Democrats rebuke one of their own over his email on Black death toll in American history

North Carolina and Wake County Democrats rebuked one of their own executive committee members this week after he accused a U.S. Senate candidate of exaggerating the number of Black people killed in American history.

Former state Sen. Erica Smith, a Democrat who is running for the U.S. Senate, sent an email to supporters Tuesday after the murder conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, a Black man.

“I’m thinking about the literal millions of Black men and women who’ve been murdered, who were lynched and slaughtered with disregard, and never had their day in court, let alone a just ruling,” Smith wrote.

Smith is seeking to become North Carolina’s first Black U.S. senator. There are no Black women in the U.S. Senate currently.

Michael Schaul, a longtime member of the North Carolina Democratic Party’s state executive committee representing Wake County, sent Smith’s campaign an email critiquing her response and questioning her math.

“Exaggeration doesn’t help. Gross exaggeration is worse. It makes you look bad,” wrote Schaul, who is one of more than 800 members on the committee, including 66 from Wake County.

“Since the first African was brought to what is now the U.S., if there had been 1 million murdered, that would have been 6-7/day, everyday, for 400 years,” Schaul wrote. “’Millions’? How many? 3 million — that’s 20/day. Were there that many at the height of slavery, when murdering a slave was, in effect, destroying valuable property. In the absence of serious data, I don’t believe it. 20 or even 6/day now, or in my lifetime? Unlikely.

“So, as terrible as things have been during those 400 years, let’s not make it seem so much worse. It doesn’t help anything, much less your cause.”

Schaul, who is white, later sent the email to others, saying in part: “Once again, I find myself having to write to Erica’s campaign telling them how bad their emails are.”

After the email was made public by Smith, the county and state parties have responded with statements of support for Smith and a rebuke, though not by name, of Schaul.

Schaul declined interview requests from The News & Observer on Thursday, saying in an email he was “still considering” his response.

Smith posted a portion of his email on her Twitter feed in a thread that included her own calculations. Smith, who said she is a descendant of slaves, pointed to research that indicates nearly 2 million enslaved people did not “survive the voyage” to America and that “half of all slave infants died in their first year of life.”

“We’re at over a million and that’s not even counting Jim Crow, police killings, and all the other ways Black people have been ‘slaughtered’ in our history,” Smith wrote.

In a statement to The News & Observer, Smith tied the remarks to obstacles that Black women face when they run for office.

“I was not surprised at the sentiment expressed in that email. I was surprised when I saw the title of the person who sent it. This is the structural racism that’s revealed when a Black woman runs for office,” she said.

“It’s attitudes, comments, and beliefs like these that have made it so hard for Black women to break through into elected office. There’s an old boys club that has normalized dangerous and harmful comments like these and it’s past time for that to end. We as a party need to have these tough conversations about the ways in which we’ve all too often reflected the same inequities, bias, insensitivity and injustice that we’re seeking to change in our communities and our society.

“I support the calls for him to step down and if necessary, be removed.”

Party defends Smith

The Wake County Democratic Party released a statement that said its leaders were “profoundly disappointed by the callous and factually incorrect response an individual on our county’s State Executive Committee made in reply to Senator Smith’s email.”

It called on Schaul to formally apologize to Smith, retract his statement and cease engaging in harmful rhetoric. The party also called on him to attend diversity, equity and inclusion training. It did not mention resigning.

The Smith campaign said Thursday it had not been contacted by Schaul. Smith posted to Twitter that she had “an encouraging discussion with Wake County Dem leadership.”

The North Carolina Democratic Party said the comments “are wrong and do not reflect the values” of the party.

Of the more than 800 members of the state executive committee for the North Carolina Democratic Party, 450 are elected from the counties. Schaul was elected to a two-year term in May. There is a lengthy procedure for removing members from positions in the party.

In Smith’s original email to supporters, she called for reparations for Black Americans.

“We must understand that no single verdict can ease the burden of the ancestral trauma we carry. Black America needs more than one verdict. We need reparations,” she wrote. “We need to continue to be, as we have been, vigilant vehicles of justice.”

In 2018, Schaul wrote a News & Observer letter to the editor defending Democrat Duane Hall, the former state representative who faced sexual harassment allegations. Hall, seeking a fourth term, lost in the 2018 primary.

Smith lost her bid for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 2020. She served three terms in the state Senate.

State Sen. Jeff Jackson, virologist Richard Watkins and Beaufort Mayor Rett Newton have announced their candidacy for the Democratic nomination in 2022 to replace retiring Republican Richard Burr. Cheri Beasley, the former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, is also expected to run.

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