[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 230 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 230

   Recognizing the 102nd anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                 May 31 (legislative day, May 30), 2023

 Ms. Warren (for herself, Ms. Cortez Masto, Mr. Kaine, Ms. Hirono, Ms. 
     Klobuchar, Ms. Smith, Mr. Casey, Mr. Padilla, Mr. Markey, Mr. 
Fetterman, Mr. Brown, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. 
  Merkley, Mr. Sanders, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Wyden, Mr. 
  Whitehouse, Mr. Warnock, Mr. Booker, and Mr. Warner) submitted the 
   following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the 
                               Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
   Recognizing the 102nd anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Whereas, in the early 20th century, de jure segregation confined the Black 
        residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, into the ``Greenwood District'', which 
        they built into a thriving community with a nationally renowned 
        entrepreneurial center known as the ``Black Wall Street'';
Whereas, at the time, White supremacy and racist violence were common throughout 
        the United States and went largely unchecked by the justice system;
Whereas 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;
Whereas, on May 31, 1921, a mob of armed White men descended on the Greenwood 
        District in Tulsa and launched what is now known as the ``Tulsa Race 
        Massacre'';
Whereas 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;
Whereas, over a period of 24 hours, the violence of the White mob led to the 
        death of an estimated 300 Black residents, and over 800 reports of 
        injuries;
Whereas 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, and virtually every other 
        structure, including churches, schools, businesses, a hospital, and a 
        library, leaving nearly 9,000 Black residents of Tulsa homeless and 
        effectively wiping out tens of millions of dollars in Black prosperity 
        and wealth in Tulsa;
Whereas, 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 the surviving 
        residents of Greenwood, removing them from Greenwood to other parts of 
        Tulsa and unlawfully detaining them in holding centers;
Whereas 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;
Whereas, on February 28, 2001, the commission issued a report that detailed, for 
        the first time, the extent of the Tulsa Race Massacre and decades-long 
        efforts to suppress its recollection;
Whereas none of the law enforcement officials or 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 Tulsa Race Massacre, nor was 
        any compensation ever provided to the victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre 
        or their descendants;
Whereas State 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 
        face across the United States;
Whereas 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; and
Whereas this year marks the 102nd anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre: Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) recognizes the 102nd anniversary of the Tulsa Race 
        Massacre;
            (2) acknowledges the historical significance of this event 
        as one of the largest single instances of State-sanctioned 
        violence against Black people in the history of the United 
        States;
            (3) honors the lives and legacies of the estimated 300 
        Black individuals who were killed during the Tulsa Race 
        Massacre and the nearly 9,000 Black individuals who were left 
        homeless and penniless;
            (4) condemns the participants of the Tulsa Race Massacre, 
        including the White municipal officials and law enforcement who 
        directly participated in or who aided and abetted the unlawful 
        violence;
            (5) condemns past and present efforts to cover up the truth 
        and shield the White community, and especially State and local 
        officials, from accountability for the Tulsa Race Massacre and 
        other instances of violence at the hands of law enforcement;
            (6) condemns the continued legacy of racism, including 
        systemic racism, and White supremacy against Black people in 
        the United States, particularly in the form of police 
        brutality;
            (7) encourages education about the Tulsa Race Massacre, 
        including the horrors of the massacre itself, the history of 
        White supremacy that fueled the massacre, and subsequent 
        attempts to deny or cover up the Tulsa Race Massacre, in all 
        elementary and secondary education settings and in institutions 
        of higher education in the United States; and
            (8) recognizes 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.
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