In 1927, Donald Trump’s father was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan riot in New York
PUBLISHED : Monday, 29 February, 2016, 8:50am
UPDATED : Monday, 29 February, 2016, 9:16am
The Washington Post
Fred Trump, the late father of Republican presidential candidate Donald TRump. Photo: Wikipedia
A furore over former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke’s praise for Donald Trump has brought back into the spotlight an incident from nearly 90 years ago, in which Trump’s father was arrested at a Klan riot in New York.
In September, the technology blog Boing Boing reported that on Memorial Day 1927, brawls erupted in New York led by sympathisers of the Italian fascist movement and the Ku Klux Klan. In the fascist brawl, which took place in the Bronx, two Italian men were killed by anti-fascists. In Queens, 1,000 white-robed Klansmen marched through the Jamaica neighbourhood, eventually spurring an all-out brawl in which seven men were arrested.
One of those arrested was Fred Trump of 175-24 Devonshire Rd in Jamaica.
This is Donald Trump’s father. Trump had a brother named Fred, but he wasn’t born until more than a decade later. The Fred Trump at Devonshire Road was the Fred C. Trump who lived there with his wife, according to the 1930 Census.
The predication for the Klan to march, according to a flier passed around Jamaica beforehand, was that “Native-born Protestant Americans” were being “assaulted by Roman Catholic police of New York City.” “Liberty and Democracy have been trampled upon when native-born Protestant Americans dare to organize to protect one flag, the American flag; one school, the public school; and one language, the English language.”
It’s not clear from the context what role Fred Trump played in the brawl. The news article simply notes that seven men were arrested in the “near-riot of the parade,” all of whom were represented by the same lawyers. No doubt to the chagrin of those in the Klan, the seven faced a Roman Catholic judge.
When news of the old report surfaced last year, Donald Trump vehemently denied his father’s arrest. “He was never arrested. He has nothing to do with this. This never happened. This is nonsense and it never happened,” he said to the Daily Mail. “This never happened. Never took place. He was never arrested, never convicted, never even charged. It’s a completely false, ridiculous story. He was never there! It never happened. Never took place.”
