Social media reports claim that former US President Donald Trump was awarded an honorary medal in 1986 by the Ellis Island Honors Society for his contribution to the city’s circumstances [sic] Black youths stand alongside Muhammad Ali and Rosa Parks. This statement is partly false: although Trump, along with Ali and Parks, was one of the first Ellis Island Medals of Honor, it was given in recognition of his German heritage and his contributions to the business world of New York, rather as civil rights or racial justice.
A recent post making this claim can be found here, a post shared just before the 2016 U.S. general election can be seen here.
On the Getty Images visible here, the image in the most recent report shows the future president with civil rights icon Rosa Parks, boxer Muhammad Ali, baseball player Joe DiMaggio, musician Victor Borge and singer Anita Bryant after they all won the Ellis Island Medal or received Honor. on October 27, 1986.
Some iterations of the claim (here) contain a cut-off version of the photo that Trump shows with only Parks and Ali.
As reported here by the New York Times a week and a half before the 1986 ceremony, “eighty Americans from 42 ethnic groups were named recipients of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor by the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation yesterday.”
According to the report, “the winners, a mixture of prominent and relatively unknown citizens, were selected by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, selected by the foundation for the work.” The list of recipients describes Trump as ‘German, developer’, Parks as ‘African-American, activist’ and Ali as ‘African-American, boxer’.
According to its website, the Ellis Island Honors Society “honors the importance of immigration to the prosperity of America and celebrates the contributions that immigrants and their descendants have made to our country” (www.eihonors.org/). 1986 was the first year for the Ellis Island Medals of Honor, which is ‘awarded annually to those who have shown excellent commitment to serve our country, inter alia, professionally, culturally or civilly’.
Otto Coca, communications director of the Ellis Island Honors Society, told Reuters in an email that the current government of the association “claims that Donald Trump’s Ellis Island Medal of Honor was offered solely in recognition of his German heritage and his contributions to the City of New York as a developer, business leader and job creator. ”
“To the best of the current government’s knowledge, the EIHS has no record of Donald Trump receiving the medal for any race issues or helping youth in the city,” Coca added.
Coca explained that in 1986, Trump was “a young, successful businessman who regularly showed up at New York City social events.”
VERDICT
Partly false. While Donald Trump received an honorary medal from Ellis Island in 1986 along with Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali, the award was presented in recognition of his German ancestry and his contributions to New York as a real estate developer.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.