President Joe Biden became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Greenwood district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to commemorate the Tulsa Race Massacre.
During remarks on Tuesday, the 100th anniversary of the massacre, Biden said, “For much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence, cloaked in darkness. But just because history is silent, it doesn’t mean that it did not take place. While darkness can hide much, it erases nothing.”
“Some injustices are so heinous, horrific, so grievous, they can’t be buried no matter how hard people try. And so it is here,” he continued.
Watch the video below:
President Biden on #TulsaRaceMassacre: "For much too long the history of what took place here was told in silence, cloaked in darkness. But just because history is silent it doesn't mean that it did not take place. While darkness can hide much, it erases nothing." pic.twitter.com/XNRrUCsF7C
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 1, 2021
Biden noted that the massacre, which was one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history, had been “too long forgotten.” He noted that in the aftermath of the violence, it was ignored by newspapers and was not taught in schools in Tulsa.
“We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know,” Biden said. “We should know the good, the bad, everything. That’s what great nations do. They come to terms with their dark sides, and we’re a great nation. The only way to build a common ground is to truly repair and rebuild.”
He added, “I come here to help fill the silence. Because in silence, wounds deepen. And only, as painful as it is, only in remembrance do wounds heal. We just have to choose to remember. We memorialize what happened here in Tulsa, so it can’t be erased.”
"I come here to help fill the silence."
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) June 1, 2021
Pres. Biden becomes the first sitting president to visit the historic Greenwood neighborhood to commemorate the Tulsa Race Massacre. https://t.co/0c4ujqzBpG pic.twitter.com/9GioEPOUmL
On June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked the Greenwood District in Tulsa — which was referred to as Black Wall Street –after a Black teenager was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman.
Spurred by the false belief that the Black residents of Tulsa were plotting an insurrection, white residents wrought destruction on the Greenwood District. According to the Red Cross, 1,256 houses were burned, 215 were looted but not burned. Additionally, a school, a hospital, a library, two newspapers, churches, hotels, and other businesses were destroyed or burned.
The official death toll from the massacre, which took place over 18 hours, stands at 36. However, historians believe the actual death toll to be around 300.
After the massacre, there was an effort to cover up the violence, and until recently, it was not taught in schools or mentioned in history books. Additionally, scholars discovered that state police archives about the massacre were missing.