While speaking at a campaign event for former President Donald Trump, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) appeared to suggest things were better for Black families during the Jim Crow era, a time after the Civil War where statutes enforced legalized racial segregation.
Donalds is among a select few Republicans vying to be Trump’s VP pick. The freshman congressman made his comments during a speech in Philadelphia at the “Congress, Cognac, and Cigars” event, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
While speaking, Donalds said that he is noticing a “reinvigoration” of Black families and that it is “helping to breathe the revival of a Black middle class in America.”
Donalds went on to say that the nuclear family and its value has been lost among Black voters because of the actions of Democrats following the Civil Rights movement, the Inquirer reported.
“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more people voted conservatively,” Donalds said.
Donalds hasn’t yet shared any explanation for his remarks despite several outlets reaching out to him for comment.
The report from the Inquirer went on to note that the majority of those present at the event were Black, and about half weren’t from Philadelphia.
Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, offered criticism of the comments from Donalds, as well as Trump’s efforts to win over more Black voters.
“Donald 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,” Chitika wrote in a statement.
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson has also commented on the quote, asking in a post on social media whether Donalds would be a member of Congress at that time.
“@ByronDonalds Do you think you would hold your current position under Jim Crow? Asking for the rest of Black America,” Johnson wrote.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also offered criticism for his colleague’s remarks, saying it was “factually inaccurate” to say the Black community was better off when they could be lynched, “brutally murdered,” denied education, the right to vote without consequences, and sexually assaulted.
“How dare you make such an ignorant observation,” he said. “You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.”