US President Joe Biden marked the 100th anniversary of a massacre that destroyed a thriving black community in Tulsa, declaring he had “come to fill the silence” about one of the nation’s darkest and long-suppressed moments of racial violence.
Key points:
- As many as 300 black Tulsans were killed in the 1921 massacre
- The catalyst was an allegation that a black man stood on a white girl’s foot
- Joe Biden told three surivovrs that their story “would be known in full view”
“Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous, they cannot be buried, no matter how hard people try,” Mr Biden said.
“Only with truth can come healing.”
Mr Biden’s commemoration of the deaths of hundreds of black people killed by a white mob a century ago in the Oklahoma city came amid the current national reckoning on racial justice.
“Just because history is silent, it does not mean that it did not take place,” Mr Biden said.
“Hell was unleashed. Literal hell was unleashed.
“We can’t just choose what we want to know, and not what we should know,” Mr Biden added.
“I come here to help fill the silence, because in silence, wounds deepen.”
Biden meets with survivors
The Tulsa massacre has only recently entered the national discourse and the presidential visit put an even brighter spotlight on the event.
Historians say the massacre in Tulsa began after a local newspaper drummed up a furore over a black man accused of stepping on a white girl’s foot.
When black Tulsans showed up at a courthouse with guns to prevent the man’s lynching, white residents responded with overwhelming force.
In 1921, on May 31 and June 1, a white mob, including some people hastily deputised by authorities, looted and burned Tulsa’s Greenwood district, known as Black Wall Street.
The Greenwood neighbourhood in ruins after a mob passed through.(Reuters: American Library of Congress
)
As many as 300 black Tulsans were killed and thousands of survivors were forced for a time into internment camps overseen by the National Guard.
Burned bricks and a fragment of a church basement are about all that survive today of the historically black district that covered more than 30 blocks.
The White House said Mr Biden, joined by top black advisers, met privately with three surviving members of the Greenwood community who lived through the violence.
Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle are all between the ages of 101 and 107.
Survivors and siblings Viola Fletcher (centre) and Hughes Van Ellis (right).(Reuters: Carlos Barria
)
Mr Biden said their experience had been “a story seen in the mirror dimly”.
“But no longer,” the President told the survivors.
“Now your story will be known in full view.”
‘There’s an awakening going on’
Several hundred people milled around Greenwood Avenue in front of the historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church awaiting Mr Biden’s arrival at the nearby Greenwood Cultural Centre.
Some vendors were selling memorabilia, including Black Lives Matter hats, shirts and flags under an interstate bridge.
Latasha Sanders, 33, of Tulsa, brought her five children and a nephew in hopes of spotting Mr Biden.
“It’s been 100 years, and this is the first we’ve heard from any US president,” she said.
“I brought my kids here today just so they could be a part of history and not just hear about it, and so they can teach generations to come.”
A girl looks out of the crowd hoping to see US President Joe Biden in Tulsa.(Reuters: Lawrence Bryant
)
John Ondiek, another Tulsan in the crowd following Mr Biden’s speech on their mobile phones, said he was encouraged that “there aren’t just black people here, that tells me there’s an awakening going on in this country”.
Mr Biden briefly toured an exhibit at the centre, at times stepping closer to peer at framed historic photographs, before he was escorted into a private meeting with the three survivors.
After he left, there was a spontaneous singing by some audience members of a famous civil rights march song, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.
Mr Biden’s visit stood in stark contrast to former president Donald Trump’s trip to Tulsa last June, which was greeted by protests.
America’s continuing struggle over race will continue to test Mr Biden, whose presidency would have been impossible without overwhelming support from black voters, both in the Democratic primaries and the general election.
AP/Reuters