[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 122 (Thursday, July 2, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S4231]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SENATE RESOLUTION 647--RECOGNIZING THE FORTHCOMING CENTENNIAL OF THE 
                        1921 TULSA RACE MASSACRE

  Ms. WARREN (for herself, Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Booker, Mr. 
Brown, Mr. Casey, Mr. Coons, Ms. Duckworth, Mr. Durbin, Mrs. Feinstein, 
Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. Harris, Mr. Kaine, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Markey, Mr. 
Menendez, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Sanders, Ms. Smith, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. 
Warner, and Mr. Whitehouse) submitted the following resolution; which 
was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary:

                              S. Res. 647

       Whereas, in the early 20th century, de jure segregation 
     confined Tulsa's Black residents 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 upon Tulsa's Greenwood District 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 white mob's 
     violence led to the death of an estimated 300 Black 
     residents, as well as 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, as well as virtually every other structure, 
     including churches, schools, businesses, a hospital, and a 
     library, leaving nearly 9,000 Black Tulsans 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 Greenwood's surviving residents, 
     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 
     Massacre and decades-long efforts to suppress its 
     recollection;
       Whereas none of the law enforcement officials nor 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 Massacre, nor was 
     any compensation ever provided to the Massacre's victims or 
     their descendants;
       Whereas 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 the year 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the 
     Tulsa Race Massacre: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) recognizes the forthcoming centennial 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 American history;
       (3) honors the lives and legacies of the estimated 300 
     Black individuals who were killed during the Massacre and the 
     nearly 9,000 Black individuals who were left homeless and 
     penniless;
       (4) condemns the participants of the Tulsa Race Massacre, 
     including 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 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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