Livin’ in Tulsa Time

Joe Biden became the first president to take part in ­remembrances of one of the darkest moments of racial violence in the US when he helped commemorate the 100th anniversary of the destruction of what was known as ‘Black Wall Street’ in Tulsa, ­Oklahoma. Biden’s visit, in which he grieved for the more than 300 Black people killed by a white mob, came amid a national reckoning on racial just­ice. And it will stand in stark contrast to his predecessor Donald Trump’s Tulsa visit last year, reports the Associated Press.

In 1921—on May 31 and June 1—Tulsa’s white residents looted Tulsa’s Greenwood district and burned it to the ground. They even used planes to drop projectiles on it. Thousands of survivors were forced for a time into internment camps overseen by the National Guard. Burned bricks and a fragment of a church basement are about all that survive today of the more than 30-block historically Black district.

Despite its horror, the Tulsa massacre has only recently entered the national discourse—and the presidential visit put an even brighter ­spotlight on it. Historians say the massacre began after a local ­newspaper drummed up a furore over a Black man accused of ­stepping on a white girl’s foot. When Black Tulsans showed up with guns to ­prevent the man’s lynching, white residents responded with ­overwhelming force.

Tensions persist 100 years later. Organisers called off a headline ­commemoration of the massacre’s 100th anniversary, saying no ­agreement could be reached over monetary payments to three survivors. It highlights broader debates over reparations for racial injustice. ­Reparations for Black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved and for other forms of racial discrimination have been debated in the US since slavery ended in 1865. Biden, who was vice president to the nation’s first Black president and chose a Black woman as his vice president, backs a study of reparations, both in Tulsa and more broadly.

Trump visited Tulsa last year under vastly different circumstances. After suspending his campaign rallies because of the Covid pandemic, Trump chose Tulsa as the place to mark his return. But his decision to schedule the rally on June 19, the holiday known as Juneteenth that commemorates the end of slavery in the US, was met with fierce ­criticism. Trump was frequently accused of using racist rhetoric when painting apocalyptic—and inaccurate—scenes of American cities.