President Donald Trump marked a civil rights leader’s death with a photo dump that appeared designed to make a familiar point: that he shouldn’t be accused of racism.
But the images, meant to signal proximity and credibility, quickly triggered skepticism as users noticed they all seemed to come from the same narrow slice of time, raising questions about what the post was really trying to prove.
Trump shared the series of photos on Tuesday, Feb. 17, on the same day the civil rights icon and two-time presidential candidate, Rev. Jesse Jackson, died in Chicago at 84 on Truth Social.
However, Threads users quickly pointed out that the photos were all from over 30 years ago and seem to appear from a few of the same events.
“What do you see in all of these pictures?” One Threads user asked. “A man who thinks pictures of him standing next to Black people 30 years ago are all that’s needed to prove he’s not racist,” another user replied.
“A racist can be cordial and pleasant with a person of color, and still be racist. Especially in a public space. He has still said and done plenty to prove he IS a racist. Not only towards black people,” another person said.
While traveling to Mar-a-Lago aboard Air Force One on Friday, President Donald Trump brushed off mounting backlash by declaring himself “the least racist president you’ve had in a long time.”
The claim came as outrage continued to build across party lines over a video Trump posted to Truth Social portraying former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes — a post critics condemned as overtly racist.
“I’ve done great with Black voters,” Trump insisted during a brief press gaggle. “They’ve been great to me, I’ve been great to them,” before repeating his assertion that, in his view, no recent president has been less racist than him.
Yet in another Truth Social post honoring the civil rights icon, Trump let his Barack Obama envy get the best of him.
In the post, Trump started off taking the high road. He called Jackson, who worked with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, “a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts.’”
“He was very gregarious – Someone who truly loved people!” Trump effused before launching into and whining about familiar grievances.
“Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left, Democrats ALL, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way,” the president complained while at the same time making the Jackson tribute post all about him.
Trump and the highly respected civil rights pioneer who founded the multi-racial Rainbow PUSH Coalition in the 1990s to work for social justice and economic parity knew each other and moved in separate but overlapping social and political circles in the 1980s and ’90s, according to Newsweek.
Newsweek reported Jackson had praised Trump, a New York real estate developer in those years, because he took Jackson’s presidential runs in 1984 and 1988 seriously.
“When many others thought it was either laughable or something to avoid, he came to our business meeting here in New York because he has this sense of the curious and the will to risk to make things better,” the charismatic activist said at the time.
Jackson had also publicly praised Trump in the late 1990s after he gave the Rainbow PUSH Coalition free office space at 40 Wall Street.
But a breakdown in the two men’s relationship publicly erupted after Trump was elected President in 2016.
Jackson criticized Trump’s rhetoric and policies, especially his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again,” according to Newsweek.
“The idea of making America great again reopens the wounds in America’s immoral foundation, born in sin, and shaped in inequity,” Jackson said.
“We need not for a moment underestimate the damage done to our country…in the last few days,” Jackson continued at the time. “What are we confronted with? There is a tug of war for the soul of America.”
In his strange and boastful tribute post to Jackson, Trump tooted his own horn, listing all the ways he claimed to have “helped” the civil rights pioneer, including of course mentioning the free office space, how he passed long-term funding for HBCUs and helped pass criminal justice reform during his first term, as if he had done all this just for Jackson.
But for some reason, his tribute to Jackson triggered his hatred of Obama, and Trump could not resist getting in a petty dig.
“Jesse was a force of nature like few others before him. He had much to do with the Election, without acknowledgment or credit, of Barack Hussein Obama, a man whom Jesse could not stand,” Trump astonishingly claimed out of nowhere.
That is, of course, not true. While there was occasional friction between Jackson and Obama, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition founder and former president more widely respected and supported each other.
A social media firestorm erupted after Trump’s exploitative so-called tribute to Jackson.
“Donald Trump takes time during acknowledging the death of Rev. Jesse Jackson to take jabs at Obama. Bro is obsessed with him. This is also giving me ‘I’m not a racist because I had a Black friend’ vibes. What a vile man,” an angry X user declared.
“He needs to keep the Reverend’s name out of his rancid mouth,” Threads user Ol Texas Boy stated.
Other angry posts followed.
“He is such a low down dirty dog,” Threads user Sheena Samone proclaimed.
Another commented that there is no hope for an always self-serving Trump.
“He is beyond redemption. Ick,” this Threads user remarked.
“Oh he just had to invoke Obama! Damn, his hateration never takes a break! That’s why he’s rotting on the inside!” Bonny Lou 1017 pointed out on a post on Threads.
Jackson died at his home in Chicago, according to news outlets, after a long battle with supranuclear palsy, a progressive neurological disease. But he continued his civil rights work almost to the very end.
Great Job Shelby E. & the Team @ Atlanta Black Star for sharing this story.
