At Tulsa Centennial, Biden Unveils Steps to Narrow Racial Wealth Gap

On Tuesday, Joe Biden became the first sitting American president to commemorate the anniversary of the destruction of a prosperous Black community by a white mob that left up to 300 people dead and 10,000 homeless.  

"Just because history is silent, it doesn't mean that it did not take place," Biden said in remarks to survivors of the massacre and their families at the Greenwood Cultural Center. "Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous, they can't be buried, no matter how hard people try."  A hundred years ago on May 31 and June 1, Greenwood, a neighborhood including what was then known as Black Wall Street, was looted and burned to the ground by Tulsa's white residents with support from the virtually all-white Tulsa Police Department. The massacre was triggered by accusations that a 19-year-old Black man had assaulted a 17-year-old white girl in an elevator.   For decades after the massacre, the violent attack was covered up and not well known nationally. But as the national conversation increasingly focused on the issue of systemic racism and police violence, the incident has received more attention in the media and pop culture.