Day of Remembrance: 100 Years After the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, 29929-29930 [2021-11874]

Agencies

• Executive Office of the President

[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 106 (Friday, June 4, 2021)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 29929-29930]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-11874]




                        Presidential Documents 



Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 106 / Friday, June 4, 2021 / 
Presidential Documents

___________________________________________________________________

Title 3--
The President

[[Page 29929]]

                Proclamation 10219 of May 31, 2021

                
Day of Remembrance: 100 Years After the 1921 
                Tulsa Race Massacre

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                One hundred years ago, a violent white supremacist mob 
                raided, firebombed, and destroyed approximately 35 
                square blocks of the thriving Black neighborhood of 
                Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Families and children 
                were murdered in cold blood. Homes, businesses, and 
                churches were burned. In all, as many as 300 Black 
                Americans were killed, and nearly 10,000 were left 
                destitute and homeless. Today, on this solemn 
                centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, I call on the 
                American people to reflect on the deep roots of racial 
                terror in our Nation and recommit to the work of 
                rooting out systemic racism across our country.

                Before the Tulsa Race Massacre, Greenwood was a 
                thriving Black community that had grown into a proud 
                economic and cultural hub. At its center was Greenwood 
                Avenue, commonly known as Black Wall Street. Many of 
                Greenwood's 10,000 residents were Black sharecroppers 
                who fled racial violence after the Civil War.

                In the decades following the Civil War and 
                Reconstruction, Greenwood became a place where Black 
                Americans were able to make a new start and secure 
                economic progress despite the continued pain of 
                institutional and overt racism. The community was home 
                to a growing number of prominent Black entrepreneurs as 
                well as working-class Black families who shared a 
                commitment to social activism and economic opportunity. 
                As Greenwood grew, Greenwood Avenue teemed with 
                successful Black-owned businesses, including 
                restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, and offices for 
                doctors, lawyers, and dentists. The community also 
                maintained its own school system, post office, a 
                savings and loan institution, hospital, and bus and 
                taxi service.

                Despite rising Jim Crow systems and the reemergence of 
                the Ku Klux Klan, Greenwood's economic prosperity grew, 
                as did its citizens' demands for equal rights. This 
                made the community a source of pride for many Black 
                Americans. It also made the neighborhood and its 
                families a target of white supremacists. In 2 days, a 
                violent mob tore down the hard-fought success of Black 
                Wall Street that had taken more than a decade to build.

                In the years that followed, the destruction caused by 
                the mob was followed by laws and policies that made 
                recovery nearly impossible. In the aftermath of the 
                attack, local ordinances were passed requiring new 
                construction standards that were prohibitively 
                expensive, meaning many Black families could not 
                rebuild. Later, Greenwood was redlined by mortgage 
                companies and deemed ``hazardous'' by the Federal 
                Government so that Black homeowners could not access 
                home loans or credit on equal terms. And in later 
                decades, Federal investment, including Federal highway 
                construction, tore down and cut off parts of the 
                community. The attack on Black families and Black 
                wealth in Greenwood persisted across generations.

                The Federal Government must reckon with and acknowledge 
                the role that it has played in stripping wealth and 
                opportunity from Black communities. The Biden-Harris 
                Administration is committed to acknowledging the role

[[Page 29930]]

                Federal policy played in Greenwood and other Black 
                communities and addressing longstanding racial 
                inequities through historic investments in the economic 
                security of children and families, programs to provide 
                capital for small businesses in economically 
                disadvantaged areas, including minority-owned 
                businesses, and ensuring that infrastructure projects 
                increase opportunity, advance racial equity and 
                environmental justice, and promote affordable access.

                A century later, the fear and pain from the devastation 
                of Greenwood is still felt. As Viola Fletcher, a 107-
                year-old survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre 
                courageously testified before the Congress recently, 
                ``I will never forget the violence of the white mob 
                when we left our home. I still see Black men being 
                shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell 
                smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being 
                burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear 
                the screams. I have lived through the massacre every 
                day. Our country may forget this history, but I 
                cannot.''

                With this proclamation, I commit to the survivors of 
                the Tulsa Race Massacre, including Viola Fletcher, 
                Hughes Van Ellis, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, the 
                descendants of victims, and to this Nation that we will 
                never forget. We honor the legacy of the Greenwood 
                community, and of Black Wall Street, by reaffirming our 
                commitment to advance racial justice through the whole 
                of our government, and working to root out systemic 
                racism from our laws, our policies, and our hearts.

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of 
                the United States of America, by virtue of the 
                authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws 
                of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 31, 2021, 
                a Day of Remembrance: 100 Years After The 1921 Tulsa 
                Race Massacre. I call upon the people of the United 
                States to commemorate the tremendous loss of life and 
                security that occurred over those 2 days in 1921, to 
                celebrate the bravery and resilience of those who 
                survived and sought to rebuild their lives again, and 
                commit together to eradicate systemic racism and help 
                to rebuild communities and lives that have been 
                destroyed by it.

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two 
                thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the 
                United States of America the two hundred and forty-
                fifth.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 2021-11874
Filed 6-3-21; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3295-F1-P