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THE TRAGEDY OF THE TULSA GREENWOOD MASSACRE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
General Leave
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from New York?
There was no objection.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I am honored to share today's Special Order hour on Black Wall Street on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is chaired by our great leader, Congressmember Joyce Beatty.
I want to extend my condolences to Congressmember Beatty and her family for the loss of her husband.
On May 30, 1921, a single scream in an elevator became the spark that ignited a powder keg of racial terror that set on fire Black Wall Street. A young Black man enters an elevator, and an elevator operator, a young White woman, screams, giving the impression that she had been assaulted.
A local newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune, accuses the young Black man of raping the young White woman. The headline of the article was an incitement to racial violence: ``Nab the Negro Who Attacked the Girl in the Elevator.''
As a result of the incitement, a White lynch mob descended on Black Wall Street and set on fire the wealthiest Black community in the United States, reducing it to ashes. The ashes of Black Wall Street are a metaphor for the failure of Reconstruction.
In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, there were newly emancipated African Americans who set out to build a better life for themselves and their family, only to be held back by racial terror and violence that ultimately came to be codified in the form of Jim Crow.
We, as the CBC, are not only here to recite the facts of the Tulsa Race Massacre, but we are also here to reflect on the deeper meaning. The massacre in Tulsa tells a larger story about false accusation as an incitement to violence. It tells a larger story about the failure of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow. It tells a larger story about domestic terrorism and white supremacist extremism as a form of domestic terror. It tells a larger story about the systematic denial and destruction of Black wealth. And, finally, it tells a larger story about the legacy of discrimination and the need for restitution.
It is worth noting that here in the United States Congress there is no greater champion of reparations than the chair of the Special Order hour, Congressmember Jackson Lee.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).
Ms. LEE of California. Madam Speaker, first, let me thank the gentleman from New York for organizing this very important Special Order and for his tremendous leadership on so many issues on behalf of his district, the Congressional Black Caucus, and on behalf of all Americans.
Let me first send my deepest condolences to Chairwoman Joyce Beatty and her family on the loss of her beloved husband, Otto Beatty, Jr., a devoted partner, beloved father, grandfather, and community leader. Our hearts are broken this evening as we think about Congresswoman Beatty and her family, and just know we are praying for her and her community and her family.
This is a Special Order tonight that I want to thank again Congressman Ritchie Torres and the Congressional Black Caucus for organizing this to mark 100 years since the horrific tragedy of the Tulsa Greenwood massacre.
In one of the worst acts of racist violence in United States history, a White mob ransacked a prosperous African-American neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. From May 31 to June 1, 1921, an estimated 300 Black men, women, and children were murdered. The mob destroyed 35 square blocks of Greenwood and burned down over 1,000 Black-owned businesses, churches, and homes.
During a time when lynching African Americans was commonplace, the alleged--mind you, alleged--assault of a White woman by a Black man was enough to incite a massacre of unimaginable proportions. A thriving Black community became the target of animosity and racial hatred by its neighbors.
Now, a grand jury placed the blame for the massacre entirely on the Black community. No White person was ever held accountable for these crimes. This is an example, mind you, of the horrors and the experience of living as a Black person in America then and now.
In 1997, the Oklahoma Legislature established a commission to study the Tulsa race riots of 1921. It was charged with the responsibility of developing an historical record of the massacre through identifying witnesses and gathering testimony and records. The commission not only corrected the record, but also recommended reparations for the survivors and their descendants. To date, they have not received any--
mind you, any--direct compensation.
Up until recently, the silence in Tulsa, in Oklahoma, and in the United States about this massacre was an intentional effort to whitewash our Nation's racialized past. But we must remember these stories. We must tell the truth about our past.
I introduced H. Con. Res. 19 to establish a National Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Commission to usher in this moment of truth to begin to examine and lift up to the public as the historical record of the history and legacy of slavery and how it is manifested today in systemic racism as it relates to African Americans.
But telling the truth is not enough. We must pass H.R. 40, sponsored by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. And I am a proud cosponsor of H.R. 40, which is the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans to address and repair the material harm done by instances like the Tulsa Greenwood massacre.
I am pleased to say that my home State of California is leading the Nation in this effort, being the first State to pass a law to establish a task force to study and develop reparation proposals.
Black Tulsans have still not recovered from the impact of the Tulsa Greenwood massacre. Decades of discrimination following the massacre prevented the community from rebuilding their economic vitality. Black Tulsans are still over two times more likely to be unemployed than their White counterparts, and their communities are the least likely to attract businesses and large employers. Policies like redlining and local ordinances have prevented growth.
The legacy of the massacre continues to impact Black Tulsans today. We cannot forget and we cannot let the Nation forget about the Tulsa Greenwood massacre.
H.R. 40 is a bill that we need to move forward to begin to repair the damage of the historical facts of the legacy of enslaved Africans brought to this country, who, quite frankly, in spite of our progress, still have not achieved liberty and justice for all.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Torres for anchoring this very important Special Order hour today.
I also want to extend my deepest condolences to the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and my friend, the Honorable Joyce Beatty, who lost her dear husband a few days ago. He passed away. He was a fine public servant and a fine civil rights champion, and he will be missed. We are there in prayer and in spirit with our dear sister.
It has been said that sunlight is the best disinfectant, yet the terrible atrocity that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 100 years ago, on May 31 and June 1 of 1921, has lived in the shadows for far too long. It is time that the truth be told. We must know our past or we are bound to repeat it.
In 1921, the Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was prospering, despite a racist system designed to marginalize and exclude it and its residents from the fruits of those citizens' labor. It was a community known as Greenwood, and it was also known as the Black Wall Street.
It was a thriving community. There were restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, theaters, banks, insurance companies, all owned by Black people. This community was self-sufficient. It was prospering, despite the fact that segregation was the norm and the lynching of Black men was as common as the white hoods of the KKK.
The simple fact is this: The Black community was succeeding in Tulsa, so White people burned it down. White supremacy and Jim Crow were the sparks that lit the fire. The massacre occurred over a 24-hour period, from May 30 to June 1 of 1921. And it all began like so many other racially motivated events: A false allegation against a Black man.
In response, a White mob of thousands shot, beat, and murdered Black residents, and they did it with impunity.
{time} 1945
They looted Black homes and businesses and set fires in their wake, this White mob. They were aided and abetted by the National Guard and also deputized killers, looters, and arsonists.
Twenty-four hours after the violence began, 35 city blocks lay in ruins. Not a single dwelling or business or building was left standing.
Within months of the Greenwood massacre, the KKK's Tulsa chapter became one of the Nation's largest, because what better recruiting tool than plundering and killing Blacks with impunity?
No person has ever been held accountable on the State, local, or Federal level, in the criminal courts, or in the civil courts for the atrocities committed against the Black community and the Black people of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
And here we are today, 100 years later, still challenged by state-
sanctioned violence against Black people. Some things have changed, but some things remain the same.
The events of January 6, when Confederate flags flew inside and out of the Capitol, and where a hangman's noose was draped over a functional gallows constructed on the Capitol Grounds to intimidate and terrorize, that proves that not much has changed.
And I stand here today to tell you that we have had enough. It is time to fix America and rid racism from its soil. We must fix our country, and that starts with examining our past and looking at how we can heal together as a Nation, and, yes, reparation. Justice delayed is justice denied, and Black Americans in this country have been denied justice for far too long. Enough is enough.
At this time, I would like to read from the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum website. It is at TulsaHistory.org. I want to read the following information that it publishes, which comes from the 2001 Tulsa Race Riot Commission report.
``On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young Black man named Dick Rowland riding in the elevator at the Drexel Building at Third and Main with a White woman named Sarah Page. The details of what followed vary from person to person. Accounts of an incident circulated among the city's White community during the day and became more exaggerated with each telling.
``Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day and began an investigation. An inflammatory report in the May 31 edition of the Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between Black and White armed mobs around the courthouse where the sheriff and his men had barricaded the top floor to protect Rowland. Shots were fired, and the outnumbered African Americans began retreating to the Greenwood district.
``In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was looted and burned by White rioters,'' as they are called. ``Governor Robertson declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned,'' locked them up, ``all Black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the convention hall and the fairgrounds, some for as long as 8 days.
``Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks laid in charred ruins, more than 800 people were treated for injuries, and contemporary reports of deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died.
``In order to understand the Tulsa Race Massacre, it is important to understand the complexities of the times. Dick Rowland, Sarah Page, and an unknown gunman were the sparks that ignited a long-smoldering fire. Jim Crow, jealousy, white supremacy, and land lust all played roles in leading up to the destruction and loss of life on May 31 and June 1, 1921. . . .
``Black Tulsans had every reason to believe that Dick Rowland would be lynched after his arrest. His charges were later dismissed and highly suspect from the start. They had cause to believe that his personal safety, like the defense of themselves and their community, depended on them alone. As hostile groups gathered and their confrontation worsened, municipal and county authorities failed to take actions to calm or contain the situation.
``At the eruption of violence, civil officials selected many men, all of them White and some of them participants in that violence, and made those men their agents as deputies. In that capacity, deputies did not stem the violence but added to it, often through overt acts that were themselves illegal. Public officials provided firearms and ammunition to individuals, again, all of them White. Units of the Oklahoma National Guard participated in the mass arrests of all or nearly all of Greenwood's residents.
``They removed them to other parts of the city and detained them in holding centers. Entering the Greenwood district, people stole, damaged, or destroyed personal property left behind in homes and businesses. People, some of them agents of government, also deliberately burned or otherwise destroyed homes credibly estimated to have numbered 1,256, along with virtually every other structure--
including churches, schools, businesses, even a hospital and library--
in the Greenwood district. Despite duties to preserve order and to protect property, no government at any level offered adequate resistance, if any at all, to what amounted to the destruction of the Greenwood neighborhood. Although the exact total can never be determined, credible evidence makes it probable that many people, likely numbering between 100 to 300, were killed during the massacre.''
I am reading to you from the report of the Tulsa commission that was set up by the city of Tulsa to report on the events that happened in Greenwood 100 years ago.
``Not one of these criminal acts was then or ever has been prosecuted or punished by government at any level: municipal, county, State, or Federal. Even after the restoration of order, it was official policy to release a Black detainee only upon the application of a White person, and then only if that White person agreed to accept responsibility for that detainee's subsequent behavior. As private citizens, many Whites in Tulsa and neighboring communities did extend invaluable assistance to the massacre's victims,'' to their credit.
``Despite being numerically at a disadvantage, Black Tulsans fought valiantly to protect their homes, their businesses, and their community. But in the end, the city's African-American population was simply outnumbered by the White invaders. In the end, the restoration of Greenwood after its systematic destruction was left to the victims of that destruction. While Tulsa officials turned away some offers of outside aid, a number of individual White Tulsans provided assistance to the city's now virtually homeless Black population. . . .
``In recent years, there has been ongoing discussion about what to call the event that happened in 1921. Historically, it has been called the Tulsa Race Riot. Some say it was given that name at the time for insurance purposes. Designating it a riot prevented insurance companies from having to pay benefits to the people of Greenwood whose homes and businesses were destroyed.''
Now, this is not me talking. I am still reading from that report.
``It also was common at the time for any large-scale clash between different racial or ethnic groups to be categorized a race riot.
``What do you think?'' the report asks.
``Definition of `riot': a tumultuous disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons assembled together and acting with common intent.
``Definition of `massacre': the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty.''
So, that is why I personally refer to it as the Tulsa Greenwood massacre, as opposed to a race riot.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Johnson for his deep insight and kind words earlier.
Some background on Tulsa, Oklahoma: The district of Greenwood in its time was famously described by Booker T. Washington as ``Black Wall Street.'' It was so named because it was the most vibrant and affluent African-American community in the United States. It was an oasis of opportunity in a desert of du jour discrimination.
For many African Americans in search of a better life, it was a promised land amid the broken promise of Reconstruction. It was home to 10,000 residents. There were 30 vibrant restaurants, 45 vibrant grocers and meat markets. There was a 54-room hotel. There was a theater and a hospital.
Black Wall Street was a self-contained, self-sufficient community of Black wealth, a community of Black entrepreneurship and Black ownership.
And Black Wall Street, at the hands of racial terrorism, at the hands of racial violence, the wealthiest Black community in the United States became a scene of mass murder, looting, and arson. It became a scene of death, destruction, and displacement. Nothing was spared in the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Churches, schools, and hospitals were burned down. Twelve thousand homes were burned down. Thirty-five blocks burned down. The Tulsa burning had a death toll of 300 and a displacement toll of 10,000. Ten thousand people lost their homes, their businesses, and their livelihoods. And 6,000 of those people were relegated to internment camps.
Then, after the internment camps, Black professionals, Black business owners who lost everything, were forced to live in tents and shacks. It was the worst act of racial terrorism and one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in the history of the United States.
{time} 2000
Now, I see a parallel between the Tulsa Race Massacre and January 6. The insurrection against the United States Congress on January 6 was not simply an attack on a physical structure, it was an expression of racial rage and resentment against multiracial democracy. And the same is true of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
We have to recognize that the domestic terrorism that we saw unfold on January 6 did not happen in a vacuum. It has a history, and that history includes the KKK; it includes Jim Crow, and, yes, it includes the Tulsa Race Massacre. And it is a scandal in America that most Americans have never heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Madam Speaker, as Congressman Johnson noted earlier, it has been referred to as a race riot, which is an attempt to whitewash the white supremacist, domestic terrorism at the heart of the massacre. And so we are here to tell the truth about the Tulsa Greenwood Massacre because we see a proper revision of history away from whitewashing as part of our national reckoning with race in America.
It is worth noting that in 2021, Black homeownership is at historic lows. The rate of Black homeownership is lower today than it was before the Fair Housing Act in the 1960s. The gap between Black and White homeownership has never been greater. According to the Federal Reserve, White households on average have eight times more wealth than Black households. And part of the reason is the Tulsa massacre, and the systemic racism that it represents.
There is a racial income gap between White households and Black households, but there is an even greater wealth gap. And the wealth gap is not an accident, it is a product of public policy. It is a consequence of systemic racism.
During the post-war era, we saw Black Americans systematically excluded from programs providing homeownership and higher education, which are the pillars of wealth-building. And if you have no home to own, then you have no home equity to build. And if you have no home equity to build, then you have no wealth to pass down from one generation to the next.
And so, instead of realizing the dream of intergenerational wealth, too many Black Americans were condemned by public policy, condemned by systemic racism to the nightmare of intergenerational poverty. The Tulsa Race Massacre should be understood as a microcosm of what white supremacy has done to Black people and Black property, to Black business and Black community. And the ghosts of Jim Crow, the ghosts of the Tulsa and Greenwood massacre hunts us till this day.
I represent a neighborhood named Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and many of the businesses on Arthur Avenue have been owned by the same family for more than 100 years, but those businesses--all of them are white.
And I thought to myself, what if Black Wall Street had been left alone, had been left to survive and thrive. It may very well be the case that some of those businesses would have endured until 2021. We could have had businesses owned by Black families for more than a century had it not been for the racial terrorism that took hold in 1921. And we know that when it comes to business, longevity is often the basis for resilience. Established businesses which tend to be wealthier and whiter had greater resilience in the face of COVID-19; whereas, newer businesses, which tend to be Black and Brown, were too fragile to survive the cataclysm of COVID-19.
In the first two months of the outbreak, 44 percent of Black businesses were wiped out, which raises the question, what if Black Wall Street were left to thrive, and what if we could have had businesses that would have endured for more than a century and could have had the resilience, the longevity, to overcome even a cataclysmic event like COVID-19.
Madam Speaker, I want to provide some more historic background, on May 31-June 1, 1921, a White mob attacked America's Black Wall Street, the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and what is known as the Tulsa-Greenwood Race Massacre. The White mob of thousands of people shot and murdered Black residents, looted their homes and businesses, and burned more than 1,000 homes, churches, schools, and businesses. Not only did local authorities and law enforcement fail to maintain civil order and protect Tulsa's Black residents, some government agents aided the White mob in carrying out the massacre.
Many of the residents who fled the massacre were detained in internment camps immediately following the massacre. And local officials later made, and ultimately failed, an attempt to block the ability of the Black community to rebuild the Greenwood commercial district by enacting a restrictive building ordinance.
Less than a month after the massacre, a grand jury placed the blame entirely on the Black community and indicted 85 people--mostly African-
Americans--with massacre-related offenses. No White person was ever held individually accountable for crimes committed during the massacre, and the vast majority of survivors and their descendants were never directly compensated for these harms.
So not only did a White lynch mob set the most vibrant, Black community on fire, but then the United States proceeded to whitewash the history of the Tulsa massacre, claiming that it was a race riot rather than the act of domestic terrorism that it was and should always be seen as. No White person was held to account, and no Black person was made whole.
Despite the acute challenges of racism in the late 19th and early 20th century, Black residents have been able to create thriving community in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma. However, this community was literally burned to the ground in one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. And to this day, no one has been truly held responsible. And it is worth noting, even though Greenwood has rebuilt itself, Greenwood does have among the highest rates of poverty and unemployment in the city of Tulsa, which demonstrates the legacy of systemic racism, how hard it can be to overcome that legacy.
The Tulsa Massacre resulted in property damage valued anywhere from
$25 million to $100 million when adjusted in today's dollars. As the descendants of the white mob that looted Tulsa businesses have had the opportunity to benefit from the wealth of their ancestors, many Black survivors of the Tulsa Massacre and their descendants have not been able to recoup the wealth that had been lost or destroyed during the massacre.
Despite the Oklahoma Commission to study the race massacre of 1921 stating, ``Reparations to the historic Greenwood community in real and tangible form would be good public policy and do much to repair the emotional and physical scars of this terrible incident in our shared past.'' Despite that finding, neither the State of Oklahoma nor the city of Tulsa has provided direct compensation to survivors or their descendants.
Discrimination against Black Tulsans did not end following the massacre. Over the local decades, local ordinances to prevent rebuilding, redlining, urban renewal, and slum clearance, gentrification, highway construction, tearing apart communities.
I will offer a note of personal reflection. I represent the South Bronx, which has been ravaged by a racist highway known as the Cross Bronx Expressway. It was built by Robert Moses and largely funded by Federal dollars. And the Cross Bronx Expressway has left behind decades of displacement and environmental degradation.
There are children who are born in the Bronx who live near the Cross Bronx Expressway, who breathe in pollutants every day that cause respiratory disease and cardiovascular disease. And we saw those diseases become lethal during COVID-19.
As a son of the Bronx, I was often in three places. I was at home, I was at school, and I was in the emergency room, because I was repeatedly hospitalized for asthma. And the asthma epidemic in the Bronx, again, is not an accident. It is a consequence of the Cross Bronx Expressway, which is both literally and metaphorically a structure of racism. The South Bronx has a childhood asthma hospitalization rate that is double to three times the national average.
So like the South Bronx, the neighborhood of Greenwood has its own racist highway. And one of the most exciting features of the American Jobs Plan is a proposed $20 billion fund that would rebuild neighborhoods that have been divided and devastated by the structural racism of highways. And I hope neighborhoods like Greenwood and the South Bronx will benefit from our national reckoning with race.
The impact of the massacre and the ongoing systemic discrimination is clear when you compare North Tulsa, where many Black residents of Tulsa now live, to other areas. North Tulsan residents are significantly poorer than residents in other parts of the city. There are fewer businesses and large-scale employers in North Tulsa than in other cities.
According to a 2018 city study, North Tulsa had the fewest jobs of any region of Tulsa. The unemployment rate is 2.37 percent times higher for Black Tulsans than for White Tulsans. The lowest life expectancy in Tulsa occurs in the poorest regions with the greatest concentration of Black residents.
The United States has a responsibility to both acknowledge the harm caused by the Tulsa Massacre and to enact legal remedies and policy proposals to compensate survivors and their descendants. And as many of you know, there is no greater champion of making the victims of systemic racism whole, no greater champion of reparations than the chair of our Special Order hour, Congress Member Jackson Lee.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York from illustrating, elaborating on, detailing, and bringing to the 21st century the horrors of the Tulsa race riots, calling it what it is and not being fearful of acknowledging the riotist and violent impact of the Tulsa race riots.
Madam Speaker, it is my honor to now continue the discussion on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus and my cochair of the Special Order hour, the Honorable Congressman Torres of New York.
Let me, first of all, thank our chair, Chairwoman Beatty, for matching her members with this process of ensuring that the history, the unbiased history of a people in all of our variations is told truthfully.
{time} 2015
We, too, are Americans. The Tulsan residents of that time were Americans as well.
I am reminded of the early stages of my education. When Congressman Torres' history was the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, I could almost repeat that in my sleep, the three ships that came with Christopher Columbus. He was the founder of America--over and over again.
I'm not sure during the period of our early childhood and those of recent vintage learned anything of Native American history, Korean-
American history, Japanese-American, Chinese-American, African-
American, slavery. I don't know if our children in periods of the 20th century and now in the 21st century knew there was more history.
I do know that the past President wanted the Smithsonian, the African-American culture, to stop teaching about African history. I know that there was a challenge to the U.S. Department of Education by Minority Leader McConnell, to stop teaching the 1619 Project. It baffles me because I believe that, if a country or a people know its history, we will not be doomed to repeat the past.
When I say ``a people,'' America is represented by many people. If we knew each other's history, if we understood each other's history, could we not--even if not those who are already past understanding, but could our children grow up with empathy and understanding?
That is why we are here on the floor of the House. We are not here to castigate and to throw untruthful hits. We are here to tell the truth.
Madam Speaker, tears come to my eyes as a series--and I only get to look at television late in the night, after all the day's work is done, and there is a series called ``The Underground Railroad.'' You cannot look at that without shaking in your boots, shaking in the chair you are sitting in, tears coming to your eyes.
That is the empathy that America can understand for all the journeys that so many of us have taken. We have taken it, and we are here in this place. The greatest experiment that the world watches.
Can they make it?
They were watching it from Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, 1863, and then General Granger in 1865.
They watched us through the 1800s. We failed. Reconstruction did not work. Even with all the Governors and Congress people that had been elected are freed slaves. That ugly head of racism, white supremacy, lynching, the tearing asunder of Black communities, the still tearing apart of families, the lynching of men and women who went off to the grocery store--when I say that, the local store, whatever it was down the road--and never came back.
In 1921--boy, I am just so proud of this picture--this is bustling Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is the example of the excitement. I am reading where it says the McGowan Variety Store. There are some McGowans in Houston. They might be related. These are the prancing people with their cowboy hats on. It looks as if students, just like we would see in our neighborhoods today or in our high schools today, dancers, they had a full holistic community. There is some cars on the street.
Can you imagine 1921?
Oh, I wish I could just take a trip back, just stand on the sidewalk, and just look with pride of history I did not know. I never imagined there were cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma, as I was growing up as a child. I never imagined we had anything, we were worth anything, except for what my mother and father and grandparents poured into me.
My big mother, which was my great-grandmother, owned property obviously destroyed by the highways and freeways that came in and took it away in St. Petersburg, Florida. I just thought that was our way of life. Just like I thought riding in the back of a train going south to visit her, sitting by my lonely with a bag of fried chicken--that is right, I am not embarrassed--to carry me through to visit my grandmother in St. Petersburg, Florida. Thank God, I got there safely. I was just about 8 or 9 or 10, and I was sitting in the colored car, and I wasn't supposed to move except for necessary purposes.
I didn't know--I didn't know I could come here and see this. And our children don't know it. That is why we are on the floor today. We are on the floor today because we have to begin to embrace each other's story.
So I am very delighted that I am leading on H. Res. 398, embraced by the Congressional Black Caucus. This will be on the floor of the House this coming Wednesday. And my counterpart in the United States Senate is a very dear friend, Senator Elizabeth Warren, who believes in this resolution, that is the recognizing of the forthcoming centennial, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. And it doesn't say ``riot.'' It says
``massacre.'' It was a massacre.
I Thank the House leadership. I thank them for their understanding the value and importance of this as we lead into June and begin to move on H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals. It is nothing harmful. There is nothing that will undermine anyone. It is to accept what happened.
So I am so grateful we have almost 100 cosponsors, and maybe more to come into the next 24 hours, for a story that was never told.
Oh, yes, as a little Black girl, I could tell you about Columbus, tell you about Abraham Lincoln, tell you about George Washington. And most of them today in the 21st century, they are not hearing about the wide diversity of our history, Madam Speaker--yours and mine and the many people that are on this side of the aisle or that side of the aisle.
So let me just recount very briefly again. A century ago, White rioters, local law enforcement, and self-appointed vigilantes claim to be acting reasonably and in self-defense against what they feared was an upcoming Black uprising.
Same as January 6, where there are people who had the audacity to say it looked like tourists on any normal day, when we were laying flat on the floor in this building while banging and screams and guns drawn on this side of that door. We didn't know whether we would live. And a lifesaving shot for that person who did not know what was happening, attempting to save lives. Sadly, someone lost their life.
Members in near panic--rightly so--leaving these Chambers and walking down and seeing AK-47s in the hands of individuals laying flat on the ground, that our brave officers had under their watch.
Yes, rioters. But in Greenwood, I want this picture to be embedded in your DNA, because you will see economic prosperity, self-sufficiency. Yes, it was known as the Black Wall Street. They viewed, however, black males as fearsome, physical threats to their personal safety, and the rivals of White women. I don't know what happened in an elevator, allegedly. The story, you know, it is always a mystery, but some claim of some insult that occurred.
And all of a sudden the word went out enraging leaders of the White community, fine citizens, probably in some church over the weekend. When I say in their church in that time, because they were always using the Bible wrongly and incorrectly. And I will say that because I believe in a merciful redemptive Jesus, as a Christian. There are many other faiths, Torah and Koran and others.
But I know in the redemptive faith of Christianity, we believe in redemption. We don't go out because we know that we have had one to sacrifice for us on the cross so that we might be redeemed. We sing that song in our community, ``Let the Redeemed Say So.'' But apparently they didn't have that memory.
100,000 Black people lived in that area, sold luxury items. Twenty-
one restaurants, 30 grocery stores, a hospital, savings and loan, a post office, three hotels, jewelry and clothing, two movie theaters, a library, pool halls, bus and cab service, a nationally recognized school system. A nationally recognized school system, when all of us are fighting for our children to be educated.
Today, I left Houston. And guess what? We have a new resident of Texas: Curtis Jackson, known as 50 Cent.
We were standing together because he was producing with Mayor Turner and Al Kashani and the School Superintendent Grenita Lathan, and all elected officials to announce an entrepreneurial program.
Can you imagine, to be able to build up our children?
They had two Black newspapers, six private planes. And I want to say it again, a recognized school system.
On May 31 of that year, 35 city blocks went up in flames and 300 persons were murdered and, to my knowledge, buried in an unmarked grave; 800 were injured and 9,000 were left homeless.
Yes, one cannot ignore this history, but it has been ignored, it has been snuffed out, it has been put under.
I never knew about it until people like Dr. Crutcher, from this great city, and various leaders that have brought to our attention even more. But over the years, obviously, in my study of reparations, I have seen the insults that have happened when no one bothered to respond.
Brutality that we are now trying to correct by acknowledging in H. Res. 398, and I hope my colleagues will come to the floor of the House to be able to address it.
Let me show you what that massacre generated, and you will understand.
Madam Speaker, how much time is remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 7 minutes remaining.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, you saw the bustling town. You saw the bustling town. This is a charred Negro who suffered in the Tulsa riots.
Yes, I am like Emmett Till's mother, Let the world see it. This is what happened to an innocent Black person.
By the way, the dead included children. Tulsa Historical Society. This is America. And this is a story that we failed to tell. This is what happened.
We have more stories to tell. We believe that a picture is worth a thousands words. We can never, never overcome that burned, charred body.
I showed you what Tulsa looked like, the Black Wall Street, and the burned-out ruins of Greenwood. Tulsa, Oklahoma library--they even got it in the library. I don't know how many people have seen it. It is a wasteland, a literal wasteland. Smoke is coming up. People's homes are gone. Wealth is gone. People were never to be presented with any relief. None. I don't even think they got a thank-you--not even a thank-you.
So our resolution condemns violence and destruction perpetrated against the African-American community of Greenwood. Our resolution has a rejection and active opposition to the false ideology of white supremacy and condemnation of all groups. Our resolution believes in promoting tolerance and unity, and taking action to ensure governmental policies and action to promote tolerance and unity.
Our resolution is calling for all Americans to celebrate the ethnic, racial, and religious diversity that has made the United States great. Our resolution encourages all persons of the United States to reflect upon the history of the United States as an imperfect but committed journey to establish a more perfect union. Our resolution is recognized as a commitment of Congress to acknowledge and learn from the history of racism and racial violence in the United States.
Our resolution lays the groundwork for moving to H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals, because we can see it in real life.
{time} 2030
So this is part of the Tulsa that never got acknowledged.
Madam Speaker, let me show you additional fires so you can see the buildings going up in smoke. We are not making it up. All of these buildings--brick buildings--were burned to the ground.
Can you imagine someone who survived the post-traumatic stress, the horrors of their life, the willingness not to live anymore, and the giving up of hope?
People wonder, oh, those lazy Negroes and colored people who worked for over 250 years in bondage.
Finally, I am going to put the picture of the slaves, the individuals. So this is the story we tell tonight. We don't even tell it with a sense of vengeance. We tell it with a sense of dignity, respect, and honor. The courage of those people, and the genius of those people--they weren't even freed slaves for 100 years and look what they created.
There is a story on CNN: ``My great-grandmother survived the 1921 Tulsa massacre. We are not heeding her history.'' For what was once the wealthiest Black neighborhood in America became charred ash in a matter of hours. But we have not come to a conclusion to end this kind of White supremacy and racism.
Madam Speaker, I include this in the Record.
Opinion: My Great-Grandmother Survived the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. We're
Not Heeding Her History
A century ago, my Black brothers and sisters were decimated by one of the worst occurrences of racial violence in our nation's history. On May 31 and June 1, 1921, White gangs flooded into the thriving Greenwood neighborhood and murdered up to 300 Black men, women and children. According to the Tulsa Historical Society, 1,500 Black homes were burned, along with over 600 businesses, and places of worship, healing, learning and gathering.
My great-grandmother, Rebecca Brown Crutcher--a woman who was the picture of Black excellence--lived and worked in the Greenwood community. But in 1921, she fled in fear of her life as White Tulsans burned her neighborhood to the ground.
What was once the wealthiest Black neighborhood in America became charred ash in a matter of hours. 10,000 Black residents were left homeless--and an entire generation of Black Tulsans were robbed of their wealth and prosperity they had built. To this day, not one person has ever been held accountable and not a single cent of reparations has been paid to the survivors or the victims' descendants.
Without this necessary reckoning with the past, we're already repeating it. As Oklahoma and many around the world are preparing to mark the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, last month, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed a law criminalizing peaceful protesters and giving immunity to drivers who ``unintentionally'' kill or injure protesters. This law is, according to the count kept by the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law, just one of 81 anti-protest bills introduced in 34 states during the 2021 legislative session alone--most of them framed as a response to last summer's Black Lives Matter protests. But instead of tackling the root causes of these nationwide protests against police brutality, racism and anti-Blackness, many lawmakers are attempting to intimidate, malign and criminalize peaceful protesters.
Laws like this one will undoubtedly have painful and long-lasting consequences in Oklahoma and the rest of the nation. Black, brown and Indigenous people will surely be locked up, ripped apart from their families, and may lose their jobs for exercising their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in a protest. They will surely receive harsher punishments for protesting police brutality and racial injustice than, for instance, White protesters demonstrating for gun rights or for their desire to control a woman's body.
This isn't the only bill introduced in Oklahoma this session that's followed the Tulsa Race Massacre's sinister legacy of suppression and erasure of Black Oklahomans. Half a dozen bills have already been introduced to restrict absentee voting and require identification to vote, echoing the growing trend of voting restrictions around the country. Historically in our state as elsewhere, these tactics have been used to disenfranchise Black and brown, poor and older communities and people with disabilities, with the precedent being set in one state and spreading like wildfire to the rest of the country.
On May 7, Governor Stitt signed HB 1775 into law, which will prohibit Oklahoma schools from teaching critical race theory--or in other words important lessons about systemic racism and diversity. The measure is meant to essentially stifle important discussions about, among other things, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the Trail of Tears and the Osage murders in classrooms and beyond. Erasing our history, yet again, will have devastating consequences. And Oklahoma isn't alone--bills banning or restricting the teaching of critical race theory have been drafted in Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and West Virginia and already passed in Utah, Arkansas, Idaho and Tennessee.
Bills like HB 1775 attempt to obscure the fact that heinous instances of racial violence, from slavery to Jim Crow laws to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, are not blemishes on our history but consequences of discriminatory systems that continue to harm Black people today.
Such laws are designed to prevent a full and honest accounting of how systemic racism works. The bill says it will prohibit the teaching that ``an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex,'' thereby upholding White supremacy and helping absolve the city of Tulsa and the state of the moral obligation of paying reparations to the survivors and descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre. HB 1775 also flies in the face of reality--as if the wealth and security stripped from Black Tulsans a century ago doesn't have a direct relationship to the widening gaps in home ownership, education, life expectancy and arrest rates today.
Each of us should learn the hard lessons of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and the continued harm shouldered by the survivors, the descendants and the neighborhood of Greenwood. We should learn that race, racism and discrimination have very real, concrete effects on our history, our culture, our politics and our current lives. But we can't learn the truth or grow from it if it's hidden from us--and that's precisely what HB 1775 attempts to do. In so doing, this measure continues the harm of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, because a century later, Stitt and our elected officials are still trying to bury the lessons that our ancestors would want us to carry forward.
As a descendant of a Tulsa Race Massacre survivor, it's painful to see Oklahoma's governor refuse to learn from our history and acknowledge its continuing impact today. Instead, he's chosen to saddle our teachers and educators with even more baggage, and potentially penalize them for doing what's right.
My hope is that our teachers will look this evil in the eye and refuse to give in or back down. I hope they will continue teaching the truth about topics like the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre--including that it was borne from White supremacy, a mortal threat to our democracy that remains with us today. Our students deserve the unbridled truth, not a polished facade that makes us feel good about ourselves.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I include the KJRH article in the Record.
Gov. Stitt Responds to Letter From Tulsa Race Massacre Commission
Tulsa, OK, May 14, 2021.--Gov. Kevin Stitt has officially been removed from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission.
This comes after Stitt signed a bill limiting race and gender curriculums in Oklahoma schools earlier in May. House Bill 1775 prohibits state public schools, colleges, and universities from incorporating certain messages about sex and race into any course instruction.
This also comes on the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, where a white mob attacked Black residents and businesses in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, also known as Black Wall Street.
The governor's office released the following statement Friday afternoon:
``Governor Stitt's role as a member of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission has been purely ceremonial and he had not been invited to attend a meeting until this week. It is disappointing to see an organization of such importance spend so much effort to sow division based on falsehoods and political rhetoric two weeks before the centennial and a month before the commission is scheduled to sunset. The governor and first lady will continue to support the revitalization of the Greenwood District, honest conversations about racial reconciliation and pathways of hope in Oklahoma.''
The commission sent 2 News the following statement:
``The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commissioners met Tuesday and agreed through consensus to part ways with Governor Stitt. No elected officials, nor representatives of elected officials, were involved in this decision. While the Commission is disheartened to part ways with Governor Stitt, we are thankful for the things accomplished together. The Commission remains focused on lifting up the story of Black Wall Street and commemorating the Centennial. With just weeks before the Centennial of one of the worst Race massacres in the history of the U.S., Commissioners stand united in focusing time, energy and efforts on descendants, survivors, education, economic development and progress this year and beyond. We hope to see many of you in person or virtually at some of our events that we hope will drive change for years to come.''
The commission previously issued Stitt a letter after he did not join a special meeting Monday night to discuss the signing of HB 1775 into law.
Phil Armstrong, the project director of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, said HB 1775 ``chills the ability of educators to teach students, of any age, and will only serve to intimidate educators who seek to reveal and process our hidden history. You know that. We delivered this message to you before you signed the measure. We were joined by educators, school boards, universities, faith, and community leaders, all of whom vigorously objected to HB 1775. You seemingly disregarded and dismissed this chorus of voices aligned against HB 1775.''
The governor responded by saying, in part, ``it is disappointing that some commission members feel that a common-sense law preventing students from being taught that one race or sex is superior to another is contrary to the mission of reconciliation and restoration.''
C.J. Webber-Neal, president of the Greenwood Arts & Cultural Society, INC., also called for the governor's resignation as a commission member. In a statement, Webber-Neal said he was satisfied with having Stitt removed from the commission.
``The Greenwood Arts & Cultural Society, INC. is very pleased that the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission has with one concise voice taken action to remove Kevin Stitt, Governor of Oklahoma, from it body.
Based upon the stated mission of this body, we stand in solidarity with their action regarding Governor Stitt's role as a member of this Commission, based upon his signing of HB 1775 into law. The truth of the horrific story of 1921's Race Massacre (as well as other history of the experiences of minorities in America) must be taught honestly and unequivocally, so that future generations will learn of the demons of our past so we as a society will not be doomed to repeat this evil act.
At this time, we also encourage this body to add in the Governor's place survivors and descendants of the massacre, so that representation of this painful period in our history can be reflected thru the experiences of those who were directly impacted by this tragic event.
Furthermore, we encourage any available monetary relief be given by this organization to the three survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. This should be done as both a sign of reconciliation and the rising of the eternal spirit of Greenwood. This we believe is long overdue.''
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I include a detailed account of the Tulsa Race Massacre in the Congressional Record.
Detailed Account of Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921
ACCOUNT BASED ON FACTS AND DOCUMENTS REPORTED IN ``FINAL REPORT OF THE
OKLAHOMA COMMISSSION TO STUDY THE TULSA RACE RIOT OF 1921''
Starting late on the evening on May 31 and continuing into the day of June 1, 1921, a White mob attacked the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, razing it to the ground. The attackers looted and intentionally burned an estimated 1,256 homes in Greenwood--known as America's ``Black Wall Street''--along with nearly all the district's churches, schools, and businesses.
The number of persons killed in the riot may never be known, but a 2001 report by African Americans during this era lived under the ever-present threat of mass racial violence--which often took the form of White mobs invading Black communities. It was also during this period that thousands of African Americans accused of crimes against White people--but particularly Black men accused of sexual assaulting White women--were summarily executed by White lynch mobs. Local authorities at the time often condoned or even participated in these extrajudicial killings or otherwise did little to nothing to stop them.
Yet despite this national atmosphere, Tulsa's Greenwood district thrived. Black workers were mostly shut out of the booming oil industry driving Tulsa's meteoric turn-of-the-century growth, so many working-class residents had to find work doing menial or domestic labor. Greenwood's vibrant economy instead was driven mainly by residents' entrepreneurial skills previously developed in the many all-Black towns that dotted the Oklahoma landscape. The range of Black-owned businesses located in Greenwood included grand hotels, restaurants, theaters, pharmacies, diners, barbershops, and small mom-and-pop shops. Greenwood was also home to hundreds of professionals, including doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents. Many residents lived under conditions typical of the working-class in that era and subsisted without running water or electricity. The district's more prosperous residents lived in modern houses befitting their middle and upper-class economic status. Simply put, by the time of the Massacre, the residents of Greenwood had created a thriving, and, in many ways economically self-sufficient, Black enclave.
No African American had been lynched in Tulsa at the time of the Massacre. The threat of racially motivated violence, however, cast an everpresent shadow over the Greenwood district. Incidents of lynching occurring across the country were heavily reported in the local Black press. Editorials in local Black-owned newspapers in Tulsa published the year or so leading up to the Massacre decried instances of ``mob law'' and prominent Greenwood residents advocated for armed African Americans to protect Black prisoners from White lynch mobs. Most saliently, the lynching of a White man in Tulsa and of a young African American man in Oklahoma City within the same week in the year proceeding the Massacre convinced many Black Tulsans that local authorities could not be counted on to protect a Black person accused of a serious crime against a White person.
Notably--but unsurprisingly in segregated Tulsa--none of these Black viewpoints on lynching were reflected in the local White press, and likely few, if any White Tulsans regularly read Black-owned newspapers. Instead, the White-owned press focused at that time on crime and allegations of local corruption. An oil boomtown at the beginning of the Prohibition Era, Tulsa's crime rate in the early 1920's appeared to residents to be increasing. In particular, the city had gained a seedy reputation for illegal liquor and prostitution.
For the most part during the period leading up to the Massacre, White-owned papers had not blamed African Americans for the apparent rise in crime, and crimes in Greenwood did not receive a disproportionate amount of coverage. But only 10 days prior to the Massacre, a story focused White Tulsans' attention on the then-racially inflammatory subject of relations between Black men and White women. On May 21, 1921, a local story regarding a police investigation into the city's prostitution quoted a former local judge blaming the problem on the hotels and ``Negro pimps,'' and recounted the testimony of a local clergyman that led a group of White men undercover who claimed that African American porters routinely offered them the services of White prostitutes, and to have witnessed carousing between Black men and White women at a roadhouse just outside the city limits.
To be clear, as this contemporary newspaper story implies, the racism and prejudices of many White Tulsans tainted their perceptions of the Black community and the later events that set off the Massacre. Despite the fact that racial segregation laws were gaining ground statewide in Oklahoma, many White Tulsans appeared to fear that the color line was blurring and grew angry at instances where Black Tulsans challenged or ignored segregationist laws and practices. Further contributing to some White Tulsans' racial grievances was resentment of Greenwood's most prosperous residents, a feeling that appears to have been exacerbated by a drop in oil prices and subsequent oil field layoffs that preceded the Massacre. In a deeply segregated city where Black residents could not work, live near, or socialize with their fellow residents as equals, many White Tulsans filled the vacuum created by the lack of racial equality and understanding with racism and prejudice.
This local newspaper story, and another on a breakout at the jail printed a few days later (though containing no racial overtones) appeared to provide White Tulsans fed up with crime--and inflamed by racial prejudice--a convenient racial scapegoat for their frustrations, and contributed to longstanding local conditions that had turned Tulsa into a powder keg waiting for a spark to ignite.
The night of May 31, 1921, the spark was struck as Black Tulsans' fear of a lynching appeared on the cusp of realization. That day police took into custody nineteen-year-old Dick Rowland, a Black man accused of sexually assaulting Sarah Page, a seventeen-year-old White elevator operator. After word of the allegations spread through Tulsa's newspapers. One White-owned Tulsa paper ran an article entitled ``Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator'' and a number of eyewitnesses recall seeing a newspaper editorial entitled ``To Lynch Negro--that evening a large White crowd began to gather around the courthouse jail where Rowland was being held. At the same time, several groups of Black Tulsans--many of whom were World War I veterans--resolved to protect the Black prisoner threatened by the mob.
As the mob jeered the handful of deputy sheriffs guarding the courthouse, a group of 25 Black Tulsans approached the beleaguered officers to offer their assistance. The local authorities quickly declined their offer, but the sight of armed Black men insistent on protecting Rowland from ``mob law'' proved too much for the thousand-strong White crowd. As the Black Tulsans returned to Greenwood assured of Rowland's safety for the moment, some members of the White crowd left to obtain firearms from their homes.
The Massacre began after a second group of around 75 armed Black Tulsans returned to the courthouse later that evening following reports that the White mob continued to grow even larger (later estimated at 2,000 individuals) and more agitated. They again offered their assistance to local authorities guarding Rowland and were again rebuffed. This time, however, as they departed, elements of the White crowd accosted a Black World War I veteran with a racial slur and a demand for his weapon. When the veteran refused, a scuffle broke out over the gun and shots were fired.
While these shots could have been unintentional, members of the White mob--and possibly some members of law enforcement present at the courthouse--immediately opened fire on all the Black men present. The Black Tulsans returned fire. While the initial shooting at the courthouse lasted only a few seconds, several street battles erupted among groups of Black and White Tulsans. The Black Tulsans--significantly outnumbered by the mob and fighting now for their own lives--engaged in a fighting retreated, exchanging gunfire with their White pursuers as they sought to return to the relative safety of the Greenwood district.
In the immediate aftermath of the events at the courthouse, some Whites began making brief armed forays into Greenwood by car or committing indiscriminate acts of looting, murder, and mayhem. Around 1:00 a.m. on June 1 there began the first reports of fires being set. When the fire brigade answered the call, armed Whites prevented them from putting out the fires. By 4:00 a.m. more than two dozen Black-
owned businesses had been destroyed by flames. The worst destruction, however, had yet to come.
As many of these events were occurring simultaneous and across a relative wide area of the city, confusion reigned as the night of May 31 became the early morning hours of June 1, 1921. Some Black residents resolved to defend their homes and businesses, taking up armed positions to defend Greenwood. Skirmishes broke out between armed Blacks and Whites at various points in the district in the early overnight hours. Other Black residents, rightly fearing the worst had yet to occur, began to leave the city--many escaped but some were killed.
Still other Black residents thought the worst had already happened; that as far as they knew Dick Rowland had not been lynched, and--with the most intense skirmishing having abated by 2:00 a.m. according to one Black eyewitness--some of Greenwood's defenders even concluded that they had successfully fended off the attackers.
Whites engaged in the attack also committed numerous other atrocities. According to one Black eyewitness, White looters murdered a Black elderly disabled man who, despite having expressed a willingness to do so, could not comply with their order to leave his home. According to one White eyewitness, prominent Black surgeon Dr. A.C. Jackson was gunned down on his front lawn with his hands up after attempting to comply with the White rioters. Another Black eyewitness recounted how he and 30 or 40 other men who had surrendered to the rioters were lined up and forced to run with hands over their heads to an interment center located at Convention Hall, all while some of their White captors shot at their heels with guns. A group of White men even ran a car into the group, knocking over two or three of their number. In another horrifying display of brutality, a Black disabled homeless man was tied by his leg to a car and dragged by ``white thugs'' through the streets of the downtown business district where he panhandled.
Many Black residents--including women with children or elderly family members in tow--were shot at in the streets as they attempted to flee. Despite the ferocity of the attackers, many Black residents continued their armed resistance. Eventually, however, these defenders were overwhelmed by the sheer force of numbers and firepower of the White invaders.
Of course, not all Tulsans shared the racism of the White rioters. There are several accounts of Whites hiding Black Tulsans fleeing the violence at farms or homes outside the city or standing up to White rioters who threatened them for sheltering Black acquaintances at their workplace. According to one account, a recent young Mexican immigrant named Maria Morales Gutierrez saved two Black children from being strafed by an airplane. She then later refused White rioters' demands to hand the children over to them. She and the children survived.
The assault and destruction of Greenwood lasted roughly until midday June 1, 1921, when martial law was declared. Around 9:00 a.m., a National Guard unit based in Oklahoma City--which was entirely White--finally arrived by train after having been requested hours earlier by local authorities. By the time these ``State Troops''--as both Blacks and Whites later referred to them to differentiate them from the local ``Home Guard'' unit discussed further below--arrived in Tulsa, the violence had been occurring for nearly 11 hours. Many Blacks and Whites were dead, and while some looting continued, the Greenwood district was mostly in fiery ruin. Most of the city's Black residents had either fled or had been interned against their will at several locations, including at the Convention Hall, a fairground, and a baseball park.
Local authorities later claimed that this was for the protection of Black lives, but without a doubt they were also motivated by lingering fear of a supposed ``Negro uprising.''
A number of these ``Special Deputies''--identified by ribbons and other ``badges of office'' supplied to them--were witnessed engaging in arson, likely engaged in other acts of violence and mayhem during the Massacre and aided in rounding up Black residents for internment.
Immediately following the shooting near the courthouse, Whites had begun breaking into sporting good stores, pawnshops, and hardware stores to steal firearms with which to arm themselves--some later claiming that they were
``borrowing'' the weapons.
One business owner--whose sporting goods store was literally across the street from police headquarters--later testified that a police officer helped distribute the guns that were taken from his store.
The local guard unit also worked with the Tulsa Police Department to round up, disarm, and take into custody Black residents, with guardsmen offering the promise that if they came peacefully their homes and businesses would be protected.
This action, however, effectively left Black lives and property defenseless to a White Mob aided by local police officers and their ``Special Deputies'', leading to further destruction of property and helping contribute to the near total internment of the Black population in the days immediately following the riot.
In the eyes of the grand jury, a group of armed Black residents standing up for equal rights understandably provoked the White crowd, and therefore, the entire Black community in Greenwood essentially deserved what happened. Adding to this injustice, the grand jury indicted 85 people--the majority of whom were African Americans--with Massacre-related offenses.
While most of these charges were ultimately dismissed or not pursued no Whites were ever sent to prison for any of the murders or arson committed on May 31 and June 1, 1921.
Due to their decades-long efforts, the story of the Massacre slowly resurfaced in the national consciousness, leading to greater demands for the justice long denied to aging survivors and their next of kin.
At the state and local level, in 1997 the Oklahoma State Legislature created the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Race Riot of 1921. In 2001, the commission issued a final report and recommendations. In a letter to officials for the State of Oklahoma and the City of Tulsa accompanying the report, the commission noted that in February 2000, the commission had already declared:
that reparations to the historic Greenwood community in real and tangible form would be good public policy and do much to repair the emotional and physical scars of this terrible incident in our shared past. We listed several recommended courses of action including direct payments to riot survivors and descendants; a scholarship fund available to students affected by the riot; establishment of an economic development enterprise zone in the historic Greenwood district; a memorial for the riot victims.
The commission reiterated its support for reparations and emphasized that these recommendations were a starting point and not exhaustive. Twenty years later, however, neither the State of Oklahoma nor the City of Tulsa has provided direct compensation to survivors and their descendants.
In recent years, the City of Tulsa has made some token gestures to acknowledge the Massacre. In 2010, the City of Tulsa dedicated the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park to commemorate the Massacre's victims. In 2018, the City of Tulsa finally announced that it would reexamine the potential mass graves noted in the 2001 commission report. In October 2020, archeologists discovered a mass grave at Oaklawn Cemetery, one of the possible mass grave sites identified in the 2001 report, and the City plans to exhume the bodies for further identification in June 2021. While the City of Tulsa has, in effect, capitalized on its public campaign to acknowledge the Massacre, pointedly, it appears to have made no plan to use the resources generated to directly compensate survivors and their descendants nor address the racial and economic disparities that can be traced back to the Massacre. In May 2020, Human Rights Watch issued a report recommending several actions to be taken at the federal, state, and local level to address the Massacre, including providing compensation directly to survivors and their descendants, and reparations to the Black community in Tulsa for racial discrimination exacerbated by the Massacre. According to the report, Greenwood had begun to thrive again by the 1940s. Yet rather than preserve what it once allowed to be destroyed, the State of Oklahoma and the City of Tulsa took several subsequent actions that disproportionately burdened Black residents--including the building of several highways through Greenwood starting in the 1960s and through the 1970s--that ultimately led to Greenwood's long term decline.
These actions also forced the majority of residents to move out of historic Greenwood into North Tulsa, which to this day is significantly poorer compared to other areas of the city.
Additionally, survivors and their descendants have filed legal claims against the City of Tulsa and the State of Oklahoma seeking compensation for Massacre-related harms. Unfortunately, time and distance from the events have in the past worked to thwart these claims. In 2004, the Tenth Circuit, upholding the lower court's decision to grant the State and City's motion for summary judgment, held that the plaintiffs' claims were barred by the applicable statute of limitations, and that no equitable tolling to the statute of limitations period applied. The Supreme Court denied the plaintiff's petition for writ of certiorari in 2005. Despite these adverse legal rulings, a lawsuit for Massacre-related claims was filed in state court last year alleging that the Massacre is an ongoing injustice to the residents of Greenwood because contemporary racial and economic disparities existing in Tulsa can be traced back to the attack.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Then I want to salute those who will be honoring 100 years in the next couple of weeks. I want to very quickly say that remember what I said, I knew the history of Christopher Columbus. I didn't know the history of my Native American brothers. I didn't know the history of my own self, slavery. I know Big Mother, which is what we called her. She owned land, and then I knew it disappeared. I knew I rode in the back of a train to visit her as a little girl.
Guess what, Madam Speaker?
Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma was on the commission on the Tulsa race massacre, but he signed the bill limiting race and gender curriculums in Oklahoma schools earlier in May.
Madam Speaker, can you believe it?
It was House bill 1775. As well, he goes on to not stand for what this commission is all about: truth.
So tonight we come to the floor. Remember what I said: I am not in any way throwing darts or stones at anyone. I am here to raise up the dignity of this man, this person, this body, burned because he was Black, prosperous, and ready to serve America.
No one can tell me how many in that 1921 massacre had been in World War I, had worn the uniform and come home and made a new life.
How many can tell us out of those who would have lived, would have been ready to go serve in World War II and then on, and their progeny continue to build this wonderful economic engine?
Today those who remain are three living descendants of those who were there. They tell me as I will go to Tulsa, there is one door left.
It is a crying shame. So I lift this story up, and I let you know, Madam Speaker, that the Congressional Black Caucus, yes, the conscience of this Nation, has a vital purpose to be able to tell the story. Someone I hope is listening. Someone I hope is listening. Someone I hope heard Brother Torres. I hope they heard Hank Johnson and Barbara Lee. I hope they have heard all of us. Because if we do not know our history, we are doomed to repeat it. We must take the reins, lift up the dignity, honor these courageous saints, and we must fight on.
Pass this resolution on the centennial. Pass H.R. 40 to establish a commission to study reparations. Pass the American Jobs Plan, pass the American Rescue Plan, and lift all boats. For as we do so, God will be the witness for what we have done and the journey we have made.
Madam Speaker, I am honored to have been here today. I am honored to be part of the Congressional Black Caucus. I am honored to be part of this House of Representatives. I am honored to be an American, and I will not have my history denied or my children failing to know that history. That is why we are here today. Let us march on until victory is won.
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, I rise to anchor this most important Special Order remembering one of the darkest moments in American history, the Tulsa-Greenwood Race Massacre, that occurred in the African American Greenwood community of Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 31-June 1, 1921.
I am pleased to be joined by Congressman Torres of New York, who will co-anchor this Special Order and my several members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which under the leadership of our Chair, Congresswoman Beatty of Ohio, was unified and determined that the reign of racial terror, carried out under color of law, that was visited on the black citizens of Greenwood not be forgotten and that the injuries they suffered be redressed.
Madam Speaker, earlier this year, I introduced a resolution (H. Res. 215 later modified as H. Res. 398), joined by 84 cosponsors, recognizing the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
As the great southern writer William Faulkner reminded us: ``The past is never dead. It's not even past.''
Madam Speaker, as I and other Members will elucidate this evening, the hatreds, prejudices, resentments, and white supremacy that Black Americans witnessed and suffered in Greenwood a century ago are not dead; they are not even past.
A century ago, White rioters, local law enforcement, and self-
appointed vigilantes claimed to be acting reasonably and in self-
defense against what they feared was an upcoming Black uprising.
They resented the economic prosperity and self-sufficiency of the Greenwood community, which was known nationally as ``Black Wall Street.''
They viewed Black males as fearsome physical threats to their personal safety and as rivals to white women.
These baseless, irrational concerns are not a relic of the past, they are with us today and are what resulted in the deaths of George Floyd, Tamir Rice, Deonte Wright, Stephon Clark, Amidou Diallo, and hundreds of others too numerous to list.
In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood District, known as ``Black Wall Street,'' was one of the most documented prosperous African American communities in the United States.
The Greenwood community with a population of over 100,000 Black people had stores that sold luxury items, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores, a hospital, a savings and loan bank, a post office, three hotels, jewelry and clothing stores, two movie theaters, a library, pool halls, a bus and cab service, a nationally recognized school system, six private airplanes, and two black newspapers.
On May 31st of that year, the 35 city blocks of Greenwood went up in flames, at least 300 Black persons were murdered and more than 800 were injured; it is estimated that not less than 9,000 were left homeless and destitute.
These rioters reenacted the brutality of the mob from a hundred years ago in the hallowed halls of the Citadel of Democracy.
It should not be overlooked that the source of their irrational anger, hatred, and violent reaction was that Black Americans voted in overwhelming numbers in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Detroit to oust the most negative, divisive, racially hostile, and incompetent president's history, the 45th President, who presided over the deaths of more than 500,000 Americans, disproportionately Black and Brown.
The legacy of white mob violence inflicted upon the Black community of Greenwood has scarred the descendants of the victims of this American pogrom.
Madam Speaker, the events of January 6th have given us insight into what the people of Greenwood, Oklahoma, faced when they were attacked by a similar murderous mob.
H.R. 398 is a reminder to the nation of the ultimate cruelty inflicted upon a people for dare believing that the promise of America was attainable by them and their achievements would be respected and protected by law.
But it does more than that, it puts the House of Representatives on record that the United States can achieve a more perfect union:
1. by condemning the violence and destruction perpetrated against the African-American community of Greenwood, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the scene of the then-largest single instance of domestic terror against American citizens;
2. through the rejection and active opposition to the false ideology of White supremacy and condemnation of all groups and organizations that ascribe to this false system of belief and seek to perpetuate their views through violence and unlawful conduct;
3. by promoting tolerance and unity and taking actions to ensure that governmental policies and actions do not foster division, disharmony, or intolerance;
4. by calling upon all Americans to celebrate the ethnic, racial, and religious diversity that has made the United States the leader of the community of nations and the beacon of hope and inspiration to oppressed persons everywhere;
5. encouraging all persons in the United States to reflect upon the history of the United States as an imperfect but committed journey to establish a more perfect union and to cherish and exercise the rights, privileges, and responsibilities guaranteed by the Constitution; and
6. recognizing the commitment of Congress to acknowledge and learn from the history of racism and racial violence in the United States, including the Tulsa Race Massacre, to reverse the legacy of White supremacy and fight for racial justice.
Madam Speaker, I will now briefly recount the horrific events cited in H. Res. 398 that were experienced by the law-abiding Black community of Greenwood on those terrible days.
In 1921, White supremacy and racist violence were common throughout the United States and went largely unchecked by the justice system.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, reports of an alleged and disputed incident on the morning of May 30, 1921, between two teenagers, a Black man and a White woman, caused the White community of Tulsa, including the Tulsa Tribune, to call for a lynching amidst a climate of White racial hostility and White resentment over Black economic success.
On May 31, 1921, a mob of armed White men descended upon Tulsa's Greenwood District and launched what is now known as the ``Tulsa Race Massacre.''
Tulsa municipal and county authorities failed to take actions to calm or contain the violence, and civil and law enforcement officials deputized many White men who were participants in the violence as their agents, directly contributing to the violence through overt and often illegal acts.
Over a period of 24 hours, the White mob's violence led to the death of an estimated 300 Black residents, as well as over 800 reports of injuries.
The White mob looted, damaged, burned, or otherwise destroyed approximately 40 square blocks of the Greenwood district, including an estimated 1,256 homes of Black residents, as well as virtually every other structure, including churches, schools, businesses, a hospital, and a library, leaving nearly 9,000 Black residents of the Greenwood community homeless and effectively wiping out tens of millions of dollars in Black prosperity and wealth.
In the wake of the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Governor of Oklahoma declared martial law, and units of the Oklahoma National Guard participated in the mass arrests of all or nearly all of Greenwood's surviving residents, removing them from Greenwood to other parts of Tulsa and unlawfully detaining them in holding centers.
Oklahoma local and state governments dismissed claims arising from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre for decades, and the event was effectively erased from collective memory and history until, in 1997, the Oklahoma State Legislature finally created a commission to study the event.
On February 28, 2001, the commission issued a report that detailed, for the first time, the extent of the Massacre and decades-long efforts to suppress its recollection.
None of the law enforcement officials nor any of the hundreds of other White mob members who participated in the violence were ever prosecuted or held accountable for the hundreds of lives lost and tens of millions of dollars of Black wealth destroyed, despite the Tulsa Race Massacre Commission confirming their roles in the Massacre, nor was any compensation ever provided to the Massacre's victims or their descendants.
Government and city officials not only abdicated their responsibility to rebuild and repair the Greenwood community in the wake of the violence, but actively blocked efforts to do so, contributing to continued racial disparities in Tulsa akin to those that Black people still face today across the United States.
Madam Speaker, the pattern of violence against Black people in the United States, often at the hands of law enforcement, shows that the fight to end State-sanctioned violence against Black people continues.
As the American Historical Association stated, ``What happened in Tulsa was extreme, but not unusual. It is part of our nation's heritage. We must acknowledge that heritage, learn from it, and do whatever each of us can do to ensure that it is just that--heritage, rather than a continuing practice.''
Madam Speaker, I will include in the Record a more detailed account of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that is based on the ``Final Report of the Oklahoma Commission to Study The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,'' issued February 28, 2001.
Madam Speaker, I also ask the House to observe a moment of silence in memory of the victims and survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, and their descendants to carry the terrible memories of that horrific day and still grieve over the loss of so many loved ones and of faith in the American system of justice.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, the Tulsa-Greenwood Massacre was a mass killing targeting Black Americans in one of the prosperous Black communities in the country. As we approach its 100th anniversary, we must reflect on the events and beliefs that led to those fateful days in late May of 1921, its place in our nation's history, and its lasting impacts on the Black community.
Founded and built by former slaves, freed by the ratification of the 13th amendment, the Greenwood District was a true testament to the American Dream. The district was defined by its entrepreneurial spirit and success and offered newly-freed men and women the chance to make a name for themselves and their families.
But their success was being followed closely by those who wished otherwise--those who were looking for any opportunity to materialize their resent. And in the face of baseless allegations of a crime committed by a Black man, that hatred resulted in what is now known as the Tulsa Race Massacre. The massacre resulted in the deaths of over 300 Black men, women, and children and left around 9,000 more without homes or a source of income--not to mention the immeasurable impact left on generations of Black Americans.
As Members of Congress, we stand here in the Capitol of the United States, itself built by slaves who are largely forgotten, with a unique opportunity to take action. That is why I am proud to be a cosponsor of Congresswoman Jackson Lee and Senator Warren's resolution to recognize the forthcoming centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and condemning past and present efforts to downplay its significance. It is critical that Congress take this step not only to honor the lives and legacies of those lost but also to encourage education about the massacre and the role white supremacy played in its inception.
Madam Speaker, today we recommit ourselves to fight the ever-present racism and unjust violence against Black Americans. We do so on the shoulders of those that came, fought, and suffered before us in the hope that one day the American Dream is accessible to all--regardless of race.
____________________
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 85
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