Juneteenth Post by Mehmet Oz Edited to Remove 'Equality'

Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, endorsed last month in Pennsylvania by ex-President Donald Trump, deleted the word "equality" from a post he wrote on Truth Social in celebration of Juneteenth, according to Ron Filipkowski, a lawyer who closely tracks the right.

The original post—reading "Our country is better because of our freedoms, our unity, and our equality. #Juneteenth."—was replaced by a nearly identical one without "equality."

Juneteenth, celebrated every year on June 19, commemorates a crucial moment in African-American history when Union soldiers marched into Galveston, Texas, in 1865 to control the state and inform the remaining slaves that they were free. There were 250,000 enslaved people in Texas at the time, according to a report by the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.

The edit to Oz's post sparked outrage among some Twitter users.

"So tell us why you dropped 'equality' from your Juneteenth post on Truth Social??? You're against equality? What do you think is a black person's 'place' then?" wrote @broadwayterry.

@jaguar_quetzal added: "Did you run this Tweet past your GOP masters to make sure they weren't offended by anything like the word, 'equality,' in your Juneteenth tweet, or were you a bwave widdle boy and just went ahead without checking in?"

"Dr. Oz takes out 'equality' from Juneteenth as a shout out to his white supremacists," added @BlueDash12.

Juneteenth Resistance

Many states still don't recognize Juneteenth as a paid holiday, even though a year has passed since President Joe Biden signed the holiday into federal law. Fourteen House Republicans voted against making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

This weekend, White Lives Matter, a group of white nationalists, held a protest in Franklin, Tennessee, disrupting the city's annual Juneteenth celebration. They carried signs reading "Stop White Replacement" and "It's ok to be white," among other things.

Oz, a physician and popular TV personality, barely won his GOP primary against businessman David McCormick, despite Trump's backing. When Trump introduced him at a rally in Pennsylvania last month, some attendees booed and turned their backs.

Oz faces Democratic candidate John Fetterman in the race to fill the seat held by retiring GOP Senator Pat Toomey. Fetterman, Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor and a former mayor, won in the Democratic primary with nearly 60 percent of the vote.

A poll released this week showed Fetterman leading Oz by 9 points. Conducted by USA Today and Suffolk University between June 10 and June 13, the survey showed Fetterman at 46 percent, while his Trump-backed opponent was at 37 percent.

Newsweek reached out to Mehmet Oz's campaign for comment.