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During a campaign stop with former President Bill Clinton, Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly said the state needs to stop whitewashing American history.
Speaking at Koinonia Worship Center on Oct. 20, a historically Black, non-denominational church in Hollywood, Florida, Jolly said his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, once spoke positively about the Jim Crow era — a period from the late 1800s to the mid-1960s when Black people in the South were subject to state-sponsored discrimination.
"If the test is our goodness, we are failing right now. We are failing right now…When we're a state that actually suggested years ago that we might want to teach our kids the 'good parts' of slavery," Jolly said. "Or, when my opponent suggests there were good parts of Jim Crow."
In 2023, Florida officials rewrote some Black history school standards to say that slaves, in some instances, developed skills they benefited from.
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Jolly's statement, that Donalds' suggested there were good parts of Jim Crow, is missing context. Donalds didn't praise the era's discriminatory policies; his 2024 remarks centered on Black people's conservative leanings and Black families staying together.
At an event in Philadelphia that year, Donalds, seeking Black voters' support for President Donald Trump's reelection, said he was starting to see the "reinvigoration of Black family," which he described as younger people forming families and "helping to breathe the revival of a Black middle class in America," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
That's when he turned to the past.
"During Jim Crow, the Black family was together," Donalds said at the event. "During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively."
Donalds pointed to President Lyndon Johnson's efforts to fight poverty after Jim Crow, which some conservatives say incentivized family separations.
Jim Crow laws were enacted over several decades following the end of post-Civil War Reconstruction and formally ended when the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed.
After backlash for his comments, Donalds said on MSNBC in 2024 that he wasn't being "nostalgic" about Jim Crow, but was focusing on how "the marriage rates of Black Americans were significantly higher than any other time since then in American history" and have "plummeted" since.
Donalds' campaign did not respond to our questions about his 2024 comments. Jolly's campaign pointed us to more recent remarks in which Donalds reaffirmed his point.
In the Florida episode of her documentary series about voter dynamics, former Obama White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri asked Donalds about what he said in 2024.
"I said exactly what I meant … I was talking about marriage rates for Black families," Donalds said. "The data is clear. Marriage rates were higher in the Black community during that period of time. When Lyndon Johnson's Great Society came in, that's when we saw marriage rates in the Black family plummet."
Donalds said President Joe Biden's presidential campaign twisted his meaning in 2024. "They decided to make it political, saying I was somehow supportive of Jim Crow — that's crazy," he told Palmieri.
Donalds' comment was primarily about Black families staying together during Jim Crow
When PolitiFact reported on Donalds' comments in 2024, we cited research showing that from 1940 to 1980, both white and Black women divorced from their partners more than they previously did, but it happened sooner and more steeply for Black women. The percentage of Black women ages 40 to 44 who said they have ever been married fell from 94% in 1930 to 63% in 2012.
Some conservative commentators argue that government policies, including safety net programs that help women parent alone, are responsible for family separations. But researchers say it's difficult to point to a single cause. Other factors, including Black men losing manufacturing jobs in the '70s and '80s and more Black women getting jobs, have also been influential.
Whether Black people voted more conservatively during the Jim Crow era is difficult to prove, experts have told PolitiFact, because Black people couldn't vote in the South and "conservatism," as a defined ideological movement, largely emerged in the 1950s.
Our ruling
Jolly said Donalds "suggested there were good parts of Jim Crow."
In 2024, Donalds spoke favorably about some aspects of Black families during that era, saying "during Jim Crow, the Black family was together" and that Black Americans voted more conservatively then. He wasn't praising the racist policies of the era, as Jolly's statement implies.
Jolly's statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True.
Our Sources
- PolitiFact, Fact-checking Byron Donalds' 'Jim Crow' comments on Black families, conservatism, June 10, 2024
- PolitiFact, Do Florida school standards say 'enslaved people benefited from slavery,' as Kamala Harris said?, July 24, 2023
- YouTube, LIVE with President Bill Clinton in Broward County, Oct. 20, 2026
- YouTube, David Jolly appearance on Joy Reid Show, Oct. 16, 2026
- PBS, Jim Crow Laws, Accessed Oct. 22, 2026
- History.com, Great Society, Updated, April 22, 2026
- NBC News, Trump surrogate Byron Donalds hearkens back to Jim Crow era when 'the Black family was together', June 5, 2024
- The Philadelphia Inquirer, Rep. Byron Donalds draws backlash for expressing nostalgia for Jim Crow era during Philly event, June 5, 2024
- YouTube, MS NOW: Why idealize the Black family under Jim Crow oppression? GOP Rep. Byron Donalds responds to Joy Reid, June 6, 2024
- PubMed, The Growing Racial and Ethnic Divide in U.S. Marriage Patterns, 2015
- Brookings, Black women are earning more college degrees, but that alone won't close race gaps, Dec. 4, 2017
- Email interview, Devon Hesano, spokesperson for David Jolly campaign, Oct. 22, 2026
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