George Clooney mocks Trump for claiming he made Juneteenth famous, donates $500K to honor his 'heroic effort'
George Clooney has slammed President Donald Trump after he claimed that he “made Juneteenth famous”. Taking a jibe at the Republican leader, the 59-year-old actor said he will be donating $500k to a charity that works for racial equality to honor his "heroic effort". Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated on June 19 to mark the release of the last remaining slaves in the United States in 1865. “Thank you President Trump for 'making Juneteenth famous.' Much like when Bull Connor made 'Civil Rights' famous. My family will be donating 500 thousand dollars to the Equal Justice Initiative in honor of your heroic efforts,” Clooney told PEOPLE in a statement.
Connor was an Alabama politician who strongly opposed the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. As Commissioner of Public Safety for the city of Birmingham, Alabama, he reportedly ordered the use of fire hoses and police attack dogs against civil rights activists. According to reports, Clooney’s comments came after Trump in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal boasted that he made the June holiday "very famous". He was discussing his first post-coronavirus campaign rally on June 19, the same date as the Civil Rights holiday when he made those remarks. The rally was scheduled to take place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, amid the ongoing Black Lives Matter protest on June 19. However, later it was moved to the next day, but will still be held in Tulsa, the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
"I did something good. I made it famous. I made Juneteenth very famous. It’s actually an important event, it’s an important time. But nobody had heard of it. Very few people have heard of it. Actually, a young African-American Secret Service agent knew what it was. I had political people who had no idea,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal‘s Michael C. Bender in the interview conducted on June 16.
The recent statement from Clooney is not the first one slamming Trump. Earlier in June, the ‘Ocean's Eleven’ star penned down an essay about systemic racism after a weekend of nationwide protests following the May 25 death of George Floyd. Through his essay, he also took a subtle dig at the president as he explained why he believes racism still prevails in America. “The anger and the frustration we see playing out once again in our streets is just a reminder of how little we’ve grown as a country from our original sin of slavery. The fact that we aren’t actually buying and selling other human beings anymore is not a badge of honor. We need systemic change in our law enforcement and in our criminal justice system. We need policymakers and politicians that reflect basic fairness to all of their citizens equally. Not leaders that stoke hatred and violence as if the idea of shooting looters could ever be anything less than a racial dog whistle,” Clooney said.
At the end of the essay published by The Daily Beast, the father-of-two said racism was America's true pandemic. “This is our pandemic. It infects all of us, and in 400 years we’ve yet to find a vaccine. It seems we’ve stopped even looking for one and we just try to treat the wound on an individual basis,” Clooney added.