Trump Falsely Accuses Harris of Deciding to ‘Turn Black’ During a Combative Panel With Black Journalists

Explore Our Galleries

An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Click Here

Ways to Support ABHM?

Click Here

July 31, 2024

By Matt Dixon, Yamiche Alcindor, and Michelle Garcia, NBC News

The event was confrontational from the start as Trump sparred with three moderators from the National Association of Black Journalists.

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on a panel of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Chicago, IL (Reuters/Vincent Alban).

CHICAGO — Donald Trump made a combative appearance Wednesday at a conference of Black journalists during a heated question-and-answer session that at times focused squarely on the race of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump claimed that he did not know until a few years ago that Harris, who is Indian American and Black, was Black. He then baselessly suggested that she had decided to “turn Black” only recently for political gain.

[…]

“Is she Indian or is she Black?” he asked.

ABC News’ Rachel Scott, one of the three moderators on the National Association of Black Journalists panel, pointed out that Harris, the de-facto Democratic nominee for president, attended Howard University, a historically Black college. Trump did not directly respond.

[…]

When NBC News reached out to the Trump campaign for a response to the almost immediate backlash to his comments about Harris’ race, communications director Steven Cheung replied, “Backlash from the truth?”

“These people must be deranged,” he said.

Continue reading to see how Trump responded to his notion of “Black jobs” and the purpose of the Vice President.

Read about the “DEI hire” insults Vice President Harris has faced since her presidential campaign kicked off.

Explore similar breaking news articles here.

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.