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Iowa Democratic Chair Says He Received Lynching Threat After Criticizing Trump
Oct. 19, 2021Updated 4:57 p.m. ET
Iowa’s Democratic Party chair said on Tuesday that he received a lynching threat and several other racist phone and email messages after he wrote a column in the state’s largest newspaper denouncing former President Donald J. Trump and Republicans.
The party chairman, Ross Wilburn, the first Black person to lead the Democratic Party in Iowa, the presidential proving grounds, said that he turned the messages over to the police in Ames, Iowa, and planned to press charges if the people who sent the messages were identified.
Speaking to reporters over Zoom, Mr. Wilburn, a state representative from Ames, said that the threatening messages were in response to an Oct. 8 opinion article that he wrote in The Des Moines Register titled, “Iowa Republicans put loyalty to Trump over helping Iowans.”
The column’s publication preceded Mr. Trump’s rally on Oct. 9 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, his first visit to the state since losing the election in 2020 and the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“At some point, we have to say enough is enough,” Mr. Wilburn said on Tuesday. “We can’t control thoughts that people filled with hate have, but when you speak out, when you choose to act in certain ways, that’s when it’s not OK.”
more...https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/us/politics/ross-wilburn-trump.html
Iowa’s Democratic Party chair said on Tuesday that he received a lynching threat and several other racist phone and email messages after he wrote a column in the state’s largest newspaper denouncing former President Donald J. Trump and Republicans.
The party chairman, Ross Wilburn, the first Black person to lead the Democratic Party in Iowa, the presidential proving grounds, said that he turned the messages over to the police in Ames, Iowa, and planned to press charges if the people who sent the messages were identified.
Speaking to reporters over Zoom, Mr. Wilburn, a state representative from Ames, said that the threatening messages were in response to an Oct. 8 opinion article that he wrote in The Des Moines Register titled, “Iowa Republicans put loyalty to Trump over helping Iowans.”
The column’s publication preceded Mr. Trump’s rally on Oct. 9 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, his first visit to the state since losing the election in 2020 and the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“At some point, we have to say enough is enough,” Mr. Wilburn said on Tuesday. “We can’t control thoughts that people filled with hate have, but when you speak out, when you choose to act in certain ways, that’s when it’s not OK.”
more...https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/us/politics/ross-wilburn-trump.html