President Trump is claiming that he made the African American holiday Juneteenth famous despite its being around for more than a century.
“I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous,” Trump said into the Wall Street Journal. “It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865: the day that Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and told a group of enslaved African-Americans that the Civil War had ended and they had been freed. For many, it signifies the ending of slavery.
Trump may think that he nobody had heard of the holiday because, according to the report from the WSJ — he had no idea about Juneteenth until a Black member of the Secret Service informed him.
“Trump said a black Secret Service agent told him the meaning of Juneteenth as the president was facing criticism for initially planning to hold his first campaign rally in three months on the day,” the paper reported.