Byron Donalds Expresses Nostalgia For The Jim Crow Era, When 'the Black Family Was Together'

PHILADELPHIA — Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) suggested that Black families were better off during an era of racial segregation in America than they are today under President Joe Biden.

“During Jim Crow the Black family was together,” Donalds said during a Black GOP outreach event in a gentrifying part of Philadelphia on Tuesday, when he was making the case that Black voters are increasingly open to conservatism thanks to its emphasis on family values. “During Jim Crow, more Black people were — not just conservative, because Black people always have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively.”

He criticized decades-old policies that he said ultimately destroyed the American family by making generations of Black Americans dependent on the federal government for support. He cited former President Dwight Eisenhower's creation of the Civil Rights-era Department of Health, Education and Welfare, known then as HEW, and later policies enacted under former President Lyndon Johnson. He suggested Biden's administration is continuing those policies of dependance.

He also took it a step further by saying during previous generations there were defined gender roles in the home, hinting that liberals are out of step with most Americans in how they embrace gender equality.

"[T]here’s a difference between men and women anyway. Men have been created by God to be conquerors, to be hunters," he said. "A Black man in today’s America is looking around and saying, ‘How can I go hunt for my people and hunt for my family?'”

One person in the crowd, mostly made up of self-identified Black Republicans, shouted “Bingo!” to voice agreement with Donads' remarks.

The remarks, first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, were quickly posted on X and blasted out over email by Biden campaign officials, and even prompted a response from the top House Democrat on Wednesday.

"It has come to my attention that a so-called leader has made the factually inaccurate statement that Black folks were better off during Jim Crow," Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in remarks on the House floor, listing other aspects of that era — from lynching to the suppression of the Black vote. "How dare you make such an ignorant observation? You better check yourself before you wreck yourself."

The Biden campaign signaled they believe Trump’s overtures to Black voters will be undermined by their messaging missteps.

“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,“ Biden-Harris spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.

Neither Donalds nor the Trump campaign immediately responded to a request for comment.

Donalds appeared at the event alongside Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) and former NBC Sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya.

“This is the thing that scares me is they convinced people that they're not strong enough to do it on their own,” Tafoya said, pausing for a beat before continuing. “You got to suckle from the government teat and then you are attached for life.”

One woman in the front of the audience said Democrats have “tricked us into getting rid of our men.”

“We need our men back," said Roslyn Ross Williams, who works with the anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity. "Many of us have bought the lies.”

Trump and his surrogates are making a push on Black voter outreach as polling suggests larger shares of Black voters are winnable for the GOP this cycle. A recent New York Times/Siena College/Philadelphia Inquirer poll of five key swing states found more than 20 percent of Black voters in swing states are open to voting for the presumptive Republican nominee in the fall.

Donalds also said Black women may be turned off by Democrats' positions on transgender policies: “Black women are looking at their sons and saying, ‘Now, wait a minute. You’re telling me that my young son can become a girl? Nope.’”