[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 85 (Monday, May 17, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H2407-H2416]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE TRAGEDY OF THE TULSA GREENWOOD MASSACRE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Torres) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks 
and include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special 
Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New York?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I am honored to share today's 
Special Order hour on Black Wall Street on behalf of the Congressional 
Black Caucus, which is chaired by our great leader, Congressmember 
Joyce Beatty.
  I want to extend my condolences to Congressmember Beatty and her 
family for the loss of her husband.
  On May 30, 1921, a single scream in an elevator became the spark that 
ignited a powder keg of racial terror that set on fire Black Wall 
Street. A young Black man enters an elevator, and an elevator operator, 
a young White woman, screams, giving the impression that she had been 
assaulted.

  A local newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune, accuses the young Black man of 
raping the young White woman. The headline of the article was an 
incitement to racial violence: ``Nab the Negro Who Attacked the Girl in 
the Elevator.''
  As a result of the incitement, a White lynch mob descended on Black 
Wall Street and set on fire the wealthiest Black community in the 
United States, reducing it to ashes. The ashes of Black Wall Street are 
a metaphor for the failure of Reconstruction.
  In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, there were newly 
emancipated African Americans who set out to build a better life for 
themselves and their family, only to be held back by racial terror and 
violence that ultimately came to be codified in the form of Jim Crow.
  We, as the CBC, are not only here to recite the facts of the Tulsa 
Race Massacre, but we are also here to reflect on the deeper meaning. 
The massacre in Tulsa tells a larger story about false accusation as an 
incitement to violence. It tells a larger story about the failure of 
Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow. It tells a larger story about 
domestic terrorism and white supremacist extremism as a form of 
domestic terror. It tells a larger story about the systematic denial 
and destruction of Black wealth. And, finally, it tells a larger story 
about the legacy of discrimination and the need for restitution.
  It is worth noting that here in the United States Congress there is 
no greater champion of reparations than the chair of the Special Order 
hour, Congressmember Jackson Lee.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE of California. Madam Speaker, first, let me thank the 
gentleman from New York for organizing this very important Special 
Order and for his tremendous leadership on so many issues on behalf of 
his district, the Congressional Black Caucus, and on behalf of all 
Americans.
  Let me first send my deepest condolences to Chairwoman Joyce Beatty 
and her family on the loss of her beloved husband, Otto Beatty, Jr., a 
devoted partner, beloved father, grandfather, and community leader. Our 
hearts are broken this evening as we think about Congresswoman Beatty 
and her family, and just know we are praying for her and her community 
and her family.
  This is a Special Order tonight that I want to thank again 
Congressman Ritchie Torres and the Congressional Black Caucus for 
organizing this to mark 100 years since the horrific tragedy of the 
Tulsa Greenwood massacre.
  In one of the worst acts of racist violence in United States history, 
a White mob ransacked a prosperous African-American neighborhood in 
Tulsa, Oklahoma. From May 31 to June 1, 1921, an estimated 300 Black 
men, women, and children were murdered. The mob destroyed 35 square 
blocks of Greenwood and burned down over 1,000 Black-owned businesses, 
churches, and homes.
  During a time when lynching African Americans was commonplace, the 
alleged--mind you, alleged--assault of a White woman by a Black man was 
enough to incite a massacre of unimaginable proportions. A thriving 
Black community became the target of animosity and racial hatred by its 
neighbors.
  Now, a grand jury placed the blame for the massacre entirely on the 
Black

[[Page H2408]]

community. No White person was ever held accountable for these crimes. 
This is an example, mind you, of the horrors and the experience of 
living as a Black person in America then and now.
  In 1997, the Oklahoma Legislature established a commission to study 
the Tulsa race riots of 1921. It was charged with the responsibility of 
developing an historical record of the massacre through identifying 
witnesses and gathering testimony and records. The commission not only 
corrected the record, but also recommended reparations for the 
survivors and their descendants. To date, they have not received any--
mind you, any--direct compensation.
  Up until recently, the silence in Tulsa, in Oklahoma, and in the 
United States about this massacre was an intentional effort to 
whitewash our Nation's racialized past. But we must remember these 
stories. We must tell the truth about our past.
  I introduced H. Con. Res. 19 to establish a National Truth, Racial 
Healing, and Transformation Commission to usher in this moment of truth 
to begin to examine and lift up to the public as the historical record 
of the history and legacy of slavery and how it is manifested today in 
systemic racism as it relates to African Americans.
  But telling the truth is not enough. We must pass H.R. 40, sponsored 
by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. And I am a proud cosponsor of H.R. 
40, which is the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals 
for African Americans to address and repair the material harm done by 
instances like the Tulsa Greenwood massacre.
  I am pleased to say that my home State of California is leading the 
Nation in this effort, being the first State to pass a law to establish 
a task force to study and develop reparation proposals.
  Black Tulsans have still not recovered from the impact of the Tulsa 
Greenwood massacre. Decades of discrimination following the massacre 
prevented the community from rebuilding their economic vitality. Black 
Tulsans are still over two times more likely to be unemployed than 
their White counterparts, and their communities are the least likely to 
attract businesses and large employers. Policies like redlining and 
local ordinances have prevented growth.
  The legacy of the massacre continues to impact Black Tulsans today. 
We cannot forget and we cannot let the Nation forget about the Tulsa 
Greenwood massacre.
  H.R. 40 is a bill that we need to move forward to begin to repair the 
damage of the historical facts of the legacy of enslaved Africans 
brought to this country, who, quite frankly, in spite of our progress, 
still have not achieved liberty and justice for all.
  Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Johnson).
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Torres for 
anchoring this very important Special Order hour today.
  I also want to extend my deepest condolences to the chair of the 
Congressional Black Caucus and my friend, the Honorable Joyce Beatty, 
who lost her dear husband a few days ago. He passed away. He was a fine 
public servant and a fine civil rights champion, and he will be missed. 
We are there in prayer and in spirit with our dear sister.
  It has been said that sunlight is the best disinfectant, yet the 
terrible atrocity that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 100 years ago, on 
May 31 and June 1 of 1921, has lived in the shadows for far too long. 
It is time that the truth be told. We must know our past or we are 
bound to repeat it.
  In 1921, the Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was prospering, 
despite a racist system designed to marginalize and exclude it and its 
residents from the fruits of those citizens' labor. It was a community 
known as Greenwood, and it was also known as the Black Wall Street.
  It was a thriving community. There were restaurants, grocery stores, 
hotels, theaters, banks, insurance companies, all owned by Black 
people. This community was self-sufficient. It was prospering, despite 
the fact that segregation was the norm and the lynching of Black men 
was as common as the white hoods of the KKK.
  The simple fact is this: The Black community was succeeding in Tulsa, 
so White people burned it down. White supremacy and Jim Crow were the 
sparks that lit the fire. The massacre occurred over a 24-hour period, 
from May 30 to June 1 of 1921. And it all began like so many other 
racially motivated events: A false allegation against a Black man.
  In response, a White mob of thousands shot, beat, and murdered Black 
residents, and they did it with impunity.

                              {time}  1945

  They looted Black homes and businesses and set fires in their wake, 
this White mob. They were aided and abetted by the National Guard and 
also deputized killers, looters, and arsonists.
  Twenty-four hours after the violence began, 35 city blocks lay in 
ruins. Not a single dwelling or business or building was left standing.
  Within months of the Greenwood massacre, the KKK's Tulsa chapter 
became one of the Nation's largest, because what better recruiting tool 
than plundering and killing Blacks with impunity?
  No person has ever been held accountable on the State, local, or 
Federal level, in the criminal courts, or in the civil courts for the 
atrocities committed against the Black community and the Black people 
of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
  And here we are today, 100 years later, still challenged by state-
sanctioned violence against Black people. Some things have changed, but 
some things remain the same.
  The events of January 6, when Confederate flags flew inside and out 
of the Capitol, and where a hangman's noose was draped over a 
functional gallows constructed on the Capitol Grounds to intimidate and 
terrorize, that proves that not much has changed.
  And I stand here today to tell you that we have had enough. It is 
time to fix America and rid racism from its soil. We must fix our 
country, and that starts with examining our past and looking at how we 
can heal together as a Nation, and, yes, reparation. Justice delayed is 
justice denied, and Black Americans in this country have been denied 
justice for far too long. Enough is enough.
  At this time, I would like to read from the Tulsa Historical Society 
and Museum website. It is at TulsaHistory.org. I want to read the 
following information that it publishes, which comes from the 2001 
Tulsa Race Riot Commission report.
  ``On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young Black man named Dick 
Rowland riding in the elevator at the Drexel Building at Third and Main 
with a White woman named Sarah Page. The details of what followed vary 
from person to person. Accounts of an incident circulated among the 
city's White community during the day and became more exaggerated with 
each telling.
  ``Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day and began an 
investigation. An inflammatory report in the May 31 edition of the 
Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between Black and White armed 
mobs around the courthouse where the sheriff and his men had barricaded 
the top floor to protect Rowland. Shots were fired, and the outnumbered 
African Americans began retreating to the Greenwood district.
  ``In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was looted 
and burned by White rioters,'' as they are called. ``Governor Robertson 
declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. 
Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans 
out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned,'' locked them up, ``all 
Black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the 
convention hall and the fairgrounds, some for as long as 8 days.
  ``Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the 
wake of the violence, 35 city blocks laid in charred ruins, more than 
800 people were treated for injuries, and contemporary reports of 
deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may 
have died.
  ``In order to understand the Tulsa Race Massacre, it is important to 
understand the complexities of the times. Dick Rowland, Sarah Page, and 
an unknown gunman were the sparks that ignited a long-smoldering fire. 
Jim Crow, jealousy, white supremacy, and land lust all played roles in 
leading up to the destruction and loss of life on May 31 and June 1, 
1921. . . .

[[Page H2409]]

  ``Black Tulsans had every reason to believe that Dick Rowland would 
be lynched after his arrest. His charges were later dismissed and 
highly suspect from the start. They had cause to believe that his 
personal safety, like the defense of themselves and their community, 
depended on them alone. As hostile groups gathered and their 
confrontation worsened, municipal and county authorities failed to take 
actions to calm or contain the situation.
  ``At the eruption of violence, civil officials selected many men, all 
of them White and some of them participants in that violence, and made 
those men their agents as deputies. In that capacity, deputies did not 
stem the violence but added to it, often through overt acts that were 
themselves illegal. Public officials provided firearms and ammunition 
to individuals, again, all of them White. Units of the Oklahoma 
National Guard participated in the mass arrests of all or nearly all of 
Greenwood's residents.
  ``They removed them to other parts of the city and detained them in 
holding centers. Entering the Greenwood district, people stole, 
damaged, or destroyed personal property left behind in homes and 
businesses. People, some of them agents of government, also 
deliberately burned or otherwise destroyed homes credibly estimated to 
have numbered 1,256, along with virtually every other structure--
including churches, schools, businesses, even a hospital and library--
in the Greenwood district. Despite duties to preserve order and to 
protect property, no government at any level offered adequate 
resistance, if any at all, to what amounted to the destruction of the 
Greenwood neighborhood. Although the exact total can never be 
determined, credible evidence makes it probable that many people, 
likely numbering between 100 to 300, were killed during the massacre.''
  I am reading to you from the report of the Tulsa commission that was 
set up by the city of Tulsa to report on the events that happened in 
Greenwood 100 years ago.
  ``Not one of these criminal acts was then or ever has been prosecuted 
or punished by government at any level: municipal, county, State, or 
Federal. Even after the restoration of order, it was official policy to 
release a Black detainee only upon the application of a White person, 
and then only if that White person agreed to accept responsibility for 
that detainee's subsequent behavior. As private citizens, many Whites 
in Tulsa and neighboring communities did extend invaluable assistance 
to the massacre's victims,'' to their credit.

  ``Despite being numerically at a disadvantage, Black Tulsans fought 
valiantly to protect their homes, their businesses, and their 
community. But in the end, the city's African-American population was 
simply outnumbered by the White invaders. In the end, the restoration 
of Greenwood after its systematic destruction was left to the victims 
of that destruction. While Tulsa officials turned away some offers of 
outside aid, a number of individual White Tulsans provided assistance 
to the city's now virtually homeless Black population. . . .
  ``In recent years, there has been ongoing discussion about what to 
call the event that happened in 1921. Historically, it has been called 
the Tulsa Race Riot. Some say it was given that name at the time for 
insurance purposes. Designating it a riot prevented insurance companies 
from having to pay benefits to the people of Greenwood whose homes and 
businesses were destroyed.''
  Now, this is not me talking. I am still reading from that report.
  ``It also was common at the time for any large-scale clash between 
different racial or ethnic groups to be categorized a race riot.
  ``What do you think?'' the report asks.
  ``Definition of `riot': a tumultuous disturbance of the public peace 
by three or more persons assembled together and acting with common 
intent.
  ``Definition of `massacre': the act or an instance of killing a 
number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under 
circumstances of atrocity or cruelty.''
  So, that is why I personally refer to it as the Tulsa Greenwood 
massacre, as opposed to a race riot.
  Mr. TORRES of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Johnson for his deep 
insight and kind words earlier.
  Some background on Tulsa, Oklahoma: The district of Greenwood in its 
time was famously described by Booker T. Washington as ``Black Wall 
Street.'' It was so named because it was the most vibrant and affluent 
African-American community in the United States. It was an oasis of 
opportunity in a desert of du jour discrimination.
  For many African Americans in search of a better life, it was a 
promised land amid the broken promise of Reconstruction. It was home to 
10,000 residents. There were 30 vibrant restaurants, 45 vibrant grocers 
and meat markets. There was a 54-room hotel. There was a theater and a 
hospital.
  Black Wall Street was a self-contained, self-sufficient community of 
Black wealth, a community of Black entrepreneurship and Black 
ownership.
  And Black Wall Street, at the hands of racial terrorism, at the hands 
of racial violence, the wealthiest Black community in the United States 
became a scene of mass murder, looting, and arson. It became a scene of 
death, destruction, and displacement. Nothing was spared in the Tulsa 
Race Massacre.
  Churches, schools, and hospitals were burned down. Twelve thousand 
homes were burned down. Thirty-five blocks burned down. The Tulsa 
burning had a death toll of 300 and a displacement toll of 10,000. Ten 
thousand people lost their homes, their businesses, and their 
livelihoods. And 6,000 of those people were relegated to internment 
camps.
  Then, after the internment camps, Black professionals, Black business 
owners who lost everything, were forced to live in tents and shacks. It 
was the worst act of racial terrorism and one of the worst acts of 
domestic terrorism in the history of the United States.

                              {time}  2000

  Now, I see a parallel between the Tulsa Race Massacre and January 6. 
The insurrection against the United States Congress on January 6 was 
not simply an attack on a physical structure, it was an expression of 
racial rage and resentment against multiracial democracy. And the same 
is true of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
  We have to recognize that the domestic terrorism that we saw unfold 
on January 6 did not happen in a vacuum. It has a history, and that 
history includes the KKK; it includes Jim Crow, and, yes, it includes 
the Tulsa Race Massacre. And it is a scandal in America that most 
Americans have never heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
  Madam Speaker, as Congressman Johnson noted earlier, it has been 
referred to as a race riot, which is an attempt to whitewash the white 
supremacist, domestic terrorism at the heart of the massacre. And so we 
are here to tell the truth about the Tulsa Greenwood Massacre because 
we see a proper revision of history away from whitewashing as part of 
our national reckoning with race in America.
  It is worth noting that in 2021, Black homeownership is at historic 
lows. The rate of Black homeownership is lower today than it was before 
the Fair Housing Act in the 1960s. The gap between Black and White 
homeownership has never been greater. According to the Federal Reserve, 
White households on average have eight times more wealth than Black 
households. And part of the reason is the Tulsa massacre, and the 
systemic racism that it represents.
  There is a racial income gap between White households and Black 
households, but there is an even greater wealth gap. And the wealth gap 
is not an accident, it is a product of public policy. It is a 
consequence of systemic racism.
  During the post-war era, we saw Black Americans systematically 
excluded from programs providing homeownership and higher education, 
which are the pillars of wealth-building. And if you have no home to 
own, then you have no home equity to build. And if you have no home 
equity to build, then you have no wealth to pass down from one 
generation to the next.
  And so, instead of realizing the dream of intergenerational wealth, 
too many Black Americans were condemned by public policy, condemned by 
systemic racism to the nightmare of intergenerational poverty. The 
Tulsa Race Massacre should be understood as a microcosm of what white 
supremacy has done to Black people and Black property, to Black 
business and Black

[[Page H2410]]

community. And the ghosts of Jim Crow, the ghosts of the Tulsa and 
Greenwood massacre hunts us till this day.
  I represent a neighborhood named Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and many 
of the businesses on Arthur Avenue have been owned by the same family 
for more than 100 years, but those businesses--all of them are white.
  And I thought to myself, what if Black Wall Street had been left 
alone, had been left to survive and thrive. It may very well be the 
case that some of those businesses would have endured until 2021. We 
could have had businesses owned by Black families for more than a 
century had it not been for the racial terrorism that took hold in 
1921. And we know that when it comes to business, longevity is often 
the basis for resilience. Established businesses which tend to be 
wealthier and whiter had greater resilience in the face of COVID-19; 
whereas, newer businesses, which tend to be Black and Brown, were too 
fragile to survive the cataclysm of COVID-19.
  In the first two months of the outbreak, 44 percent of Black 
businesses were wiped out, which raises the question, what if Black 
Wall Street were left to thrive, and what if we could have had 
businesses that would have endured for more than a century and could 
have had the resilience, the longevity, to overcome even a cataclysmic 
event like COVID-19.
  Madam Speaker, I want to provide some more historic background, on 
May 31-June 1, 1921, a White mob attacked America's Black Wall Street, 
the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and what is known as the 
Tulsa-Greenwood Race Massacre. The White mob of thousands of people 
shot and murdered Black residents, looted their homes and businesses, 
and burned more than 1,000 homes, churches, schools, and businesses. 
Not only did local authorities and law enforcement fail to maintain 
civil order and protect Tulsa's Black residents, some government agents 
aided the White mob in carrying out the massacre.
  Many of the residents who fled the massacre were detained in 
internment camps immediately following the massacre. And local 
officials later made, and ultimately failed, an attempt to block the 
ability of the Black community to rebuild the Greenwood commercial 
district by enacting a restrictive building ordinance.
  Less than a month after the massacre, a grand jury placed the blame 
entirely on the Black community and indicted 85 people--mostly African-
Americans--with massacre-related offenses. No White person was ever 
held individually accountable for crimes committed during the massacre, 
and the vast majority of survivors and their descendants were never 
directly compensated for these harms.
  So not only did a White lynch mob set the most vibrant, Black 
community on fire, but then the United States proceeded to whitewash 
the history of the Tulsa massacre, claiming that it was a race riot 
rather than the act of domestic terrorism that it was and should always 
be seen as. No White person was held to account, and no Black person 
was made whole.
  Despite the acute challenges of racism in the late 19th and early 
20th century, Black residents have been able to create thriving 
community in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma. However, this 
community was literally burned to the ground in one of the worst 
incidents of racial violence in American history. And to this day, no 
one has been truly held responsible. And it is worth noting, even 
though Greenwood has rebuilt itself, Greenwood does have among the 
highest rates of poverty and unemployment in the city of Tulsa, which 
demonstrates the legacy of systemic racism, how hard it can be to 
overcome that legacy.
  The Tulsa Massacre resulted in property damage valued anywhere from 
$25 million to $100 million when adjusted in today's dollars. As the 
descendants of the white mob that looted Tulsa businesses have had the 
opportunity to benefit from the wealth of their ancestors, many Black 
survivors of the Tulsa Massacre and their descendants have not been 
able to recoup the wealth that had been lost or destroyed during the 
massacre.
  Despite the Oklahoma Commission to study the race massacre of 1921 
stating, ``Reparations to the historic Greenwood community in real and 
tangible form would be good public policy and do much to repair the 
emotional and physical scars of this terrible incident in our shared 
past.'' Despite that finding, neither the State of Oklahoma nor the 
city of Tulsa has provided direct compensation to survivors or their 
descendants.
  Discrimination against Black Tulsans did not end following the 
massacre. Over the local decades, local ordinances to prevent 
rebuilding, redlining, urban renewal, and slum clearance, 
gentrification, highway construction, tearing apart communities.
  I will offer a note of personal reflection. I represent the South 
Bronx, which has been ravaged by a racist highway known as the Cross 
Bronx Expressway. It was built by Robert Moses and largely funded by 
Federal dollars. And the Cross Bronx Expressway has left behind decades 
of displacement and environmental degradation.
  There are children who are born in the Bronx who live near the Cross 
Bronx Expressway, who breathe in pollutants every day that cause 
respiratory disease and cardiovascular disease. And we saw those 
diseases become lethal during COVID-19.
  As a son of the Bronx, I was often in three places. I was at home, I 
was at school, and I was in the emergency room, because I was 
repeatedly hospitalized for asthma. And the asthma epidemic in the 
Bronx, again, is not an accident. It is a consequence of the Cross 
Bronx Expressway, which is both literally and metaphorically a 
structure of racism. The South Bronx has a childhood asthma 
hospitalization rate that is double to three times the national 
average.
  So like the South Bronx, the neighborhood of Greenwood has its own 
racist highway. And one of the most exciting features of the American 
Jobs Plan is a proposed $20 billion fund that would rebuild 
neighborhoods that have been divided and devastated by the structural 
racism of highways. And I hope neighborhoods like Greenwood and the 
South Bronx will benefit from our national reckoning with race.
  The impact of the massacre and the ongoing systemic discrimination is 
clear when you compare North Tulsa, where many Black residents of Tulsa 
now live, to other areas. North Tulsan residents are significantly 
poorer than residents in other parts of the city. There are fewer 
businesses and large-scale employers in North Tulsa than in other 
cities.
  According to a 2018 city study, North Tulsa had the fewest jobs of 
any region of Tulsa. The unemployment rate is 2.37 percent times higher 
for Black Tulsans than for White Tulsans. The lowest life expectancy in 
Tulsa occurs in the poorest regions with the greatest concentration of 
Black residents.
  The United States has a responsibility to both acknowledge the harm 
caused by the Tulsa Massacre and to enact legal remedies and policy 
proposals to compensate survivors and their descendants. And as many of 
you know, there is no greater champion of making the victims of 
systemic racism whole, no greater champion of reparations than the 
chair of our Special Order hour, Congress Member Jackson Lee.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson 
Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York 
from illustrating, elaborating on, detailing, and bringing to the 21st 
century the horrors of the Tulsa race riots, calling it what it is and 
not being fearful of acknowledging the riotist and violent impact of 
the Tulsa race riots.
  Madam Speaker, it is my honor to now continue the discussion on 
behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus and my cochair of the Special 
Order hour, the Honorable Congressman Torres of New York.
  Let me, first of all, thank our chair, Chairwoman Beatty, for 
matching her members with this process of ensuring that the history, 
the unbiased history of a people in all of our variations is told 
truthfully.

                              {time}  2015

  We, too, are Americans. The Tulsan residents of that time were 
Americans as well.
  I am reminded of the early stages of my education. When Congressman

[[Page H2411]]

Torres' history was the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, I could 
almost repeat that in my sleep, the three ships that came with 
Christopher Columbus. He was the founder of America--over and over 
again.
  I'm not sure during the period of our early childhood and those of 
recent vintage learned anything of Native American history, Korean-
American history, Japanese-American, Chinese-American, African-
American, slavery. I don't know if our children in periods of the 20th 
century and now in the 21st century knew there was more history.
  I do know that the past President wanted the Smithsonian, the 
African-American culture, to stop teaching about African history. I 
know that there was a challenge to the U.S. Department of Education by 
Minority Leader McConnell, to stop teaching the 1619 Project. It 
baffles me because I believe that, if a country or a people know its 
history, we will not be doomed to repeat the past.
  When I say ``a people,'' America is represented by many people. If we 
knew each other's history, if we understood each other's history, could 
we not--even if not those who are already past understanding, but could 
our children grow up with empathy and understanding?
  That is why we are here on the floor of the House. We are not here to 
castigate and to throw untruthful hits. We are here to tell the truth.
  Madam Speaker, tears come to my eyes as a series--and I only get to 
look at television late in the night, after all the day's work is done, 
and there is a series called ``The Underground Railroad.'' You cannot 
look at that without shaking in your boots, shaking in the chair you 
are sitting in, tears coming to your eyes.
  That is the empathy that America can understand for all the journeys 
that so many of us have taken. We have taken it, and we are here in 
this place. The greatest experiment that the world watches.
  Can they make it?
  They were watching it from Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation 
Proclamation, 1863, and then General Granger in 1865.
  They watched us through the 1800s. We failed. Reconstruction did not 
work. Even with all the Governors and Congress people that had been 
elected are freed slaves. That ugly head of racism, white supremacy, 
lynching, the tearing asunder of Black communities, the still tearing 
apart of families, the lynching of men and women who went off to the 
grocery store--when I say that, the local store, whatever it was down 
the road--and never came back.
  In 1921--boy, I am just so proud of this picture--this is bustling 
Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is the example of the excitement. I am reading 
where it says the McGowan Variety Store. There are some McGowans in 
Houston. They might be related. These are the prancing people with 
their cowboy hats on. It looks as if students, just like we would see 
in our neighborhoods today or in our high schools today, dancers, they 
had a full holistic community. There is some cars on the street.
  Can you imagine 1921?
  Oh, I wish I could just take a trip back, just stand on the sidewalk, 
and just look with pride of history I did not know. I never imagined 
there were cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma, as I was growing up as a child. 
I never imagined we had anything, we were worth anything, except for 
what my mother and father and grandparents poured into me.
  My big mother, which was my great-grandmother, owned property 
obviously destroyed by the highways and freeways that came in and took 
it away in St. Petersburg, Florida. I just thought that was our way of 
life. Just like I thought riding in the back of a train going south to 
visit her, sitting by my lonely with a bag of fried chicken--that is 
right, I am not embarrassed--to carry me through to visit my 
grandmother in St. Petersburg, Florida. Thank God, I got there safely. 
I was just about 8 or 9 or 10, and I was sitting in the colored car, 
and I wasn't supposed to move except for necessary purposes.
  I didn't know--I didn't know I could come here and see this. And our 
children don't know it. That is why we are on the floor today. We are 
on the floor today because we have to begin to embrace each other's 
story.
  So I am very delighted that I am leading on H. Res. 398, embraced by 
the Congressional Black Caucus. This will be on the floor of the House 
this coming Wednesday. And my counterpart in the United States Senate 
is a very dear friend, Senator Elizabeth Warren, who believes in this 
resolution, that is the recognizing of the forthcoming centennial, the 
1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. And it doesn't say ``riot.'' It says 
``massacre.'' It was a massacre.
  I Thank the House leadership. I thank them for their understanding 
the value and importance of this as we lead into June and begin to move 
on H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals. 
It is nothing harmful. There is nothing that will undermine anyone. It 
is to accept what happened.
  So I am so grateful we have almost 100 cosponsors, and maybe more to 
come into the next 24 hours, for a story that was never told.
  Oh, yes, as a little Black girl, I could tell you about Columbus, 
tell you about Abraham Lincoln, tell you about George Washington. And 
most of them today in the 21st century, they are not hearing about the 
wide diversity of our history, Madam Speaker--yours and mine and the 
many people that are on this side of the aisle or that side of the 
aisle.
  So let me just recount very briefly again. A century ago, White 
rioters, local law enforcement, and self-appointed vigilantes claim to 
be acting reasonably and in self-defense against what they feared was 
an upcoming Black uprising.
  Same as January 6, where there are people who had the audacity to say 
it looked like tourists on any normal day, when we were laying flat on 
the floor in this building while banging and screams and guns drawn on 
this side of that door. We didn't know whether we would live. And a 
lifesaving shot for that person who did not know what was happening, 
attempting to save lives. Sadly, someone lost their life.

  Members in near panic--rightly so--leaving these Chambers and walking 
down and seeing AK-47s in the hands of individuals laying flat on the 
ground, that our brave officers had under their watch.
  Yes, rioters. But in Greenwood, I want this picture to be embedded in 
your DNA, because you will see economic prosperity, self-sufficiency. 
Yes, it was known as the Black Wall Street. They viewed, however, black 
males as fearsome, physical threats to their personal safety, and the 
rivals of White women. I don't know what happened in an elevator, 
allegedly. The story, you know, it is always a mystery, but some claim 
of some insult that occurred.
  And all of a sudden the word went out enraging leaders of the White 
community, fine citizens, probably in some church over the weekend. 
When I say in their church in that time, because they were always using 
the Bible wrongly and incorrectly. And I will say that because I 
believe in a merciful redemptive Jesus, as a Christian. There are many 
other faiths, Torah and Koran and others.
  But I know in the redemptive faith of Christianity, we believe in 
redemption. We don't go out because we know that we have had one to 
sacrifice for us on the cross so that we might be redeemed. We sing 
that song in our community, ``Let the Redeemed Say So.'' But apparently 
they didn't have that memory.
  100,000 Black people lived in that area, sold luxury items. Twenty-
one restaurants, 30 grocery stores, a hospital, savings and loan, a 
post office, three hotels, jewelry and clothing, two movie theaters, a 
library, pool halls, bus and cab service, a nationally recognized 
school system. A nationally recognized school system, when all of us 
are fighting for our children to be educated.
  Today, I left Houston. And guess what? We have a new resident of 
Texas: Curtis Jackson, known as 50 Cent.
  We were standing together because he was producing with Mayor Turner 
and Al Kashani and the School Superintendent Grenita Lathan, and all 
elected officials to announce an entrepreneurial program.
  Can you imagine, to be able to build up our children?
  They had two Black newspapers, six private planes. And I want to say 
it again, a recognized school system.
  On May 31 of that year, 35 city blocks went up in flames and 300 
persons were

[[Page H2412]]

murdered and, to my knowledge, buried in an unmarked grave; 800 were 
injured and 9,000 were left homeless.
  Yes, one cannot ignore this history, but it has been ignored, it has 
been snuffed out, it has been put under.
  I never knew about it until people like Dr. Crutcher, from this great 
city, and various leaders that have brought to our attention even more. 
But over the years, obviously, in my study of reparations, I have seen 
the insults that have happened when no one bothered to respond.
  Brutality that we are now trying to correct by acknowledging in H. 
Res. 398, and I hope my colleagues will come to the floor of the House 
to be able to address it.
  Let me show you what that massacre generated, and you will 
understand.
  Madam Speaker, how much time is remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 7 minutes remaining.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, you saw the bustling town. You saw 
the bustling town. This is a charred Negro who suffered in the Tulsa 
riots.
  Yes, I am like Emmett Till's mother, Let the world see it. This is 
what happened to an innocent Black person.
  By the way, the dead included children. Tulsa Historical Society. 
This is America. And this is a story that we failed to tell. This is 
what happened.
  We have more stories to tell. We believe that a picture is worth a 
thousands words. We can never, never overcome that burned, charred 
body.
  I showed you what Tulsa looked like, the Black Wall Street, and the 
burned-out ruins of Greenwood. Tulsa, Oklahoma library--they even got 
it in the library. I don't know how many people have seen it. It is a 
wasteland, a literal wasteland. Smoke is coming up. People's homes are 
gone. Wealth is gone. People were never to be presented with any 
relief. None. I don't even think they got a thank-you--not even a 
thank-you.
  So our resolution condemns violence and destruction perpetrated 
against the African-American community of Greenwood. Our resolution has 
a rejection and active opposition to the false ideology of white 
supremacy and condemnation of all groups. Our resolution believes in 
promoting tolerance and unity, and taking action to ensure governmental 
policies and action to promote tolerance and unity.
  Our resolution is calling for all Americans to celebrate the ethnic, 
racial, and religious diversity that has made the United States great. 
Our resolution encourages all persons of the United States to reflect 
upon the history of the United States as an imperfect but committed 
journey to establish a more perfect union. Our resolution is recognized 
as a commitment of Congress to acknowledge and learn from the history 
of racism and racial violence in the United States.
  Our resolution lays the groundwork for moving to H.R. 40, the 
Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals, because we can 
see it in real life.

                              {time}  2030

  So this is part of the Tulsa that never got acknowledged.
  Madam Speaker, let me show you additional fires so you can see the 
buildings going up in smoke. We are not making it up. All of these 
buildings--brick buildings--were burned to the ground.
  Can you imagine someone who survived the post-traumatic stress, the 
horrors of their life, the willingness not to live anymore, and the 
giving up of hope?
  People wonder, oh, those lazy Negroes and colored people who worked 
for over 250 years in bondage.
  Finally, I am going to put the picture of the slaves, the 
individuals. So this is the story we tell tonight. We don't even tell 
it with a sense of vengeance. We tell it with a sense of dignity, 
respect, and honor. The courage of those people, and the genius of 
those people--they weren't even freed slaves for 100 years and look 
what they created.
  There is a story on CNN: ``My great-grandmother survived the 1921 
Tulsa massacre. We are not heeding her history.'' For what was once the 
wealthiest Black neighborhood in America became charred ash in a matter 
of hours. But we have not come to a conclusion to end this kind of 
White supremacy and racism.
  Madam Speaker, I include this in the Record.

                        [From CNN, May 14, 2021]

 Opinion: My Great-Grandmother Survived the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. We're 
                        Not Heeding Her History

       A century ago, my Black brothers and sisters were decimated 
     by one of the worst occurrences of racial violence in our 
     nation's history. On May 31 and June 1, 1921, White gangs 
     flooded into the thriving Greenwood neighborhood and murdered 
     up to 300 Black men, women and children. According to the 
     Tulsa Historical Society, 1,500 Black homes were burned, 
     along with over 600 businesses, and places of worship, 
     healing, learning and gathering.
       My great-grandmother, Rebecca Brown Crutcher--a woman who 
     was the picture of Black excellence--lived and worked in the 
     Greenwood community. But in 1921, she fled in fear of her 
     life as White Tulsans burned her neighborhood to the ground.
       What was once the wealthiest Black neighborhood in America 
     became charred ash in a matter of hours. 10,000 Black 
     residents were left homeless--and an entire generation of 
     Black Tulsans were robbed of their wealth and prosperity they 
     had built. To this day, not one person has ever been held 
     accountable and not a single cent of reparations has been 
     paid to the survivors or the victims' descendants.
       Without this necessary reckoning with the past, we're 
     already repeating it. As Oklahoma and many around the world 
     are preparing to mark the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race 
     Massacre, last month, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed a 
     law criminalizing peaceful protesters and giving immunity to 
     drivers who ``unintentionally'' kill or injure protesters. 
     This law is, according to the count kept by the International 
     Center for Not-For-Profit Law, just one of 81 anti-protest 
     bills introduced in 34 states during the 2021 legislative 
     session alone--most of them framed as a response to last 
     summer's Black Lives Matter protests. But instead of tackling 
     the root causes of these nationwide protests against police 
     brutality, racism and anti-Blackness, many lawmakers are 
     attempting to intimidate, malign and criminalize peaceful 
     protesters.
       Laws like this one will undoubtedly have painful and long-
     lasting consequences in Oklahoma and the rest of the nation. 
     Black, brown and Indigenous people will surely be locked up, 
     ripped apart from their families, and may lose their jobs for 
     exercising their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble 
     in a protest. They will surely receive harsher punishments 
     for protesting police brutality and racial injustice than, 
     for instance, White protesters demonstrating for gun rights 
     or for their desire to control a woman's body.
       This isn't the only bill introduced in Oklahoma this 
     session that's followed the Tulsa Race Massacre's sinister 
     legacy of suppression and erasure of Black Oklahomans. Half a 
     dozen bills have already been introduced to restrict absentee 
     voting and require identification to vote, echoing the 
     growing trend of voting restrictions around the country. 
     Historically in our state as elsewhere, these tactics have 
     been used to disenfranchise Black and brown, poor and older 
     communities and people with disabilities, with the precedent 
     being set in one state and spreading like wildfire to the 
     rest of the country.
       On May 7, Governor Stitt signed HB 1775 into law, which 
     will prohibit Oklahoma schools from teaching critical race 
     theory--or in other words important lessons about systemic 
     racism and diversity. The measure is meant to essentially 
     stifle important discussions about, among other things, the 
     1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the Trail of Tears and the Osage 
     murders in classrooms and beyond. Erasing our history, yet 
     again, will have devastating consequences. And Oklahoma isn't 
     alone--bills banning or restricting the teaching of critical 
     race theory have been drafted in Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, 
     New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and West Virginia and 
     already passed in Utah, Arkansas, Idaho and Tennessee.
       Bills like HB 1775 attempt to obscure the fact that heinous 
     instances of racial violence, from slavery to Jim Crow laws 
     to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, are not blemishes on our 
     history but consequences of discriminatory systems that 
     continue to harm Black people today.
       Such laws are designed to prevent a full and honest 
     accounting of how systemic racism works. The bill says it 
     will prohibit the teaching that ``an individual, by virtue of 
     his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions 
     committed in the past by other members of the same race or 
     sex,'' thereby upholding White supremacy and helping absolve 
     the city of Tulsa and the state of the moral obligation of 
     paying reparations to the survivors and descendants of the 
     Tulsa Race Massacre. HB 1775 also flies in the face of 
     reality--as if the wealth and security stripped from Black 
     Tulsans a century ago doesn't have a direct relationship to 
     the widening gaps in home ownership, education, life 
     expectancy and arrest rates today.
       Each of us should learn the hard lessons of the 1921 Tulsa 
     Race Massacre and the continued harm shouldered by the 
     survivors, the descendants and the neighborhood of Greenwood. 
     We should learn that race, racism and discrimination have 
     very real, concrete effects on our history, our culture, our 
     politics and our current lives. But we can't learn the truth 
     or grow from it if it's hidden from us--and that's precisely 
     what HB 1775 attempts

[[Page H2413]]

     to do. In so doing, this measure continues the harm of the 
     1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, because a century later, Stitt and 
     our elected officials are still trying to bury the lessons 
     that our ancestors would want us to carry forward.
       As a descendant of a Tulsa Race Massacre survivor, it's 
     painful to see Oklahoma's governor refuse to learn from our 
     history and acknowledge its continuing impact today. Instead, 
     he's chosen to saddle our teachers and educators with even 
     more baggage, and potentially penalize them for doing what's 
     right.
       My hope is that our teachers will look this evil in the eye 
     and refuse to give in or back down. I hope they will continue 
     teaching the truth about topics like the 1921 Tulsa Race 
     Massacre--including that it was borne from White supremacy, a 
     mortal threat to our democracy that remains with us today. 
     Our students deserve the unbridled truth, not a polished 
     facade that makes us feel good about ourselves.

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I include the KJRH article in the 
Record.

                              [From KJRH]

   Gov. Stitt Responds to Letter From Tulsa Race Massacre Commission

       Tulsa, OK, May 14, 2021.--Gov. Kevin Stitt has officially 
     been removed from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial 
     Commission.
       This comes after Stitt signed a bill limiting race and 
     gender curriculums in Oklahoma schools earlier in May. House 
     Bill 1775 prohibits state public schools, colleges, and 
     universities from incorporating certain messages about sex 
     and race into any course instruction.
       This also comes on the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa 
     race massacre, where a white mob attacked Black residents and 
     businesses in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, also known as 
     Black Wall Street.
       The governor's office released the following statement 
     Friday afternoon:
       ``Governor Stitt's role as a member of the 1921 Tulsa Race 
     Massacre Centennial Commission has been purely ceremonial and 
     he had not been invited to attend a meeting until this week. 
     It is disappointing to see an organization of such importance 
     spend so much effort to sow division based on falsehoods and 
     political rhetoric two weeks before the centennial and a 
     month before the commission is scheduled to sunset. The 
     governor and first lady will continue to support the 
     revitalization of the Greenwood District, honest 
     conversations about racial reconciliation and pathways of 
     hope in Oklahoma.''
       The commission sent 2 News the following statement:
       ``The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commissioners met 
     Tuesday and agreed through consensus to part ways with 
     Governor Stitt. No elected officials, nor representatives of 
     elected officials, were involved in this decision. While the 
     Commission is disheartened to part ways with Governor Stitt, 
     we are thankful for the things accomplished together. The 
     Commission remains focused on lifting up the story of Black 
     Wall Street and commemorating the Centennial. With just weeks 
     before the Centennial of one of the worst Race massacres in 
     the history of the U.S., Commissioners stand united in 
     focusing time, energy and efforts on descendants, survivors, 
     education, economic development and progress this year and 
     beyond. We hope to see many of you in person or virtually at 
     some of our events that we hope will drive change for years 
     to come.''
       The commission previously issued Stitt a letter after he 
     did not join a special meeting Monday night to discuss the 
     signing of HB 1775 into law.
       Phil Armstrong, the project director of the 1921 Tulsa Race 
     Massacre Centennial Commission, said HB 1775 ``chills the 
     ability of educators to teach students, of any age, and will 
     only serve to intimidate educators who seek to reveal and 
     process our hidden history. You know that. We delivered this 
     message to you before you signed the measure. We were joined 
     by educators, school boards, universities, faith, and 
     community leaders, all of whom vigorously objected to HB 
     1775. You seemingly disregarded and dismissed this chorus of 
     voices aligned against HB 1775.''
       The governor responded by saying, in part, ``it is 
     disappointing that some commission members feel that a 
     common-sense law preventing students from being taught that 
     one race or sex is superior to another is contrary to the 
     mission of reconciliation and restoration.''
       C.J. Webber-Neal, president of the Greenwood Arts & 
     Cultural Society, INC., also called for the governor's 
     resignation as a commission member. In a statement, Webber-
     Neal said he was satisfied with having Stitt removed from the 
     commission.
       ``The Greenwood Arts & Cultural Society, INC. is very 
     pleased that the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial 
     Commission has with one concise voice taken action to remove 
     Kevin Stitt, Governor of Oklahoma, from it body.
       Based upon the stated mission of this body, we stand in 
     solidarity with their action regarding Governor Stitt's role 
     as a member of this Commission, based upon his signing of HB 
     1775 into law. The truth of the horrific story of 1921's Race 
     Massacre (as well as other history of the experiences of 
     minorities in America) must be taught honestly and 
     unequivocally, so that future generations will learn of the 
     demons of our past so we as a society will not be doomed to 
     repeat this evil act.
       At this time, we also encourage this body to add in the 
     Governor's place survivors and descendants of the massacre, 
     so that representation of this painful period in our history 
     can be reflected thru the experiences of those who were 
     directly impacted by this tragic event.
       Furthermore, we encourage any available monetary relief be 
     given by this organization to the three survivors of the 1921 
     Tulsa Race Massacre. This should be done as both a sign of 
     reconciliation and the rising of the eternal spirit of 
     Greenwood. This we believe is long overdue.''

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I include a detailed account of the 
Tulsa Race Massacre in the Congressional Record.

            Detailed Account of Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921


ACCOUNT BASED ON FACTS AND DOCUMENTS REPORTED IN ``FINAL REPORT OF THE 
      OKLAHOMA COMMISSSION TO STUDY THE TULSA RACE RIOT OF 1921''

       Starting late on the evening on May 31 and continuing into 
     the day of June 1, 1921, a White mob attacked the Greenwood 
     district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, razing it to the ground. The 
     attackers looted and intentionally burned an estimated 1,256 
     homes in Greenwood--known as America's ``Black Wall 
     Street''--along with nearly all the district's churches, 
     schools, and businesses.
       The number of persons killed in the riot may never be 
     known, but a 2001 report by African Americans during this era 
     lived under the ever-present threat of mass racial violence--
     which often took the form of White mobs invading Black 
     communities. It was also during this period that thousands of 
     African Americans accused of crimes against White people--but 
     particularly Black men accused of sexual assaulting White 
     women--were summarily executed by White lynch mobs. Local 
     authorities at the time often condoned or even participated 
     in these extrajudicial killings or otherwise did little to 
     nothing to stop them.
       Yet despite this national atmosphere, Tulsa's Greenwood 
     district thrived. Black workers were mostly shut out of the 
     booming oil industry driving Tulsa's meteoric turn-of-the-
     century growth, so many working-class residents had to find 
     work doing menial or domestic labor. Greenwood's vibrant 
     economy instead was driven mainly by residents' 
     entrepreneurial skills previously developed in the many all-
     Black towns that dotted the Oklahoma landscape. The range of 
     Black-owned businesses located in Greenwood included grand 
     hotels, restaurants, theaters, pharmacies, diners, 
     barbershops, and small mom-and-pop shops. Greenwood was also 
     home to hundreds of professionals, including doctors, 
     lawyers, and real estate agents. Many residents lived under 
     conditions typical of the working-class in that era and 
     subsisted without running water or electricity. The 
     district's more prosperous residents lived in modern houses 
     befitting their middle and upper-class economic status. 
     Simply put, by the time of the Massacre, the residents of 
     Greenwood had created a thriving, and, in many ways 
     economically self-sufficient, Black enclave.
       No African American had been lynched in Tulsa at the time 
     of the Massacre. The threat of racially motivated violence, 
     however, cast an everpresent shadow over the Greenwood 
     district. Incidents of lynching occurring across the country 
     were heavily reported in the local Black press. Editorials in 
     local Black-owned newspapers in Tulsa published the year or 
     so leading up to the Massacre decried instances of ``mob 
     law'' and prominent Greenwood residents advocated for armed 
     African Americans to protect Black prisoners from White lynch 
     mobs. Most saliently, the lynching of a White man in Tulsa 
     and of a young African American man in Oklahoma City within 
     the same week in the year proceeding the Massacre convinced 
     many Black Tulsans that local authorities could not be 
     counted on to protect a Black person accused of a serious 
     crime against a White person.
       Notably--but unsurprisingly in segregated Tulsa--none of 
     these Black viewpoints on lynching were reflected in the 
     local White press, and likely few, if any White Tulsans 
     regularly read Black-owned newspapers. Instead, the White-
     owned press focused at that time on crime and allegations of 
     local corruption. An oil boomtown at the beginning of the 
     Prohibition Era, Tulsa's crime rate in the early 1920's 
     appeared to residents to be increasing. In particular, the 
     city had gained a seedy reputation for illegal liquor and 
     prostitution.
       For the most part during the period leading up to the 
     Massacre, White-owned papers had not blamed African Americans 
     for the apparent rise in crime, and crimes in Greenwood did 
     not receive a disproportionate amount of coverage. But only 
     10 days prior to the Massacre, a story focused White Tulsans' 
     attention on the then-racially inflammatory subject of 
     relations between Black men and White women. On May 21, 1921, 
     a local story regarding a police investigation into the 
     city's prostitution quoted a former local judge blaming the 
     problem on the hotels and ``Negro pimps,'' and recounted the 
     testimony of a local clergyman that led a group of White men 
     undercover who claimed that African American porters 
     routinely offered them the services of White

[[Page H2414]]

     prostitutes, and to have witnessed carousing between Black 
     men and White women at a roadhouse just outside the city 
     limits.
       To be clear, as this contemporary newspaper story implies, 
     the racism and prejudices of many White Tulsans tainted their 
     perceptions of the Black community and the later events that 
     set off the Massacre. Despite the fact that racial 
     segregation laws were gaining ground statewide in 
     Oklahoma, many White Tulsans appeared to fear that the 
     color line was blurring and grew angry at instances where 
     Black Tulsans challenged or ignored segregationist laws 
     and practices. Further contributing to some White Tulsans' 
     racial grievances was resentment of Greenwood's most 
     prosperous residents, a feeling that appears to have been 
     exacerbated by a drop in oil prices and subsequent oil 
     field layoffs that preceded the Massacre. In a deeply 
     segregated city where Black residents could not work, live 
     near, or socialize with their fellow residents as equals, 
     many White Tulsans filled the vacuum created by the lack 
     of racial equality and understanding with racism and 
     prejudice.
       This local newspaper story, and another on a breakout at 
     the jail printed a few days later (though containing no 
     racial overtones) appeared to provide White Tulsans fed up 
     with crime--and inflamed by racial prejudice--a convenient 
     racial scapegoat for their frustrations, and contributed to 
     longstanding local conditions that had turned Tulsa into a 
     powder keg waiting for a spark to ignite.
       The night of May 31, 1921, the spark was struck as Black 
     Tulsans' fear of a lynching appeared on the cusp of 
     realization. That day police took into custody nineteen-year-
     old Dick Rowland, a Black man accused of sexually assaulting 
     Sarah Page, a seventeen-year-old White elevator operator. 
     After word of the allegations spread through Tulsa's 
     newspapers. One White-owned Tulsa paper ran an article 
     entitled ``Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator'' and a 
     number of eyewitnesses recall seeing a newspaper editorial 
     entitled ``To Lynch Negro--that evening a large White crowd 
     began to gather around the courthouse jail where Rowland was 
     being held. At the same time, several groups of Black 
     Tulsans--many of whom were World War I veterans--resolved to 
     protect the Black prisoner threatened by the mob.
       As the mob jeered the handful of deputy sheriffs guarding 
     the courthouse, a group of 25 Black Tulsans approached the 
     beleaguered officers to offer their assistance. The local 
     authorities quickly declined their offer, but the sight of 
     armed Black men insistent on protecting Rowland from ``mob 
     law'' proved too much for the thousand-strong White crowd. As 
     the Black Tulsans returned to Greenwood assured of Rowland's 
     safety for the moment, some members of the White crowd left 
     to obtain firearms from their homes.
       The Massacre began after a second group of around 75 armed 
     Black Tulsans returned to the courthouse later that evening 
     following reports that the White mob continued to grow even 
     larger (later estimated at 2,000 individuals) and more 
     agitated. They again offered their assistance to local 
     authorities guarding Rowland and were again rebuffed. This 
     time, however, as they departed, elements of the White crowd 
     accosted a Black World War I veteran with a racial slur and a 
     demand for his weapon. When the veteran refused, a scuffle 
     broke out over the gun and shots were fired.
       While these shots could have been unintentional, members of 
     the White mob--and possibly some members of law enforcement 
     present at the courthouse--immediately opened fire on all the 
     Black men present. The Black Tulsans returned fire. While the 
     initial shooting at the courthouse lasted only a few seconds, 
     several street battles erupted among groups of Black and 
     White Tulsans. The Black Tulsans--significantly outnumbered 
     by the mob and fighting now for their own lives--engaged in a 
     fighting retreated, exchanging gunfire with their White 
     pursuers as they sought to return to the relative safety of 
     the Greenwood district.
  In the immediate aftermath of the events at the courthouse, some 
Whites began making brief armed forays into Greenwood by car or 
committing indiscriminate acts of looting, murder, and mayhem. Around 
1:00 a.m. on June 1 there began the first reports of fires being set. 
When the fire brigade answered the call, armed Whites prevented them 
from putting out the fires. By 4:00 a.m. more than two dozen Black-
owned businesses had been destroyed by flames. The worst destruction, 
however, had yet to come.
       As many of these events were occurring simultaneous and 
     across a relative wide area of the city, confusion reigned as 
     the night of May 31 became the early morning hours of June 1, 
     1921. Some Black residents resolved to defend their homes and 
     businesses, taking up armed positions to defend Greenwood. 
     Skirmishes broke out between armed Blacks and Whites at 
     various points in the district in the early overnight hours. 
     Other Black residents, rightly fearing the worst had yet to 
     occur, began to leave the city--many escaped but some were 
     killed.
       Still other Black residents thought the worst had already 
     happened; that as far as they knew Dick Rowland had not been 
     lynched, and--with the most intense skirmishing having abated 
     by 2:00 a.m. according to one Black eyewitness--some of 
     Greenwood's defenders even concluded that they had 
     successfully fended off the attackers.
       Whites engaged in the attack also committed numerous other 
     atrocities. According to one Black eyewitness, White looters 
     murdered a Black elderly disabled man who, despite having 
     expressed a willingness to do so, could not comply with their 
     order to leave his home. According to one White eyewitness, 
     prominent Black surgeon Dr. A.C. Jackson was gunned down on 
     his front lawn with his hands up after attempting to comply 
     with the White rioters. Another Black eyewitness recounted 
     how he and 30 or 40 other men who had surrendered to the 
     rioters were lined up and forced to run with hands over their 
     heads to an interment center located at Convention Hall, all 
     while some of their White captors shot at their heels with 
     guns. A group of White men even ran a car into the group, 
     knocking over two or three of their number. In another 
     horrifying display of brutality, a Black disabled homeless 
     man was tied by his leg to a car and dragged by ``white 
     thugs'' through the streets of the downtown business district 
     where he panhandled.
       Many Black residents--including women with children or 
     elderly family members in tow--were shot at in the streets as 
     they attempted to flee. Despite the ferocity of the 
     attackers, many Black residents continued their armed 
     resistance. Eventually, however, these defenders were 
     overwhelmed by the sheer force of numbers and firepower of 
     the White invaders.
       Of course, not all Tulsans shared the racism of the White 
     rioters. There are several accounts of Whites hiding Black 
     Tulsans fleeing the violence at farms or homes outside the 
     city or standing up to White rioters who threatened them for 
     sheltering Black acquaintances at their workplace. According 
     to one account, a recent young Mexican immigrant named Maria 
     Morales Gutierrez saved two Black children from being strafed 
     by an airplane. She then later refused White rioters' demands 
     to hand the children over to them. She and the children 
     survived.
       The assault and destruction of Greenwood lasted roughly 
     until midday June 1, 1921, when martial law was declared. 
     Around 9:00 a.m., a National Guard unit based in Oklahoma 
     City--which was entirely White--finally arrived by train 
     after having been requested hours earlier by local 
     authorities. By the time these ``State Troops''--as both 
     Blacks and Whites later referred to them to differentiate 
     them from the local ``Home Guard'' unit discussed further 
     below--arrived in Tulsa, the violence had been occurring for 
     nearly 11 hours. Many Blacks and Whites were dead, and while 
     some looting continued, the Greenwood district was mostly in 
     fiery ruin. Most of the city's Black residents had either 
     fled or had been interned against their will at several 
     locations, including at the Convention Hall, a fairground, 
     and a baseball park.
       Local authorities later claimed that this was for the 
     protection of Black lives, but without a doubt they were also 
     motivated by lingering fear of a supposed ``Negro uprising.''
       A number of these ``Special Deputies''--identified by 
     ribbons and other ``badges of office'' supplied to them--were 
     witnessed engaging in arson, likely engaged in other acts of 
     violence and mayhem during the Massacre and aided in rounding 
     up Black residents for internment.
       Immediately following the shooting near the courthouse, 
     Whites had begun breaking into sporting good stores, 
     pawnshops, and hardware stores to steal firearms with which 
     to arm themselves--some later claiming that they were 
     ``borrowing'' the weapons.
       One business owner--whose sporting goods store was 
     literally across the street from police headquarters--later 
     testified that a police officer helped distribute the guns 
     that were taken from his store.
       The local guard unit also worked with the Tulsa Police 
     Department to round up, disarm, and take into custody Black 
     residents, with guardsmen offering the promise that if they 
     came peacefully their homes and businesses would be 
     protected.
       This action, however, effectively left Black lives and 
     property defenseless to a White Mob aided by local police 
     officers and their ``Special Deputies'', leading to further 
     destruction of property and helping contribute to the near 
     total internment of the Black population in the days 
     immediately following the riot.
       In the eyes of the grand jury, a group of armed Black 
     residents standing up for equal rights understandably 
     provoked the White crowd, and therefore, the entire Black 
     community in Greenwood essentially deserved what happened. 
     Adding to this injustice, the grand jury indicted 85 people--
     the majority of whom were African Americans--with Massacre-
     related offenses.
       While most of these charges were ultimately dismissed or 
     not pursued no Whites were ever sent to prison for any of the 
     murders or arson committed on May 31 and June 1, 1921.
       Due to their decades-long efforts, the story of the 
     Massacre slowly resurfaced in the national consciousness, 
     leading to greater demands for the justice long denied to 
     aging survivors and their next of kin.
       At the state and local level, in 1997 the Oklahoma State 
     Legislature created the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Race 
     Riot of 1921. In 2001, the commission issued a final report 
     and recommendations. In a letter to officials for the State 
     of Oklahoma

[[Page H2415]]

     and the City of Tulsa accompanying the report, the commission 
     noted that in February 2000, the commission had already 
     declared:
       that reparations to the historic Greenwood community in 
     real and tangible form would be good public policy and do 
     much to repair the emotional and physical scars of this 
     terrible incident in our shared past. We listed several 
     recommended courses of action including direct payments to 
     riot survivors and descendants; a scholarship fund available 
     to students affected by the riot; establishment of an 
     economic development enterprise zone in the historic 
     Greenwood district; a memorial for the riot victims.
       The commission reiterated its support for reparations and 
     emphasized that these recommendations were a starting point 
     and not exhaustive. Twenty years later, however, neither the 
     State of Oklahoma nor the City of Tulsa has provided direct 
     compensation to survivors and their descendants.
       In recent years, the City of Tulsa has made some token 
     gestures to acknowledge the Massacre. In 2010, the City of 
     Tulsa dedicated the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park to 
     commemorate the Massacre's victims. In 2018, the City of 
     Tulsa finally announced that it would reexamine the potential 
     mass graves noted in the 2001 commission report. In October 
     2020, archeologists discovered a mass grave at Oaklawn 
     Cemetery, one of the possible mass grave sites identified in 
     the 2001 report, and the City plans to exhume the bodies for 
     further identification in June 2021. While the City of Tulsa 
     has, in effect, capitalized on its public campaign to 
     acknowledge the Massacre, pointedly, it appears to have made 
     no plan to use the resources generated to directly compensate 
     survivors and their descendants nor address the racial and 
     economic disparities that can be traced back to the Massacre. 
     In May 2020, Human Rights Watch issued a report recommending 
     several actions to be taken at the federal, state, and local 
     level to address the Massacre, including providing 
     compensation directly to survivors and their descendants, and 
     reparations to the Black community in Tulsa for racial 
     discrimination exacerbated by the Massacre. According to the 
     report, Greenwood had begun to thrive again by the 1940s. Yet 
     rather than preserve what it once allowed to be destroyed, 
     the State of Oklahoma and the City of Tulsa took several 
     subsequent actions that disproportionately burdened Black 
     residents--including the building of several highways through 
     Greenwood starting in the 1960s and through the 1970s--that 
     ultimately led to Greenwood's long term decline.
       These actions also forced the majority of residents to move 
     out of historic Greenwood into North Tulsa, which to this day 
     is significantly poorer compared to other areas of the city.
       Additionally, survivors and their descendants have filed 
     legal claims against the City of Tulsa and the State of 
     Oklahoma seeking compensation for Massacre-related harms. 
     Unfortunately, time and distance from the events have in the 
     past worked to thwart these claims. In 2004, the Tenth 
     Circuit, upholding the lower court's decision to grant the 
     State and City's motion for summary judgment, held that the 
     plaintiffs' claims were barred by the applicable statute of 
     limitations, and that no equitable tolling to the statute of 
     limitations period applied. The Supreme Court denied the 
     plaintiff's petition for writ of certiorari in 2005. Despite 
     these adverse legal rulings, a lawsuit for Massacre-related 
     claims was filed in state court last year alleging that the 
     Massacre is an ongoing injustice to the residents of 
     Greenwood because contemporary racial and economic 
     disparities existing in Tulsa can be traced back to the 
     attack.

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Then I want to salute those who will be honoring 100 
years in the next couple of weeks. I want to very quickly say that 
remember what I said, I knew the history of Christopher Columbus. I 
didn't know the history of my Native American brothers. I didn't know 
the history of my own self, slavery. I know Big Mother, which is what 
we called her. She owned land, and then I knew it disappeared. I knew I 
rode in the back of a train to visit her as a little girl.
  Guess what, Madam Speaker?
  Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma was on the commission on the Tulsa 
race massacre, but he signed the bill limiting race and gender 
curriculums in Oklahoma schools earlier in May.
  Madam Speaker, can you believe it?
  It was House bill 1775. As well, he goes on to not stand for what 
this commission is all about: truth.
  So tonight we come to the floor. Remember what I said: I am not in 
any way throwing darts or stones at anyone. I am here to raise up the 
dignity of this man, this person, this body, burned because he was 
Black, prosperous, and ready to serve America.
  No one can tell me how many in that 1921 massacre had been in World 
War I, had worn the uniform and come home and made a new life.
  How many can tell us out of those who would have lived, would have 
been ready to go serve in World War II and then on, and their progeny 
continue to build this wonderful economic engine?
  Today those who remain are three living descendants of those who were 
there. They tell me as I will go to Tulsa, there is one door left.
  It is a crying shame. So I lift this story up, and I let you know, 
Madam Speaker, that the Congressional Black Caucus, yes, the conscience 
of this Nation, has a vital purpose to be able to tell the story. 
Someone I hope is listening. Someone I hope is listening. Someone I 
hope heard Brother Torres. I hope they heard Hank Johnson and Barbara 
Lee. I hope they have heard all of us. Because if we do not know our 
history, we are doomed to repeat it. We must take the reins, lift up 
the dignity, honor these courageous saints, and we must fight on.
  Pass this resolution on the centennial. Pass H.R. 40 to establish a 
commission to study reparations. Pass the American Jobs Plan, pass the 
American Rescue Plan, and lift all boats. For as we do so, God will be 
the witness for what we have done and the journey we have made.
  Madam Speaker, I am honored to have been here today. I am honored to 
be part of the Congressional Black Caucus. I am honored to be part of 
this House of Representatives. I am honored to be an American, and I 
will not have my history denied or my children failing to know that 
history. That is why we are here today. Let us march on until victory 
is won.
  Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, on behalf of the Congressional Black 
Caucus, I rise to anchor this most important Special Order remembering 
one of the darkest moments in American history, the Tulsa-Greenwood 
Race Massacre, that occurred in the African American Greenwood 
community of Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 31-June 1, 1921.
  I am pleased to be joined by Congressman Torres of New York, who will 
co-anchor this Special Order and my several members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus, which under the leadership of our Chair, 
Congresswoman Beatty of Ohio, was unified and determined that the reign 
of racial terror, carried out under color of law, that was visited on 
the black citizens of Greenwood not be forgotten and that the injuries 
they suffered be redressed.
  Madam Speaker, earlier this year, I introduced a resolution (H. Res. 
215 later modified as H. Res. 398), joined by 84 cosponsors, 
recognizing the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
  As the great southern writer William Faulkner reminded us: ``The past 
is never dead. It's not even past.''
  Madam Speaker, as I and other Members will elucidate this evening, 
the hatreds, prejudices, resentments, and white supremacy that Black 
Americans witnessed and suffered in Greenwood a century ago are not 
dead; they are not even past.
  A century ago, White rioters, local law enforcement, and self-
appointed vigilantes claimed to be acting reasonably and in self-
defense against what they feared was an upcoming Black uprising.
  They resented the economic prosperity and self-sufficiency of the 
Greenwood community, which was known nationally as ``Black Wall 
Street.''
  They viewed Black males as fearsome physical threats to their 
personal safety and as rivals to white women.
  These baseless, irrational concerns are not a relic of the past, they 
are with us today and are what resulted in the deaths of George Floyd, 
Tamir Rice, Deonte Wright, Stephon Clark, Amidou Diallo, and hundreds 
of others too numerous to list.
  In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood District, known as ``Black Wall 
Street,'' was one of the most documented prosperous African American 
communities in the United States.
  The Greenwood community with a population of over 100,000 Black 
people had stores that sold luxury items, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery 
stores, a hospital, a savings and loan bank, a post office, three 
hotels, jewelry and clothing stores, two movie theaters, a library, 
pool halls, a bus and cab service, a nationally recognized school 
system, six private airplanes, and two black newspapers.
  On May 31st of that year, the 35 city blocks of Greenwood went up in 
flames, at least 300 Black persons were murdered and more than 800 were 
injured; it is estimated that not less than 9,000 were left homeless 
and destitute.
  These rioters reenacted the brutality of the mob from a hundred years 
ago in the hallowed halls of the Citadel of Democracy.
  It should not be overlooked that the source of their irrational 
anger, hatred, and violent reaction was that Black Americans voted in 
overwhelming numbers in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Detroit 
to oust the most negative, divisive, racially hostile, and incompetent 
president's history, the 45th President,

[[Page H2416]]

who presided over the deaths of more than 500,000 Americans, 
disproportionately Black and Brown.
  The legacy of white mob violence inflicted upon the Black community 
of Greenwood has scarred the descendants of the victims of this 
American pogrom.
  Madam Speaker, the events of January 6th have given us insight into 
what the people of Greenwood, Oklahoma, faced when they were attacked 
by a similar murderous mob.
  H.R. 398 is a reminder to the nation of the ultimate cruelty 
inflicted upon a people for dare believing that the promise of America 
was attainable by them and their achievements would be respected and 
protected by law.
  But it does more than that, it puts the House of Representatives on 
record that the United States can achieve a more perfect union:
  1. by condemning the violence and destruction perpetrated against the 
African-American community of Greenwood, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the scene 
of the then-largest single instance of domestic terror against American 
citizens;
  2. through the rejection and active opposition to the false ideology 
of White supremacy and condemnation of all groups and organizations 
that ascribe to this false system of belief and seek to perpetuate 
their views through violence and unlawful conduct;
  3. by promoting tolerance and unity and taking actions to ensure that 
governmental policies and actions do not foster division, disharmony, 
or intolerance;
  4. by calling upon all Americans to celebrate the ethnic, racial, and 
religious diversity that has made the United States the leader of the 
community of nations and the beacon of hope and inspiration to 
oppressed persons everywhere;
  5. encouraging all persons in the United States to reflect upon the 
history of the United States as an imperfect but committed journey to 
establish a more perfect union and to cherish and exercise the rights, 
privileges, and responsibilities guaranteed by the Constitution; and
  6. recognizing 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.
  Madam Speaker, I will now briefly recount the horrific events cited 
in H. Res. 398 that were experienced by the law-abiding Black community 
of Greenwood on those terrible days.
  In 1921, White supremacy and racist violence were common throughout 
the United States and went largely unchecked by the justice system.
  In Tulsa, Oklahoma, 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.
  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.''
  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.
  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.
  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 residents of the Greenwood 
community homeless and effectively wiping out tens of millions of 
dollars in Black prosperity and wealth.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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.
  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 
still face today across the United States.
  Madam Speaker, 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.
  As the American Historical Association stated, ``What happened in 
Tulsa was extreme, but not unusual. It is part of our nation's 
heritage. We must acknowledge that heritage, learn from it, and do 
whatever each of us can do to ensure that it is just that--heritage, 
rather than a continuing practice.''
  Madam Speaker, I will include in the Record a more detailed account 
of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that is based on the ``Final Report of 
the Oklahoma Commission to Study The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,'' issued 
February 28, 2001.
  Madam Speaker, I also ask the House to observe a moment of silence in 
memory of the victims and survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, and 
their descendants to carry the terrible memories of that horrific day 
and still grieve over the loss of so many loved ones and of faith in 
the American system of justice.
  Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my 
time.
  Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, the Tulsa-Greenwood Massacre was 
a mass killing targeting Black Americans in one of the prosperous Black 
communities in the country. As we approach its 100th anniversary, we 
must reflect on the events and beliefs that led to those fateful days 
in late May of 1921, its place in our nation's history, and its lasting 
impacts on the Black community.
  Founded and built by former slaves, freed by the ratification of the 
13th amendment, the Greenwood District was a true testament to the 
American Dream. The district was defined by its entrepreneurial spirit 
and success and offered newly-freed men and women the chance to make a 
name for themselves and their families.
  But their success was being followed closely by those who wished 
otherwise--those who were looking for any opportunity to materialize 
their resent. And in the face of baseless allegations of a crime 
committed by a Black man, that hatred resulted in what is now known as 
the Tulsa Race Massacre. The massacre resulted in the deaths of over 
300 Black men, women, and children and left around 9,000 more without 
homes or a source of income--not to mention the immeasurable impact 
left on generations of Black Americans.
  As Members of Congress, we stand here in the Capitol of the United 
States, itself built by slaves who are largely forgotten, with a unique 
opportunity to take action. That is why I am proud to be a cosponsor of 
Congresswoman Jackson Lee and Senator Warren's resolution to recognize 
the forthcoming centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and 
condemning past and present efforts to downplay its significance. It is 
critical that Congress take this step not only to honor the lives and 
legacies of those lost but also to encourage education about the 
massacre and the role white supremacy played in its inception.
  Madam Speaker, today we recommit ourselves to fight the ever-present 
racism and unjust violence against Black Americans. We do so on the 
shoulders of those that came, fought, and suffered before us in the 
hope that one day the American Dream is accessible to all--regardless 
of race.

                          ____________________