Trump’s numbers are collapsing in poll after poll, so it’s a little problematic to go back as far as March to look at his state-by-state results. However, that’s the most recent public report from Morning Consult that allows us to quickly compare the president’s standing in different areas of the country, and this is presumably a more steady thing than his overall performance. If Alabama was his best state in March, this probably remains true in June.

So, looking at the March numbers, I see that Trump had a net positive approval rating of fourteen in Oklahoma. The only states where he was doing better were Alabama (+28), Wyoming (+27), West Virginia (+24), Louisiana (+21) Idaho (+19)  and Kentucky (+17).

These would be the last states to fall into Joe Biden’s column in a blowout election. It’s almost inconceivable that he will lose any of them, although at this point I wouldn’t rule anything out. There is no obvious advantage to campaigning in these states for either candidate. But Trump is going to hit the road and hold a rally in Tulsa next week.

Why choose Tulsa?

Well, he has to choose a Republican-run state that will allow him to flaunt health recommendations against holding public rallies. He wants adoring fans, and Oklahoma still has plenty of them. But it’s also the site of the worst race-riot in American history.

It happened 99 years ago:

On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young black man named Dick Rowland was riding in the elevator in the Drexel Building at Third and Main with a woman named Sarah Page. The details of what followed vary from person to person. Accounts of an incident circulated among the city’s white community during the day and became more exaggerated with each telling.

Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day and began an investigation. An inflammatory report in the May 31 edition of the Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between black and white armed mobs around the courthouse where the sheriff and his men had barricaded the top floor to protect Rowland. Shots were fired and the outnumbered African Americans began retreating to the Greenwood District.

In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was looted and burned by white rioters. Governor Robertson declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned all black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days.

Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, over 800 people were treated for injuries and contemporary reports of deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died.

The previously affluent middle-class black Greenwood section of the city lay in ruins with as many as 10,000 residents rendered homeless. There are thousands of cities in America where the president could hold a rally, but only one of them has this historic significance to white supremacists.

Remember, Ronald Reagan chose the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi for the first stop in his 1980 general election campaign. To the extent that the wider country was familiar with the town at all, it was for being the place where white civil rights advocates Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney were murdered in 1964 by the Ku Klux Klan for having the temerity to try to register black people to vote.

It was understandable, if loathsome, that Reagan settled on a strategy of winning over historically Democratic Klansmen as part of his plan for winning southern states. Choosing Philadelphia, however, was completely over the top. The symbolism was obvious.

Winning over Oklahomans isn’t part of any innovative new strategy for Trump. But keeping dedicated racists excited about and committed to his campaign is obviously of great importance to him. At a time when the country is in open revolt against the racist practices and history of our country, the president is going to Tulsa to let his supporters know which side he is on.