Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America (1861-TBD) lies in the middle of the street, fully dressed and flat on his back, his hand outstretched to a nearby police officer in a futile entreaty for help. His metal finery is splattered with pink paint and his unfortunate state is illuminated by the blue lights of nearby cop cars. Minutes earlier, protestors descended upon him en masse and ripped him from the stone plinth in Richmond, Virginia on which he stood for nearly 113 years. It's late at night on Wednesday June 10, 2020.
Hours before Davis came tumbling down to the cobblestone street, President Trump announced that he would resume his public rallies, beginning with a meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Friday June 19, 2020. There are, at least, two things of note here: June 19 is the holiday known as Juneteenth, the day commemorating the arrival of Union troops in Galveston, Texas bearing the news of the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been signed two years earlier following Robert E. Lee's surrender. In announcing the rally, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnamy claimed, without evidence or much conviction, that Juneteenth was a day that was "meaningful" to the president.
Tulsa, Oklahoma, while possibly a strategically advantageous location for galvanizing Trump's base is, more importantly, the site of a 99-year-old massacre of one of the nation's most successful Black communities. Over the course of 24 hours, a white mob decimated the 300-plus Black-owned businesses, burning 35 square blocks, destroying 1,200 homes, and murdering an estimated 300 people. The Tulsa Massacre occurred on June 1, 1921.
It is possible that an event requiring as much advanced preparation and forethought as the president's first mid-pandemic public rally in the middle of nationwide protests decrying violence against Black people could
accidentally end up in Tulsa on Juneteenth. But if you believe that, I have a bridge to the Confederate States of America to sell you.
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