Trump Brags He Made Juneteenth 'Very Famous'

President Donald Trump has been harshly criticized since he announced that he's holding his first campaign rally of the COVID-19 era in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 19. Ironically, he made this announcement at a roundtable with African-American leaders at the White House on June 10. The criticism: both the date and the place of Trump's first rally since March 3 are significant to African-Americans.

On Wednesday, Trump decided to make virtue out of a vice by pompously declaring his original decision to hold his first campaign rally on Juneteenth had made this sacred African-American holiday more famous. He also wrongly claimed no one had ever heard of Juneteenth before this.

Trump admitted he didn't know what Juneteenth was until an African-American Secret Service told him about its significance. Strident criticism and backlash from African-Americans and civil society forced Trump to move the date of his Tulsa rally to June 20 -- but still at Tulsa.

"I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous," said Trump to the Wall Street Journal. "It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it."

Trump said he postponed the rally to June 20 because “many” of his African-American friends and supporters asked him to do so.

June 19 or Juneteenth marks the end of slavery in the United States in 1865. It's a day of joy and celebration. Also known as Emancipation Day, Juneteenth commemorates the date in 1865 when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, a Union Army general, arrived at Galveston, Texas, to inform residents President Abraham Lincoln had freed the slaves.

On the other hand, Tulsa is the site of the worst single massacre of African-Americans by whites in the United States. From May 31 to June 1, 1921, mobs of white Americans attacked black residents at the Greenwood District in Tulsa. As many as 200 blacks were murdered in the massacre at Greenwood, which at the time was the wealthiest black neighborhood in the U.S. The Tulsa Massacre is "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history."

Critics noted the decision to hold Trump's rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa was either a racially insensitive decision or an intentional slap to the face of African-Americans.

Health experts are warning people not to attend Trump's rally at the 19,000 seat BOK Center, however. They're concerned packing such a huge number of people indoors will trigger a super-spreader event that will worsen Oklahoma's already alarming spike in COVID-19 cases.

On Thursday, Oklahoma reported its highest single-day increase with 450 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths. The Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) revealed 450 new positive cases since Wednesday.

OSDH said this is the largest increase since the state's first positive case was reported on March 6. There are now 9,354 COVID-19 cases in Oklahoma since the pandemic began.