US marks 100th anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre

President Joe Biden speaks at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 1.

President Biden on Tuesday laid out his most comprehensive plan yet for shrinking the nation’s longstanding racial wealth gap, the latest step in his promise to infuse more equity in government policies and in the rebuilding of the economy after the coronavirus pandemic.

Some measures — including changes to deal with housing discrimination and directing federal support to small businesses — he can take on his own, but many of his proposals require congressional approval that could be very tough to secure.

That includes pouring tens of billions of dollars into communities of color to improve transportation infrastructure, develop more neighborhood amenities, build and rehabilitate affordable housing and support small businesses. All of these proposals are contained in Biden’s massive infrastructure package, called the American Jobs Act.

That package has run into trouble in Congress, with members of both parties concerned about its roughly $2 trillion size — as well as about the corporate tax increases that would be used to pay for it. The White House is currently negotiating with a group of Republicans in hopes of finding agreement on a smaller package — with the latest GOP proposal coming in at $928 billion.

The massive wealth divide between Black and White families is currently in the spotlight because of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst acts of racial violence in US cities. The typical non-Hispanic White family had a net worth of $188,200 in 2019, while the typical non-Hispanic Black family’s wealth was $24,100, according to the most recent Federal Reserve Bank data.

There are many reasons for the gap, including a big difference in home ownership – a key vehicle to building wealth. About 74% of Whites owned homes in the first quarter of 2021 versus 45% of Blacks, according to the US Census Bureau.

President Biden announced today new steps his administration will take to reduce the racial wealth gap.

Here are key things to know about the actions: 

Combating housing discrimination. The President is charging Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge with leading a first-of-its-kind interagency initiative to address inequity in home appraisals. The effort will include carrying out potential enforcement under fair housing laws, regulatory action, and the development of standards and guidance in partnership with industry and state and local governments.

To allow the more vigorous enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, the agency also will publish two rules aimed at combating practices that contribute to systemic inequality. The rules would reinstate the agency’s discriminatory effects standard and the requirement that municipalities that receive agency funding show that the money’s use does not further discrimination.

These efforts are aimed at reversing efforts by the Trump administration to weaken Fair Housing Act protections and stem from an executive memorandum Biden issued in January that focused on redressing the federal government’s history of discriminatory housing policies.

The moves are a “welcome step” and go part of the way to addressing structural divides in the housing market that have developed over decades, said Michael Neal, senior research associate at the Urban Institute. He would also like to see downpayment assistance, particularly for the historically disadvantaged.

Directing federal contracts to small businesses. In addition, Biden wants more federal purchasing to be made from small, disadvantaged businesses, many of them minority-owned — though it could take years to have an impact. His goal is to increase the share of contracts going to them by 50% by 2026.

The President can direct federal agencies to conduct outreach to smaller businesses and reduce barriers that exist for them to compete in federal contracts. It’s unclear whether he will need Congress to pass legislation that changes some of the rules.

Biden has already set in motion a process to alter federal purchasing rules when he signed an executive order in January. It set a 180-day deadline to change how domestic content is defined and measured for qualifying products as well as increase the required threshold in an effort to boost American manufacturing. Biden also hired the first Made in America Director, Celeste Drake, to help implement the federal procurement process and focus on reaching small businesses and minority entrepreneurs.

What else Biden could do: Several policy experts say canceling student debt would help close the racial wealth gap because Black Americans are more likely to take on student debt and then struggle to repay it. More than 200 advocacy groups, including the Center for Responsible Lending and the American Federation of Teachers union, called on Biden to use his executive powers to cancel student debt on day one of his administration.

Dozens of Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, also called on Biden to take action and cancel $50,000 per borrower. The move would be unprecedented, but a memo from lawyers at Harvard’s Legal Services Center and its Project on Predatory Student Lending says the Department of Education has the power to do so.

Biden has resisted the pressure so far but has said he would support a move by Congress to cancel $10,000 per borrower. It’s unlikely that legislation would pass the Senate where Democrats have a razor thin majority.

Taking executive action does not appear to be off the table, though. Biden directed Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to write a memo on the president’s legal authorities to cancel debt, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said in an interview with Politico in April.

Biden did not include a student debt cancellation provision in his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which calls for making community college free and expanding Pell Grants for low-income college students, or in his proposed budget. NAACP’s National President Derrick Johnson criticized Biden for failing to address the student loan crises, which he said was at the core of the racial wealth gap.

CNN’s Kate Sullivan contributed to this story.

President Biden said during a speech marking 100 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre that “hate never goes away. Hate only hides.”

He said that if you give hatred “a little bit of oxygen, just a little bit of oxygen by its leaders, it comes out from under the rock.”

He added that according to the US intelligence community, terrorism from White supremacy is “the most lethal threat to the homeland today.” 

Watch here:

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Vice President Kamala Harris will lead the Biden administration’s efforts on voting rights, President Biden announced in a speech Tuesday on the Tulsa Race Massacre in Oklahoma.

The new role comes as the Biden administration has been quick to condemn Republican-led state legislatures efforts to pass restrictive laws the White House says make it harder for Americans to vote.

In a statement first to CNN, Harris wrote, “President Joe Biden asked me to help lead our Administration’s effort to protect the fundamental right to vote for all Americans. In the days and weeks ahead, I will engage the American people, and I will work with voting rights organizations, community organizations, and the private sector to help strengthen and uplift efforts on voting rights nationwide. And we will also work with members of Congress to help advance these bills.” 

Earlier Tuesday, White House deputy press secretary Karine-Jean Pierre called the latest bill pushed by Republicans in Texas “part of a concerted attack on our democracy being advanced in state houses across the country on the basis of the same repeatedly disproven lies that led to the assault on our nation’s Capital on Jan. 6.” Texas Democrats derailed the restrictive voting bill, but are warning of the continued threat of the legislation that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has promised to bring back during a planned special session.

In a statement on Saturday, Biden criticized the bill as an “assault on democracy,” and “wrong and un-American.” In her own statement on Twitter, Harris used similar language, adding, “We need to make it easier for eligible voters to vote. Not harder.”

Both Biden and Harris have been vocal about voting rights, calling for Congress to pass HR 1 For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

In May, Harris held a meeting with voting and civil rights leaders to discuss “the critical importance of protecting the right to vote,” according to a readout released at the time.

This becomes the latest task of Harris’ expanding solo-portfolio. In March, President Biden tasked her with leading the diplomatic efforts in the Northern Triangle, to stem the flow of migration across the US- Mexico border. Since then, she’s added leading the administration’s efforts to expand broadband internet, a focus on small business among other issues.

President Biden honored the three remaining survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre during his remarks commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the attack.

“Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous they can’t be buried no matter how hard people try, and so it is here only, only with truth, can come healing and justice and repair, only with truth, facing it, but that isn’t enough. First, we have to see, hear and give respect to Mother Randle, Mother Fletcher and Mr. Van Ellis. And to all those lost so many years ago, to all the descendants of those who suffered, to this community, that’s why we’re here, to shine a light, to make sure America knows the story in full,” the President said.

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President Biden said during his speech in Tulsa that there was “no proper accounting of the dead” from the Tulsa Race Massacre that occurred 100 years ago.

“The death toll records by local officials said there were 36 people. That’s all. Thirty-six people. Based on studies, records, and accounts, the likelihood — the likely number is much more in the multiple of hundreds,” Biden said. 

The President said that an untold number of bodies were dumped into mass graves, adding, “the process of exhuming the unmarked graves has started.”

He then paused his speech for a moment of silence to honor those who died. 

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President Biden noted how the tragic events of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre has been “cloaked in darkness” for too long in history during his remarks in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“The events we speak of today took place 100 years ago, and yet I’m the first president in 100 years ever to come to Tulsa,” Biden said.

“I say that not as a compliment about me, but to think about it. Hundred years, and the first president to be here during that entire time, and in this place, in this ground to acknowledge the truth of what took place here,” he said.

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President Biden is delivering remarks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the race massacre.

On May 31, 1921, a White mob descended on the prosperous Black neighborhood known as Black Wall Street and proceeded to burn, loot and kill until hundreds were dead and 35 city blocks were destroyed. 

The President is set to announce today new steps his administration will take to reduce the racial wealth gap. Here are key things to know about the actions: 

Biden on Monday proclaimed May 31, 2021, to be a “Day of Remembrance: 100 Years After The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre” and called on Americans to recommit to rooting out systemic racism in America.

Read more about the actions here.

Michelle Brown-Burdex, program coordinator of the Greenwood Cultural Center, speaks as she leads President Joe Biden on a tour of the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 1.

President Biden toured the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is meeting now with three surviving members of the community who lived through the 1921 race massacre.

According to the White House, Biden is meeting with:

They are now between the ages of 101 to 107.

Biden was joined on the tour of the Greenwood Cultural Center by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge, Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice and Senior Advisor to the President Cedric Richmond.

Biden viewed pictures and news clippings of the Greenwood section of Tulsa, the area known as “Black Wall Street,” both before and after the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Later today, Biden will deliver remarks at 4:15 p.m. ET to commemorate the 100 years of the race massacre and is expected to announce new steps to help minority-owned businesses grow and to address racial discrimination in the housing market, according to senior administration officials.

CNN’s Kate Sullivan contributed reporting to this post. 

Vice President Kamala Harris shared photos of her meeting with two survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, Viola Fletcher and Hughes Van Ellis, ahead of President Biden’s remarks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the tragic attack.

Fletcher and Van Ellis appeared before Congress last month, and called for justice and for the country to officially acknowledge the massacre.

Biden on Monday proclaimed May 31, 2021, to be a “Day of Remembrance: 100 Years After The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre” and called on Americans to recommit to rooting out systemic racism in America. The President is expected to announce new steps today to to reduce the racial wealth gap.

See Harris’ post:

CNN’s Kate Sullivan contributed reporting to this post. 

Descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre, which was shrouded in secrecy for decades, are still seeking justice 100 years later and calling for reparations.

Pressure has grown on Capitol Hill to deliver justice to these victims. Earlier this month, a 107-year-old survivor of the massacre, Viola Fletcher, testified before Congress and called for justice and for the country to officially acknowledge the massacre.

“I am 107 years old and have never seen justice. I pray that one day I will,” Fletcher told lawmakers. Fletcher was seven years old when she witnessed the massacre.

President Biden’s trip today is on the same day the city of Tulsa will begin exhuming bodies possibly linked to the massacre. On Tuesday morning, experts led in part by the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey will begin mapping and prepping the site located in Oaklawn Cemetery.

Today, Greenwood is a fraction of the size it was before the massacre. The wealthy neighborhood was never fully rebuilt and its descendants say the area never fully recovered.

In his proclamation on Monday, the President said that the laws and policies passed in the wake of the massacre made the neighborhood’s recovery nearly impossible. He said the federal government needs to “acknowledge the role that it has played in stripping wealth and opportunity from Black communities.”

He reaffirmed his commitment to address systemic racism in America, “to advance racial justice through the whole of our government, and working to root out systemic racism from our laws, our policies, and our hearts.”

The President said his administration is addressing longstanding racial inequalities by investing in programs to provide capital to small businesses in economically disadvantaged areas, and ensuring that infrastructure projects advance racial equity and environmental justice.

In addition to the American Jobs Plan, Biden has proposed the American Families Plan, which would invest heavily in education, paid leave and child care.

President Joe Biden walks with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge as he arrives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 1.

President Biden just landed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

One hundred years ago, on May 31, 1921, a White mob descended on the prosperous Black neighborhood known as Black Wall Street and proceeded to burn, loot and kill until hundreds were dead and 35 city blocks were destroyed.

Here’s a look at the President’s schedule today:

Biden on Monday proclaimed May 31, 2021, to be a “Day of Remembrance: 100 Years After The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre” and called on Americans to recommit to rooting out systemic racism in America.

He’s expected to announce new steps today to help minority-owned businesses grow and to address racial discrimination in the housing market, according to senior administration officials.

Read more about Biden’s trip to Tulsa here.

The Tulsa Race Massacre that unfolded over roughly 24 hours between May 31 and June 1 2021 left as many as 300 dead and decimated the prosperous area known as Black Wall Street.

A day earlier, on May 30, 1921, Dick Rowland, a Black 19-year-old entered downtown Tulsa’s Drexel Building, a space he’d visited before. He worked at a White-owned shoeshine parlor one block away, and with Tulsa being staunchly segregated, he’d walk to the Drexel Building to access a “Colored” restroom on the fourth floor. 

It was there that he encountered a White elevator operator named Sarah Page. It’s still unclear what exactly happened between them. Did Rowland trip as he entered the elevator and reflexively grab on to Page, ripping her dress and causing her to cry out? That’s the working theory for many historians.

As it was, a neighboring clerk heard Page scream and, seeing Rowland running from the building, assumed Page was the victim of a sexual assault.

Accounts show that Rowland returned home that Memorial Day, with police not searching for him until the next day when he was arrested. 

Here’s a timeline of what happened next in the massacre:

President Joe Biden arrives at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to board Air Force One for his trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 1.

President Biden on Tuesday will announce new actions his administration will take to reduce the racial wealth gap when he visits Oklahoma to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, according to senior administration officials. 

Here are key things to know about the actions:

The White House on Tuesday pointed to the President’s proposed investments in historically Black colleges and universities following criticism from the NAACP that the President’s new proposals to close the racial wealth gap don’t address student loan debt.

The NAACP’s national president, Derrick Johnson, on Tuesday was critical of Biden’s new proposals to advance racial equity. Johnson said the proposals fail to address the student loan debt crisis, which he said was at the core of the racial wealth gap.

Read more about the actions here.

A woman walks past a mural in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 2020.

It all started with 40 acres and a grocery store.

Ottawa W. Gurley, better known as O.W. Gurley, was one of Tulsa’s earliest settlers. Gurley, traveled to the oil rich city of Tulsa in 1905 from Arkansas and purchased 40 acres of land, on which he built the People’s Grocery Store and a one-story rooming house.

Gurley’s grocery store and rooming house set the stage for the boom in Black entrepreneurial businesses that would follow. Greenwood was soon filled with restaurants, hotels, billiard halls, shoe stores, tailor shops and more.

The district’s enterprising residents built their businesses for Black people, who were often barred or treated poorly in the nearby White establishments.

Stringent segregation laws had gone into effect after Oklahoma became a state in 1907. This paved the way for Greenwood to become an insular hub for the Black dollar to circulate, historians say. Many of the Black residents earned and spent their money entirely within the confines of Greenwood. The result was one of the most affluent and wealthiest African-American enclaves in the country.

Among Greenwood’s most prominent residents was J.B. Stradford. The son of an emancipated slave, Stradford was a lawyer who amassed his fortune through real estate. Among his many properties, he built the opulent Stradford Hotel, complete with 54 rooms and crystal chandeliers, providing a welcoming space for Black visitors.

John and Loula Williams built and operated an auto repair garage, a confectionary and a rooming house. But they were best known for building the famous Williams Dreamland Theatre, which featured silent films and live musical and theatrical revues that regularly attracted Black audiences.

“Greenwood wasn’t just a place, but a state of mind. They had built this place, they had created it. It wasn’t a gift from anyone, it was their own community,” said Scott Ellsworth, a University of Michigan historian and author of “The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice,” who has been working on an effort to discover the unmarked graves of the Tulsa Massacre victims.”In Greenwood, everybody knew they were just as good as anyone else.”

Historical context: The foundations of the Greenwood District and Black Wall Street were built in the 1830s, when African Americans first migrated to Oklahoma.

Many Black people had arrived as slaves to the Native American members of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole tribes — who were forced to relocate from the Southeastern US to Oklahoma Territory as a result of President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act.

Following the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which called for the abolition of slavery, African Americans were granted citizenship and allotted plots of land where they could begin their new lives as free men and women.

This land allocation led to a boom in all-Black towns, including Greenwood. Between 1865 and 1920, the number of all-black towns and settlements grew to more than 50. Today, only 13 all-black towns exist, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.

President Biden released a proclamation for a day of remembrance for the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre calling on the American people “to reflect on the deep roots of racial terror in our Nation and recommit to the work of rooting out systemic racism across our country.”

Biden will visit Tulsa today to mark the 100th anniversary of the massacre.

Read Biden’s full proclamation here.

Tensions between the Black and White residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, had started rising. Whites had grown resentful of the Black wealth and success of the residents of Greenwood District, according to Mechelle Brown, director of programs at the Greenwood Cultural Center.

On May 31, 1921, everything came to a head.

It all started after an elevator encounter between a 17-year-old White woman named Sarah Page and a 19-year-old Black man named Dick Rowland. It was alleged that Rowland had assaulted Page in the elevator, which he denied. But it didn’t matter. News of a Black man’s alleged assault of a White woman spread like wildfire throughout the White community of Tulsa and tempers flared.

Black residents rushed to the Tulsa County Courthouse to prevent Rowland’s lynching, while White residents were deputized by the Tulsa Police and handed weapons.

A White mob, estimated to include some 10,000 people, descended upon the Greenwood District. Over the next 12 hours, the city of Greenwood experienced an all out assault of arson, shootings and aerial bombings from private planes. By the morning of June 1, 1921, Greenwood had been destroyed.

It would eventually be known as the Tulsa Race Massacre.

All 35 city blocks of the Greenwood District were completely decimated.

The Red Cross reported that 1,256 homes and 191 businesses were destroyed and 10,000 black people were left homeless. And it’s believed that as many as 300 people were killed, according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum.

Survivors were left with nothing after their homes were looted and $2.7 million in insurance claims were denied, according to a 2001 state historical commission report.

Another research report out of Harvard University estimated that, in 2020 dollars, total financial losses were between $50 and $100 million.

For decades to follow, accounts of what happened in the summer of 1921 would remain largely unknown.

President Biden will visit Tulsa, Oklahoma, today to mark the anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

At 4:15 p.m. ET, the President will deliver remarks to memorialize the hundreds of Black Americans who were killed by a White mob that had attacked their neighborhood and burned dozens of city blocks to the ground.

He will also meet with surviving members of the community, tour the Greenwood Cultural Center and outline his administration’s efforts to combat racial inequality in the nation.

He’s also expected to announce new steps to help minority-owned businesses grow and to address racial discrimination in the housing market, according to senior administration officials.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of a race massacre in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, which encompassed more than 35 city blocks of entirely Black-owned businesses. A beacon for African Americans looking to escape the discrimination and violence of the Jim Crow South and live a peaceful and safe life, the district was founded by Black men and women — many of whom were descendants of slaves — and became known as Black Wall Street.

On May 31, 1921, racial tensions and violence with the neighboring White residents in Tulsa boiled over in a massacre. Over the course of roughly 24 hours, hundreds of Greenwood’s Black residents were killed and the district was left in ashes.

The White House’s announcement of the visit came after Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met last week with the family of George Floyd on the one-year anniversary of his death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, sparking nationwide protests against racism and police brutality.

Viola Fletcher was 7 years old when she witnessed one of worst acts of racial violence the US has ever seen.

An angry White mob rampaged through Tulsa’s Greenwood District in Oklahoma, killing hundreds of Black people and leaving her thriving neighborhood in ashes in 1921.

The 107-year-old testified before members of a House Judiciary subcommittee last month, calling for justice and for the country to officially acknowledge the massacre ahead of the 100th anniversary on May 31.

The Tulsa race riot of 1921, also called the Tulsa Race Massacre, resulted in the decimation of the city’s Greenwood district — then a Black economic hub also known as Black Wall Street — when a mob of White rioters looted and burned the community.

“I am 107 years old and have never seen justice. I pray that one day I will. I have been blessed with a long life – and have seen the best and worst of this country. I think about the terror inflicted upon Black people in this country every day,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher was one of the three survivors of the massacre who shared their stories with lawmakers. Her younger brother Hughes Van Ellis and Lessie Benningfield Randle also appeared before the subcommittee. Both noted the community wasn’t able to rebuild and said survivors can still see the impact of the massacre.

“We were left with nothing. We were made refugees in our own country,” said Van Ellis, 100.

Randle, who testified virtually, recalled how she felt safe and happy as a 6-year-old living in Tulsa before “everything changed.”

“They burned houses and businesses. They just took what they wanted out of the buildings then they burned them. They murdered people. We were told they just dumped the dead bodies into the river,” the 106-year-old woman said.

“I remember running outside of our house. I ran past dead bodies. It wasn’t a pretty sight. I still see it today in my mind — 100 years later,” she added.

The three survivors are the lead figures in a lawsuit filed last year that demands reparations for damage it says has continued since the destruction of the city’s Greenwood District, nearly a 100 years ago.