Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) continued to defend his comments on the marriage rate during the Jim Crow era during a contentious conversation with MSNBC anchor Al Sharpton.
Donalds appeared on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation on Saturday after his event in Philadelphia earlier this week when he discussed how the black marriage rate was higher back then than it is now. His comments have come under fire by many on the Left, who have interpreted the remark to be about how Jim Crow laws benefitted black people at the time despite the fact that they kept them in segregation and prohibited them from voting. Sharpton offered Donalds another opportunity to respond to the backlash.
“My response is that it’s very interesting how people can just lie and mischaracterize what I said,” Donalds said.” I never said or insinuated anything about Jim Crow being better. Just was talking about the marriage rates of black families in America during that time period. It’s an empirical fact.”
“I mean to in any way infer that the families, black families were better in Jim Crow, I mean, I’ve said things that I later said I shouldn’t have said,” Sharpton said. “Can’t you own that even sanitizing Jim Crow, even if that wasn’t your intention, was to say that’s my intention, I’m sorry for using those words?”
“Well, first of all, I never sanitized Jim Crow. I was just talking about the era in which black marriage rates were higher than they were during the great society and every other point in American history,” Donalds responded.
“I mean, look, look, you and I have mutual friends. People say you’re a straight shooter. We may disagree on politics. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt,” Sharpton said. “But look, you were born in Brooklyn, you went down into the South, went to Florida state, you have an interracial marriage, you’re the congressman of a district that’s not a black district. I mean, how can you even live with yourself acting like Jim Crow was a good era or better era for blacks? What happened to you?”
Donalds continued to assert that he did not say that the Jim Crow era was better for black people or express any nostalgia for the era.
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The Florida representative is over the state’s 16th district, which is almost one-fifth Latino, and 5% black, 3% mixed, and the remaining majority white. Additionally, the district reports another one-fifth of its population have never been married. Still, a 57% majority are married.
According to the Census Bureau, nationwide, over a third of black men and over a quarter of black women were never married in 1970. In 2020, these percentages increased to 51.4% for black men and 47.5% for black women.