workingclasshistory:

On this day, 31 May 1927, Fred Trump, the father of US president Donald Trump, was arrested at a rally of the Ku Klux Klan in Queens, New York.
He was initially arrested for “refusing to disperse” along with six other people after the rally descended into disorder. The Long Island Daily Press reported that all seven arrestees were wearing Klan robes.
After Donald Trump was endorsed by David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Trump was questioned about his father’s arrest. Donald claimed to journalist Jason Horowitz that “it never happened”, despite it being reported in several newspapers. When Horowitz asked Trump if the address reported for his father in the newspapers, 175-24 Devonshire Rd, was accurate, Donald dismissed it as “totally false”. However Fred Trump’s wedding announcement in the Daily Press listed his address at 175-24 Devonshire Rd.
Fred Trump was subjected to legal action by the Justice Department on multiple occasions for racist behaviour as a landlord, and one of his former tenants, folk singer Woody Guthrie once wrote in a song mentioning Trump: “I suppose / Old Man Trump knows / Just how much / Racial Hate / He stirred up”.
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