what did donald trump do to earn the ellis island award
WASHINGTON — A photograph of Donald Trump, Muhammad Ali and Rosa Parks that the founder of Trump'southward "diversity coalition" hailed every bit evidence the Republican nominee won an "NAACP medal" for "helping America's inner cities" was actually taken at an awards ceremony organized by a business associate with an ethnic grievance.
William Fugazy, a politically well-continued businessman who later on pleaded guilty to perjury, gave the awards to Trump and 79 other people, most of them white, to protestation the awarding of "medals of liberty" to a grouping of 12 recent immigrants that included a Chinese-built-in architect, a Republic of costa rica-born astronaut, a leading skillful on the psychology of race, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, but no "Irish, Italian, or Polish" people.
Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime attorney, adviser and campaign surrogate, posted the photo on Twitter earlier this week of Trump, Parks and Ali, "receiving NAACP medals for helping America's inner cities. A man for ALL people!"
The NAACP has not awarded any medals to Trump for "helping America's inner cities," the group told HuffPost. Nor have whatever other ceremonious rights groups, according to Trump'south biographers.
Here'due south the real story. In 1986, as preparations began for the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, a civic committee selected a group of 12 naturalized citizens to receive "medals of freedom" from President Ronald Reagan. The final list, announced that March, included composer Irving Berlin, who emigrated from Russia; Franklin Chang Diaz, an astronaut from Costa rica; I.M. Pei, an architect born in Cathay; and entertainment legend Bob Hope, who was built-in in England .
In that location was an immediate outcry. Fugazy, then Trump'south real estate broker and head of the Coalition of Italo-American Associations, was angry that in that location were no native-born citizens among the 12 liberty medal winners (which was inevitable, since the honor was for naturalized citizens) and that the list excluded certain ethnicities, "like the Irish, Italians and Poles."
Fugazy'south Coalition of Italo-American Associations helped lead the campaign against the selections. "We recollect it's an insult to ― on the one mitt ― ask for donations to restore the foremost international symbol of freedom for immigrants and ― on the other manus ― to exclude nigh of them from the Medal of Liberty list," Joseph Martorana, the grouping'southward executive director, told the Miami Herald, earlier claiming that "the ethnic groups excluded account for 76 percent of the nation's population."
Fugazy had plenty of support. New York Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat, chosen the selections "idiotic" and announced plans to hand out his own awards.
"It'due south almost like denying some of the building blocks of the nation. It'due south an historical betrayal," New York City Council bulk leader Peter Vallone told the Herald.
Six of the 12 recipients of the medals, including Berlin, Kissinger, violinist Itzhak Perlman, polio vaccine inventor Albert Sabin, author Elie Wiesel and University of Chicago president Hanna Holborn Gray, were of Jewish descent.
Diana Walker via Getty Images
"These are shameful concessions to a Hollywood producer who lives in the world of fantasy," Paul O'Dwyer, a former New York Metropolis Quango president, told the Herald, presumably referring to "Roots" producer David Wolper, also Jewish, who had organized the centennial festivities. "I don't know what some of these people have done for history ― although Kissinger and Bob Promise have certainly done well for themselves," he added. "All in all, it shows an abysmal ignorance of the history of our land."
Some people tried to defend the awards. "The swell wave of Irish and Italian immigration took place before the Showtime Earth War. It is therefore hardly surprising that most Irish gaelic Americans and Italian Americans are Americans by nascence, non naturalization," historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a member of the committee that selected the 12 winners, noted in a letter to The New York Times.
But Schlesinger's letter didn't put the matter to residue. That the committee had included Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, who was of Irish descent, too every bit New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and New Jersey Rep. Peter Rodino, both of Italian descent, didn't seem to absolve the committee, either.
Instead, the controversy continued into the summer. That June , Fugazy created a new organization, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, or NECO, and a new laurels, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Trump, Ali and Parks were among lxxx people honored at NECO's offset awards ceremony on Ellis Island on Oct. 27, 1986. Simply iv of the 80 winners were blackness.
In the original, uncropped version of the photograph that Cohen shared, at that place are 6 people: baseball game legend Joe DiMaggio, humorist Victor Borge, singer and anti-gay activist Anita Bryant, Ali, Parks and Trump.
Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images
Since 1986, more than 2,000 people have been awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, including then-showtime lady Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Officially, the medal criteria are wide and inclusive: Winners should "uphold the ethics and spirit of America," while " maintaining the traditions of their ethnic heritage."
In practise, the winners are generally white Americans of European descent. NECO maintains a database of past medal honorees, which in many cases cites their "indigenous heritage." Below is McCain's list, which notes his heritage is "Scottish/Irish."
National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations
It'due south non clear precisely why Fugazy selected Trump to receive the medal in its countdown year, salvage for their friendship and Trump's success in concern. Fugazy died in 2015. Trump's campaign did non respond to questions nigh the honor or nearly Cohen's tweet.
Merely Fugazy was working as a banker for Trump in 1986, helping him to purchase 2 new backdrop, a 1987 government ideals report revealed. Trump ultimately paid Fugazy more than $500,000 in fees.
In addition to brokering the purchases, Fugazy helped arrange a deal that year between Trump and auto executive Lee Iacocca, one of his closest friends, to purchase a condo edifice in Florida. In the photo beneath (from left) Iacocca, Fugazy and Trump are attention the 1987 wedding of their pal George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees.
Ron Galella via Getty Images
Despite his rich and powerful friends, Fugazy was in deep financial trouble in 1986, and alleged personal bankruptcy that summer . Prosecutors later declared that Fugazy lied in bankruptcy filings nearly who owned one of his companies. He struck a deal to avoid prison house by pleading guilty to perjury. President Bill Clinton pardoned him in 2001, just hours before leaving role.
Whatsoever Fugazy's motive, it would have been hard for anyone to make a solid example that Trump deserved an award for "helping America's inner cities," in 1986.
At the time, Trump and his father held the dubious honor of having been the defendants in one of the largest-ever housing discrimination lawsuits, a case sparked by a Justice Department civil rights investigation that plant the Trumps discriminated against prospective tenants who were black.
The discrimination case was settled with an extensive consent decree. Just past the mid-1980s Trump was back in courtroom, this time trying to force poor and elderly tenants from their rent-controlled apartments in one of his buildings. In addition to the lawsuit, Trump shut off the water in the edifice and refused to brand repairs.
As Trump'southward longtime special counsel, Cohen has been deeply involved in the GOP nominee's largely unsuccessful effort to win support from blackness and Latino voters, primarily equally the founder and co-chair of Trump's minority outreach group, The National Diversity Coalition for Trump . Before this year, Cohen arranged for Trump to meet with black religious leaders in New York and then in Detroit, helping secure a small number of loftier-profile endorsements. And he frequently defends Trump against critics who bespeak to Trump's long history of racist statements as proof that he is indeed racist.
A recent national poll showed Trump winning merely 7 percent of black voters.
Editor'southward note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar , rampant xenophobe , racist , misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.half dozen billion members of an unabridged religion — from inbound the U.S.
Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-naacp_n_580ac881e4b000d0b156e6e2
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