President Joe Biden on Wednesday recalled “the hell that was unleashed” 101 years ago in Tulsa when a white mob looted and burned a section of the city known as Black Wall Street, killing hundreds of people.
“We remember the hell that was unleashed,” according to a statement from Biden, who traveled to Tulsa one year ago to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. “This was not a riot, it was a massacre.”
The violence was, for decades afterward, referred to as the Tulsa Race Riot and was largely ignored.
An estimated 300 Black people were killed May 31 and June 1, 1921, in the attack on then-prosperous Greenwood District.
A search for the graves of massacre victims began last year with nearly three dozen coffins containing remains of possible victims recovered and researchers urging that the search continue.
Biden said his administration has worked to end housing discrimination for Black people and to provide federal contracts to businesses owned by Black and brown people.
A lawsuit that includes three known survivors of the massacre and seeks reparations for the violence and financial losses of life, homes and businesses is pending in Tulsa County District Court.
