Black people was covered when he first ran for president in 2016, but it\u2019s time for a refresher course now that he is seeking the presidency again.<\/p>\n
You could begin the story in the 1950s, when Trump\u2019s father, Fred, became the subject of a protest song, \u201cOld Man Trump,\u201d written by one of his tenants, folk singer Woody Guthrie, who objected to the all-White environs of his apartment complex. \u201cI suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate he stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts when he drawed that color line here at his Beach Haven family project \u2026 Beach Haven is Trump\u2019s Tower \/ Where no black folks come to roam,\u201d the lyrics go.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s first appearance in the New York Times was under the headline \u201cMajor Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias in City.\u201d The front-page article detailed how the Justice Department had brought suit in federal court against Trump and his father, charging them with violating the 1968 Fair Housing Act (another LBJ bill that helped Black people) in the operation of 39 buildings through their Trump Management Corporation. The city Human Rights Commission had tested what would happen if Black and White people tried to rent the same Trump apartments \u2014 and discovered White people could easily get a rental but Black people were told nothing was available. A DOJ subpoena revealed that Black applications were marked with a \u201cC,\u201d for \u201ccolored.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donald Trump, then 27, took the lead in defending the case and told the Times that the charges \u201care absolutely ridiculous.\u201d He added: \u201cWe never have discriminated and we never would.\u201d The Trump Management Corporation turned around and sued the U.S. government right back.<\/p>\n
Elyse Goldweber, a Justice Department lawyer who brought the suit, recalled in 2019 that Trump remarked to her during a coffee break: \u201cYou know, you don\u2019t want to live with them either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two years later, in 1975, Trump settled the suit without admitting wrongdoing. Under the settlement, the company was required to furnish the New York Urban League with a list of all apartment vacancies, every week, for two years and advertise in the Amsterdam News, a Black newspaper. Trump spun the defeat as saying he was pleased the settlement did not \u201ccompel the Trump organization to accept persons on welfare as tenants unless as qualified as any other tenant.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1978, the Justice Department charged Trump\u2019s organization with being in breach of the agreement by continuing to discriminate against Black people. That case dragged on until 1982, when the original consent decree expired.<\/p>\n
When Trump became president, his administration scaled back enforcement of fair housing laws such as the 1968 act.<\/p>\n
Two weeks after five Black and Latino teenagers were implicated in a brutal attack on a White woman jogging in New York\u2019s Central Park on April 19, 1989, Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for \u201ccriminals of every age.\u201d While the ad did not explicitly say the youths should be executed, the implication was clear.<\/p>\n
All five initially confessed after long interrogations, but they later recanted their statements, saying they had been coerced by police. The suspects were convicted of violent offenses including assault, robbery, rape, sodomy and attempted murder \u2014 and they received sentences that ranged from five to 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody, including Donald Trump, rushed to judge us, and therefore it became that much more difficult to be able to mount a really successful fight,\u201d said Yusef Salaam, one of the accused. \u201cAnd, of course, we lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in 2002, they were exonerated by DNA evidence. Trump then told the New York Daily News that their $41 million wrongful-conviction settlement was a \u201cdisgrace.\u201d He added that \u201csettling doesn\u2019t mean innocence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump never apologized for his ad. \u201cYou have people on both sides of that,\u201d he said after he became president. \u201cThey admitted their guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n
In November, Salaam was elected to the New York City Council. After his victory, he noted that Trump has been criminally charged in several venues. \u201cI hope he gets treated the way we did not,\u201d Salaam said. \u201cThey judged us guilty before we had a fair trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino president John R. O\u2019Donnell, in the 1991 book \u201cTrumped,\u201d alleged that Trump once said that \u201claziness is a trait in blacks.\u201d He also claimed Trump said of his accountants: \u201cBlack guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has called O\u2019Donnell a disgruntled employee, but he has not disputed the remarks. \u201cThe stuff O\u2019Donnell wrote about me is probably true,\u201d he told Playboy in an interview published in May 1997.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also this Trump observation, from 1989: \u201cA well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market \u2026 If I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cUnlike racist Joe Biden, I have spent my entire life working hand in hand with Black Americans to create jobs, build buildings, invest in our communities and expand opportunities and freedom for citizens of every race, religion, color. I built a lot of buildings. I want to tell you, a Black worker is a great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}