Melania Trump reads anti-slavery story in video to mark Juneteenth as president continues to threaten racial justice protesters

'You will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene,' president tweets

Melania Trump has posted a video of her reading an anti-slavery story to mark Juneteenth – which celebrates the liberation of slaves in the US – only hours before the president wrote a tweet threatening civil protesters at his upcoming presidential rally.

The first lady posted the three minute reading on her Twitter account of All Different Now by Angela Johnson, which tells the story of a little girl who was freed from slavery in Texas alongside her family.

“As our country works through the racial issues that we still face today it is important to remember we are one global community,” the first lady says in the opening of the video.

“My hope for everyone today is that by understanding and reflecting even upon the worst part of our country’s past we can commit to lifting each other up and celebrating the freedom we all deserve.”

The message came only hours before President Donald Trump tweeted a warning to civil rights protesters with a very different tone, seemingly threatening them with harsh law enforcement if they turn up to his presidential rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday.

“Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!” the president tweeted.

The tweet is one of a number of clashes between the president and civil rights protesters, who have demonstrated across all 50 states in the past three weeks over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer pinned him to the ground by his neck for almost nine minutes.

Mr Trump previously labelled himself "your law-and-order president" while he announced he would be willing to deploy “heavily armed” US military troops to cities to quell the unrest.

The latest tweet also came less than 24 hours after Oklahoma's governor sat near the president at the White House and declared the Tulsa event will be “safe” amid fears over the spread of the coronavirus.

The campaign rally, which will be the president's first in three months, has already been surrounded in controversy after Mr Trump faced a backlash for initially intending to hold the event on the same day as Juneteenth, sparking outcry from both officials and residents.

African-American leaders told the president it was insensitive to coincide the rally with the date, especially amidst continued protests against systemic racism and police brutality against black Americans in the US.

The holiday, also called Emancipation Day and Freedom Day, marks the date in 1865 that news finally reached African Americans in Texas that US President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves living in Confederate states two years earlier.

After facing continued criticism, Mr Trump eventually pushed the rally back a day to 20 June, retaining the 19,000 seat indoor venue at the BOK Centre in Tulsa despite many expressing fears over the spread of coronavirus.

Mr Trump’s militant treatment of protesters over the last three weeks has reportedly impacted his standing in the polls, in particular for the violent clearing of protesters from Lafayette Square in DC for a trip to a nearby church for a brief photo opportunity on 1 June.

A new Fox poll showed just over 60 per cent of those surveyed disapprove of the president's handling of race relations.

Ms Trump apparently remained determined to convey a positive message despite the backlash, insisting in her video that we should “all agree that any differences we have should be celebrated and learned from.”

However, Ms Trump has also faced criticism for her intervention following her prior support of the birther conspiracy theory promoted by Mr Trump, alleging that the then-president Barack Obama was not born in the United States and therefore constitutionally ineligible to be president.

"It’s not only Donald who wants to see [Obama's birth certificate], it’s American people who voted for him and who didn’t vote for him. They want to see that," Ms Trump said in an interview in 2011 about the theory, which is widely seen as a racist attack on Mr Obama.