Report: Donald Trump’s father and the KKK attacked cops during a parade in 1927

The folks over at BoingBoing.net have been doing a little digging and they came up with something interesting.

According to a report from the New York Times in June of 1927, a man with the same name and address as Donald Trump’s father was arrested along with members of the KKK for attacking police officers in Queens, N.Y. during a parade.

Fred Trump’s address is listed in the Times article as 175-24 Devonshire Road in Jamaica Estates, Queens. Past news reports have also revealed Trump’s father to have lived at that address.

From BB:

[The article] subtitled “Klan assails policeman”, Fred Trump is named in among those taken in during a late May “battle” in which “1,000 Klansmen and 100 policemen staged a free-for-all.” At least two officers were hurt during the event, after which the Klan’s activities were denounced by the city’s Police Commissioner, Joseph A. Warren…

In 1927, Donald Trump’s father would have been 21 years old, and not yet a well-known figure. Multiple sources report his residence at the time—and throughout his life—at the same address.

To be clear, this is not proof that Trump senior—who would later go on to become a millionaire real estate developer—was a member of the Ku Klux Klan or even in attendance at the event. Despite sharing lawyers with the other men, it’s conceivable that he may have been an innocent bystander, falsely named, or otherwise the victim of mistaken identity during or following a chaotic event.

The Times report quotes police as saying a brawl erupted because the Klan broke an agreement not to wear any of their regalia to the parade.

ny times

Trump’s people haven’t responded to Boing Boing’s request for comment.

If the man arrested at the riotous Klan parade was indeed Donald’s father, it would not be his last tangle with the law over issues concerning minorities. A 1979 article, published by Village Voice, reported on a civil rights suit that alleged that the Trumps refused to rent to black home-seekers, and quotes a rental agent who said Fred Trump instructed him not to rent to blacks and to encourage existing black tenants to leave. The case was settled in a 1975 consent degree described as “one of the most far-reaching ever negotiated,” but the Justice Department subsequently complained that continuing “racially discriminatory conduct by Trump agents has occurred with such frequency that it has created a substantial impediment to the full enjoyment of equal opportunity.”

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Early days: Trump with his father in Manhattan (BBC)

BB’s Matt Blum is careful to point at that since Donald Trump wasn’t even born yet at the time of the incident, he “is not responsible for the youthful sins his father may have committed.”

But given the racially-charged tone of the younger Trump’s campaign, it raises questions about the values he was taught by the man whose fortune he inherited.

It raises questions indeed.

Featured image via PopDust.com

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.

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