Tulsa news: ‘Literal hell unleashed’ on Black residents, Biden says in address on massacre anniversary
President delivers remarks as community recognises 100th anniversary of catastrophic racist violence
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President Joe Biden travelled to Tulsa, Oklahoma on Tuesday to mark the 100th anniversary of one of the bloodiest episodes of racist violence in the US, when a white mob destroyed 35 blocks of a flourishing Black neighbourhood in Greenwood, displaced thousands of residents, and killed as many as 300 people within 14 hours beginning on 31 May, 1921.
The president – the first within the last century to address the massacre from Tulsa – also met with the three known living survivors, who continue to press for justice for the atrocities.
“As painful as it is, only in remembrance do wounds heal,” the president said in his remarks, arguing for a national recognition of the country’s history of racist violence.
The US must “come to terms with its dark side” as other great nations do, he said.
“We just have to choose to remember,” he said. “Memorialise what happened here in Tulsa so it can’t be erased.”
The anniversary of the attack also has revived discussions about the decades of systemic injustice that followed, not just in Tulsa but across the US, as the White House unveils a new series of proposals and administration goals aimed at repairing discriminatory policies and reversing the white-Black wealth gap.
“Disinvestment in Black families in Tulsa and across the country throughout our history is still felt sharply today,” the White House said.
Thousands of people have gathered in Tulsa to commemorate the anniversary at vigils, memorials, discussions and other events.
Follow live updates as they happened below
Three new TV documentaries air stories of Tulsa massacre
Take a look at three new documentaries – Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten, National Geographic’s Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer, and Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street – airing around the 100th anniversary of the massacre.
The mass media push to elevate the stories of the survivors and what happened before and after the violence follows years-long attempts to whitewash the history or ignore it altogether.
Dreamland director Salima Koroma said her pitch to some networks nearly five years ago was ignored, with “gatekeepers” not ready or willing to air it, she said.
Biden has landed in Tulsa. He’s the first president to visit the city to commemorate the massacre
Joe Biden has landed in Tulsa, where he will meet privately with survivors from the 1921 race massacre before touring the Greenwood Cultural Center and delivering remarks on the centennial of the atrocity.
He will be the first president to visit the city to commemorate the massacre.
“Frankly, he plans to discuss a shared sense of frustration and pain that justice has been denied to these families for so long,” said White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
“He is traveling to Tulsa to shine a light on what happened, and to make sure America knows the story,” she told reporters on Air Ford One en route from Washington DC.
Her great grandmother and grandmother survived to tell her family what happened in 1921
When she was 34, she was given a book written by her great grandmother, titled “Events of the Tulsa Disaster by Mrs. Mary Jones Parrish.”
Anneliese Bruner – whose great grandmother and grandmother Florence Mary survived the 1921 massacre – was in possession of one of the only surviving, comprehensive, first-person accounts of the atrocities.
Read more in Politico’s report about the families grappling with a legacy that is finally receiving mainstream attention, along with conversations about reparations that have now reached the White House and Congress.
Biden tours Greenwood Cultural Center with White House officials
After arriving in Tulsa, Biden visited the Greenwood Cultural Center with White House officials for a history lesson of the neighborhood, from the flourishing Black Wall Street at the turn of the century to a white mob unleashing violence and the lingering impacts that followed.
He was told about the impacts of discriminatory housing and building policies after Greenwood residents rebuilt in the decades after the attack, and how construction of a federal highway through the neighborhood undermined progress by lowering property values and displacing residents.
Following the tour, he will meet privately with known survivors of the massacre.
Biden is meeting the last known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre
Biden is meeting now with three known survivors of the massacre: Violet “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie Benningfield “Mother” Randle.
Ms Fletcher, now 107 years old, is the oldest living survivor of the massacre.
Watch their testimony to members of Congress last month:
‘I hear the screams’: Survivors of 1921 Tulsa race massacre testify to Congress in call for justice
Survivors continue to push for reparations for family and community 100 years after white mob terrorised Black residents
Biden to deliver remarks from Tulsa to commemorate 100th anniversary of racist massacre
Joe Biden will soon address the nation from a conference room in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a crowd of roughly 200 people, to mark the 100th anniversary of a racist massacre that displaced thousands of Black residents and killed as many as 300.
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are among those in the audience, according to White House pool reports.
The president has just met with the three known survivors of the massacre, joined by US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge, domestic policy adviser Susan Rice, and senior adviser Cedric Richmond.
Mr Biden is the first president in the last 100 years to commemorate the massacre from Tulsa.
Watch here:
NYPD reportedly investigating Black Wall Street gallery vandalism as hate crime
The owners of a Lower Manhattan gallery named Black Wall Street said that it was vandalised ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, which targeted the Black Wall Street of Oklahoma.
The New York Police Department has reportedly referred the vandalism to its hate crimes unit.
In an Instagram post, the gallery owner said the vandalism – smeared white paint across the name of the gallery on its window – was “deliberate and intentional.”
“As far as we’re concerned, smearing white paint on the word ‘black’ is deliberate and intentional and therefore constitutes hate speech,” the post said.
Biden: ‘Now your story will be known in full view'
In his remarks from Tulsa, Biden said he is the first president to visit Tulsa on the anniversary of a racist massacre.
“I say that not as a compliment about me,” he added.
The history of that violence was “a story seen in the mirror dimly, but no longer,” he said. “Now your story will be known in full view.”
“For much too long the history of what took place here took place in silence,” he added. “While darkness can hide much, it erases nothing ... And so it is here, only with the truth, can come hearing, justice and repair. That isn’t enough.”
‘Literal hell was unleashed'
In an emotional address detailing the atrocities of the 1921 race massacre, Joe Biden said “literal hell was unleashed” on Black residents in Tulsa.
“My fellow Americans, this was not a riot. This was a massacre,” he said following a moment of silence.
‘This was not a riot, this was a massacre’: Biden calls on US to reckon with history of racist violence in Tulsa speech
“In silence, wounds deepen,” Biden said in his remarks. “As painful as it is, only in remembrance do wounds heal. We just have to choose to remember. Memorialise what happened here in Tulsa so it can’t be erased.”
Biden urges US to reckon with history of racist violence in passionate Tulsa speech
President Joe Biden has called for a national reckoning with America’s legacy of racist violence, as the president commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, fuelled by a white mob that displaced thousands of Black residents and killed as many as 300 people.
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