Byron Donalds expresses nostalgia for the Jim Crow era, when ‘the Black family was together’

PHILADELPHIA — Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) was on the defensive on Wednesday as Democrats attacked him for comments he'd made the night before praising Black families under the era of racial segregation in America.

“During Jim Crow the Black family was together,” Donalds said during a Black GOP outreach event in a gentrifying part of Philadelphia on Tuesday, and criticized decades-old policies from former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson for promoting a culture of dependence. “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.”

The remarks prompted a blitz of attacks from Biden allies, including 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."

In a response video posted on X, Donalds said the Biden campaign was "gaslighting" voters and that Jeffries was misrepresenting him.

The remarks, first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, also touched on gender roles in the home.

"[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 Donalds' remarks.

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

At the Black voter outreach event Tuesday, 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.’”