Rep. The Byron Donalds defends remarks about Jim Crow

Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida on Thursday defended comments he made this week that invoked Jim Crow — a period of racial violence and segregation — as an era when “the Black family was together.”

By Zoe Richards

07/06/2024

Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida on Thursday defended comments he made this week that invoked Jim Crow — a period of racial violence and segregation — as an era when “the Black family was together.”

“I never said that it was better for Black people in Jim Crow,” Donalds is who is a Florida Republican said to MSNBC’s Joy Reid during an interview with “The ReidOut” on Thursday evening.

The remarks were made following Donalds’ comments. He is often mentioned as potential possible running as a potential running matefor Donald Trump was the subject of protests after he claimed at a presidential campaign event held in Philadelphia to honor the late president that there were fewer Black families were split in Jim Crow.

“Don’t try to impose the fact that the marriage rates were better in the — higher, higher, I want to be clear — higher in the Jim Crow era to mean that I think Jim Crow is great,” Donalds declared. “That is an untruth. It’s gaslighting. I wouldn’t say that kind of thing.”

The event on Tuesday was aimed at reaching out towards Black voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Donalds, a Trump campaign surrogate, said that through his embrace of Democrats the situation has gotten worse in the favor of Black people. Donalds cited the programs that were enacted under The president Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s that expanded the federal food stamp program as well as housing, welfare, and Medicaid for those with low incomes. Americans.

“You can see that when it came to Jim Crow, the Black family was a unit. In Jim Crow, more Black people did not vote conservative, but Black people have always been conservative mindedhowever, more Black voters voted conservative,” Donalds told the audience Tuesday.

When Reid made the point his contention that there was Jim Crow South was marked by a lack of rights for Black individuals, including blocking access to voting and claimed that Donalds claim was “inaccurate,” the Florida Republican replied, “No, I’m not being inaccurate.”

“All I was talking about is about Black families,” Donalds stated.

Donalds remarks from Thursday echoed his earlier defenses in the face of criticism from Democrats including those who belong to the Congressional Black Caucus and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who condemned Donalds statements to be “an outlandish, outrageous and out-of-pocket observation.”

The Biden-Harris campaign added as a response to remarks they believe that Trump “spent his adult life, and then his presidency undermining the progress Black communities fought so hard for — so it actually tracks that his campaign’s ‘Black outreach’ is going to a white neighborhood and promising to take America back to Jim Crow.”

Donalds declared Thursday that she believed that the Biden campaign is “lying” and “gaslighting” because “they’re trying to say that I said that Black people were doing better under Jim Crow.”