By Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, June 19, 2020
When word circulated earlier this month that Donald J. Trump would resume his campaign rallies on June 19th, with an event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the confluence of date and location suggested that his typically leaden-handed racial trolling had taken on new levels of nuance. On its face, the choice of Tulsa defies political logic. In the upcoming Presidential election, Oklahoma is neither in play (Trump currently holds a nineteen-point lead there) nor lucrative (it will deliver just seven electoral votes to the winner).
By comparison, Trump trails Joe Biden by five points in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and eight points in Michigan—all states that have more electoral votes and are crucial to Trump’s reëlection hopes. But, when taken in conjunction with the date—June 19th, or Juneteenth, the informal holiday on which African-Americans recognize the delayed emancipation of the enslaved inhabitants of Texas—the choice of the second-largest city in a sparsely populated, deeply red state assumes additional significance. Ninety-nine years ago, the homes and the businesses of the black community in that city were levelled, and as many as three hundred people were killed by white mobs in what came to be known as the Tulsa Massacre.
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