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Dubbed “Black Wall Street,” the northern section of Tulsa was home to dozens of Black-owned businesses, including hotels, restaurants, law firms and medical practices.

Despite its prominence, the massacre was little known, if at all, in most parts of the country, until the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 was created in 1997

he seeds of violence were planted on the morning of May 31, when the Tulsa Tribune reported that 19-year-old Black shoeshine Dick Rowland had attempted to assault Sarah Page, a 17-year-old white elevator operator in the Drexel Building in the white part of town.

The Tribune’s overdramatized account of what happened — the story headline read “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator” — sparked the forming of a lynch mob outside the Tulsa County Courthouse, where Rowland was in custody.

A group of roughly 25 Black men from Greenwood went to the courthouse armed to stop the mob from taking Rowland, only to be turned away by authorities.

Later, after the white mob continued to grow and a larger group from Greenwood returned, a scuffle broke out, followed by gunfire

Tulsa police appointed hundreds of white men and boys “special deputies,” even supplying some of them with guns.

It’s a “striking example of how our institutions, particularly policing but not only policing, have played a role over our history in enforcing systemic racism and brutality against Black Americans,” Rep. Steven HorsfordSteven Alexander HorsfordTulsa marks race massacre centennial as US grapples with racial injustice Gun violence: Save the thoughts and prayers, it's time for Senate action Democrats offer bill to encourage hiring of groups hard-hit by pandemic MORE (D-Nev.), second vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told The Hill.

The white mob had razed more than 1,200 houses across 35 city blocks, looting hundreds more. The prosperous business district of Greenwood was destroyed.

As many as 300 people died, historians say, though the exact number is unknown due to mass gravesites. The destruction displaced about 10,000 Greenwood residents.

In total, more than $1.8 million of Black property was destroyed, more than $27 million by today’s dollar.

The staggering economic loss was never recovered by Black Tulsans and is seen as a key factor in the stark racial wealth disparity in the city 100 years later.

Restorative justice, also known as reparative justice or reparations, was one of the recommendations of the Oklahoma commission’s 2001 report.

Steps toward justice, the commission said, could take the form of direct payments to the survivors and their descendants, a scholarship for descendants, economic development in Greenwood and a memorial for the massacre victims.

The 100-year anniversary includes events hosted by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, which spearheaded the building of Greenwood Rising, a $30 million history museum and center that will fully open in July.

Many advocates have argued that the centennial commission hasn’t done enough to raise up the voices of the survivors and their descendants, but Horsford said he doesn’t want that to detract from the importance of the weekend.The focus should be on “what caused the massacre and those who contributed to it and the systemic reasons for it,” Horsford said.

Once the bodies are exhumed, the city and its public oversight committee will determine the next steps for "storing remains, DNA testing and genealogical research, and commemorating the gravesites and honoring the remains," said a city news release.

The work — which will unfold behind a screening fence with researchers, cultural monitors, historians, morticians, a forensic anthropologist and a videographer — may take months, the city says. That's not counting the efforts to identify the bodies and determine if they are indeed victims of the massacre.

Missing from the rollout was a plan to cancel student debt, which disproportionately affects Black students, or address the issue of reparations, federal repayments that relatives of Tulsa victims say could restore what was erased. White House officials have said that, as with the broader issue of reparations for Black Americans, the president supports a study of the issue.

Mr. Biden’s visit to Tulsa was a somber one. Before he delivered remarks, Mr. Biden met privately with survivors of the massacre, each between the ages of 101 and 107, whom he mentioned throughout his speech.

The massacre was sparked by the arrest of Dick Rowland, 19, a Black shoe shiner who was accused of assault against Sarah Page, 17, a white elevator operator. As he toured the Greenwood Culture Center, the president was told that within 24 hours of that encounter, the mob that formed in the wake of Mr. Rowland’s arrest destroyed much of Greenwood. The case was later dismissed.

But the political response to the recent killings remains uncertain. Mr. Biden had vowed to secure passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act by May 25, the first anniversary of Mr. Floyd’s death. The bill would ban the use of chokeholds, impose restrictions on deadly force and make it easier to prosecute officers for wrongdoing. He missed that deadline, but lawmakers in both parties have expressed optimism that they will be able to reach a compromise on the legislation in the weeks ahead. Despite investigations, no one was ever convicted of crimes related to the Tulsa massacre. Mr. Biden has promised that his Justice Department will be a more active participant in helping to root out bias and bigotry in American police departments. The department has already begun “pattern or practice” investigations in Louisville, Ky., and Minneapolis, which are intended to examine excessive force, biased policing and other misconduct by officers.

President Biden said on Tuesday that he had directed Vice President Kamala Harris to lead Democrats in a sweeping legislative effort to protect voting rights, an issue that is critical to his legacy but one that sees little hope of success in a divided Senate.

Her foreign policy portfolio comes in addition to a host of other engagements, including, but not limited to: selling the American Rescue Plan, championing Mr. Biden’s infrastructure package, representing women in the work force, highlighting the Black maternal mortality rate, assisting small businesses, assessing water policy, promoting racial equity, combating vaccine hesitancy, and fighting for police reform.

Mr. Biden has focused on issues related to voting rights for much of his career, but he faces especially wrenching decisions when it comes to the voting rights legislation he has asked Ms. Harris to help shepherd through Congress.

Known as the For the People Act, the bill is the professed No. 1 priority of Democrats this year. It would overhaul the nation’s election system, rein in campaign donations and limit partisan gerrymandering. But after passing the House, it hit a wall of Republican opposition in the Senate.

One option for Democrats would be to ram the bill through on a partisan vote by further rolling back one of the foundations of Senate tradition, the filibuster. But at least one Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, remains opposed to the idea, potentially scuttling it.

“I hear all the folks on TV saying ‘Why doesn’t Biden get this done?’ ” Mr. Biden said. “Well, because Biden has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends,” a likely swipe at Mr. Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another moderate Democrat.

he Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also assisting on scene, the ATF Dallas Field Division said on Twitter. "What happened today in Tulsa is a senseless act of violence and hatred," Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt wrote on Twitter. "I am grateful for the quick and brave actions of the Tulsa Police Department and other first responders who did their best to contain a terrible situation."

Debra Proctor was in another building on the hospital campus for a doctor's appointment when she heard police sirens ringing out. When she stepped outside, first responders were lined up everywhere, she told CNN. Proctor, who has been a registered nurse for more than four decades, said it was a "shocking" scene."Police were everywhere in the parking lot, up and down the surrounding blocks," Proctor said. "They were still arriving when I was leaving."Kalen Davis, a lifelong Tulsa resident, was waiting in traffic around 5 p.m. local time when she saw multiple police cars responding to the scene.

Police later received information that the shooter may have left a bomb in a residence in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Muskogee police said Wednesday night. The home was searched by a bomb squad and no explosives were found, CBS Tulsa affiliate KOTV reported, citing Muskogee Police. Surrounding homes were either evacuated or residents were told to shelter in place.Muskogee is located about 50 miles southeast of Tulsa.Tulsa police asked family and friends of the victims and survivors to go to Memorial High School, a block from the hospital campus, to wait to learn the fate of the people at the shooting scene, KOTV said.  

Hodges said she was in lockdown for just under two hours.Another employee wondered out loud, "What's going on with the world these days?" A witness observed, "I mean, it's a doctor's office, like, you can't go nowhere no more without something happening. I's just crazy."

The “alternatives to detention” program tracks 96,574 individuals, but the Biden administration’s 2022 budget request calls to increase that number by approximately 45,000 to 140,000.

Biden met with the three living survivors of the massacre before delivering his speech. All three survivors – Viola “Mother” Fletcher, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis and Lessie “Mother Randle” Benningfield Randle – are over 100 years old. Biden acknowledged them in his remarks, saying, “Now your story will be known in full view.”

Under Biden’s proposal, multinational corporations would be prevented from shifting profits across borders to exploit the most attractive low-tax locations as their profits would be taxed at a minimum global corporation tax rate either where they are booked or headquartered.

“Well, [massacre survivor] Mother Fletcher said that when she saw the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, it broke her heart,” he continued: “A mob of violent white extremists, thugs, said it reminded her of what happened here, 100 years ago, in Greenwood. Look around at the various hate crimes against Asian Americans and Jewish Americans, hate that never goes away.”

Harris could do to change these realities. Having served in the Senate for four years, she has some ties in the chamber. But Biden, who served in the chamber for nine times has long, is thought to have much deeper relationships with Senators – and has been unable to win them over.

Biden also appeared to criticize two moderate Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, referencing “two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends”. Manchin has said he opposes the For the People Act.

Joe Biden noted that he is the first US president to ever visit Tulsa to commemorate the anniversary of the 1921 race massacre that killed at least three hundred African Americans.

Joe Biden is now meeting with the three living survivors of the Tulsa race massacre, according to the latest White House pool report.

How different would perspectives be had we all been taught about Tulsa in 1921, even as early as the fifth grade?

Should our schools now teach the truth about Tulsa? Yes, and they should also stop the battle to whitewash curriculums to avoid discomfort for students. America’s history is messy but knowing that makes us a wiser and stronger people. 1921 is the truth, a portal to our shared, paradoxical history.

The N.A.A.C.P. and other civil rights groups have criticized the Biden administration for not taking the step to cancel student loans, saying it is one of the biggest obstacles holding back Black people from sharing in the wealth of other Americans.

Officials said that the president’s visit on Tuesday was intended to signal a new emphasis on racial equity and justice for Black Americans. Mr. Biden also said that he had directed Vice President Kamala Harris to lead Democrats in a sweeping legislative effort to protect voting rights, an issue that is critical to his legacy but faces increasingly daunting odds in the Senate.

Despite investigations, no one was ever convicted of crimes related to the Tulsa massacre. Mr. Biden has promised that his Justice Department will be more active in helping to root out bias and bigotry in American police departments. The Justice Department has already begun “pattern or practice” investigations in Louisville, Ky., and Minneapolis, which are intended to examine excessive force, biased policing and other misconduct by officers.

The incident took place on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, in which an armed white mob killed as many as 300 Black residents and razed buildings over two days of violence in a thriving neighborhood known as Black Wall Street.

The gallery is currently hosting an exhibition called 21 Piece Salute, which brought in 21 artists from around the world with the goal of "honoring those who lost their lives and livelihoods in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and celebrating Black entrepreneurship as we look toward the next 100 years".

"Untold bodies dumped into mass graves," Biden said. "Families, who at the time, waited for hours and days to know the fate of their loved ones, are now descendants who have gone 100 years without closure.

In his inaugural address, Biden said he would help to deliver "racial justice" and promised that "the dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer."

But while Biden has talked about tackling "systemic racism," his administration has faced challenges. Racial disparities have continued throughout the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine, with Black Americans getting vaccinated at a lower rate than whites.

When it comes to police reform, Biden called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act by the first anniversary of Floyd's death. While negotiations continue in the Senate, Congress failed to meet that deadline.

Survivors of the Tulsa massacre are still seeking justice and reparations a century later. Three survivors testified before Congress in May about what they saw and the devastating and ongoing impact of the attack.

“That’s what leads to Greenwood being called the Black Wall Street. It had restaurants and furriers and jewelry stores and hotels,” John W. Franklin explains, “and the white mobs looted the homes and businesses before they set fire to the community. For years black women would see white women walking down the street in their jewelry and snatch it off.”

More than 35 blocks were destroyed, along with more than 1,200 homes, and some 300 people died, mostly blacks. The National Guard was called out after the governor declared martial law, and imprisoned all blacks that were not already in jail. More than 6,000 people were held, according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum, some for as long as eight days.

As in other places, the Tulsa race riot started with newspaper reports that a black man had assaulted a white elevator operator. He was arrested, and Franklin says black World War I vets rushed to the courthouse to prevent a lynching.

“Then whites were deputized and handed weapons, the shooting starts and then it gets out of hand,” Franklin says. “It went on for two days until the entire black community is burned down.”

“It was the frustration of poor whites not knowing what to do with a successful black community, and in coalition with the city government were given permission to do what they did.”

“(Survivors) talk about how the city was shut down in the riot,” Gardullo says. “They shut down the phone systems, the railway. . . . They wouldn’t let the Red Cross in. There was complicity between the city government and the mob. It was mob rule for two days, and the result was the complete devastation of the community.”

Franklin says he has issues with the words often used to describe the attack that decimated the black community. “The term riot is contentious, because it assumes that black people started the violence, as they were accused of doing by whites,” Franklin says. “We increasingly use the term massacre, or I use the European term, pogrom.”

"Tulsa attracted these kind of dynamic, independent-thinking, strong-willed leaders, who were not going to sit idly by and be dictated to, but were going to push back," Rogers says.

"This was absolutely brutal what happened," he tells NPR. "I think what's very important to understand is the fear that Blacks had, that anything they had was fragile, because it could be taken away from them."

Insurers denied survivors' claims, and so did the government, which contributed to an erosion of trust by Blacks in the financial system. Duckett says that distrust has compounded over the last century.

When Black Wall Street burned, Stradford couldn't save his businesses. He was taken into custody, and charged with rioting. But he escaped, first to Kansas, then to Illinois.

He promised that his administration would address racism at its roots, expanding federal contracting with small, disadvantaged businesses, investing tens of billions of dollars in communities like Greenwood and pursuing new efforts to combat housing discrimination.

Harris released a statement that noted almost 400 bills have been introduced at the state level since the last presidential election to make it more difficult for some people to vote. “The work ahead of us is to make voting accessible to all American voters, and to make sure every vote is counted through a free, fair, and transparent process,” she said. “This is the work of democracy.”

Biden added that Fletcher, 107, said the 6 January insurrection, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, “broke her heart” and “reminded her of what happened here in Greenwood a hundred years ago”. He noted that hate crimes continue to target Asian Americans and Jewish Americans.

For a century, the Tulsa race massacre of May 31, 1921, went largely ignored by sitting U.S. presidents, never prompting a trip specifically to honor those killed in the once-thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood until now.

The Black educator Booker T. Washington coined the name "Black Wall Street" for Greenwood in recognition of thriving Black middle, upper and professional classes with Black-owned businesses dotting the streets.

At roughly 100 days into Biden's presidency, 89% of Black Americans say they approved of the job he is doing – more than any other racial group, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The administration's responses, particularly regarding economic inequality and criminal justice will be closely watched. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which many had touted would pass by the anniversary of Floyd's death May 25, remains with the Senate.

The White House has been criticized by some racial justice advocates for not going far enough in advancing some police reform and other progressive measures, though activists have conceded Biden officials are more responsive than past administrations on the issue.

He will also announce new specifics on the $10 billion community revitalization fund included in his infrastructure proposal.

New competitive grants totaling $15 billion will target neighborhoods where people have been cut off from jobs, schools and businesses because of previous transportation investments, Biden is expected to announce. And the American Jobs Plan will also invest $31 billion to support minority-owned small businesses.

"I am 107 years old and have never seen justice. I pray that one day I will," Fletcher told lawmakers. Fletcher was seven years old when she witnessed the massacre.

He said the federal government needs to "acknowledge the role that it has played in stripping wealth and opportunity from Black communities."

The President said his administration is addressing longstanding racial inequalities by investing in programs to provide capital to small businesses in economically disadvantaged areas, and ensuring that infrastructure projects advance racial equity and environmental justice.

During the hearing on the bill, state lawmakers also questioned the legality of all AP courses, comparing them to Common Core, which Oklahoma has repealed. According to the Tulsa World, lawmakers were concerned that College Board courses could be seen as an effort to create a national curriculum.

Nikki Haley and Ben Sasse are likely to ring bells; Josh Hawley and Charlie Baker, not so much. Bonus points for anyone outside Tulsa who has heard of G.T. Bynum.) All should be on the radar of anyone concerned about where the GOP is headed.

This is not to suggest Congress is devoid of leadership material. House member Will Hurd is making many, many Republican mouths water. The 40-year-old ex-CIA operative represents the Texas 23rd; it is the state’s largest and most competitive district, sprawling from San Antonio to El Paso, and its electorate is over 70 percent Latino. Hurd is young, sharp, media-savvy, tech-savvy, and ambitious. And he’s black—no small matter for Republicans looking to prove they aren’t the party of white nationalism.

many Republicans are especially enthusiastic about talented women rising through the ranks. House members Mia Love and Elise Stefanik are among those most often mentioned.

Multiple Republicans voiced optimism that Tennessee Representative Marsha Blackburn, now running for Senate, will turn out to be a force in the upper chamber.

Similarly, many GOP women are rooting for Arizona Representative Martha McSally

Over in the Senate, Nebraskan Ben Sasse has made a name for himself by being an early and consistent conservative critic of Trump.

Another name being talked about: Adam Putnam, the Florida congressman-turned-state agriculture commissioner now running for governor.

Then there’s Josh Hawley, the freshly scrubbed attorney general of Missouri, who is gunning for Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill’s seat

Oklahoma’s G.T. Bynum. A former Senate staffer and lobbyist, Bynum won a seat on the Tulsa city council in 2008. Fresh-faced and funny

In 2014, Officer Jason Shuck shot a man who ran away from the police when they approached him as he was panhandling outside a Walmart in Springfield, Mo. Officer Shuck later told an investigator his “brain was saying Taser” but his “body moved faster” and he drew his pistol.Local prosecutors allowed the officer to plead guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge. As part of the plea deal, Mr. Shuck, who quit the police department, agreed to never work again in a job that required him to carry a firearm.

Mr. Weisberg said that cases in which officers say they mistook which weapon they were using are rare. He said they are legally different from the majority of police shootings, where officers concede they used deadly force but argue they were justified in doing so.

In 2019, Matthew D. Weintraub, the district attorney in Bucks County, Penn., investigated a case of weapon confusion involving an officer who yelled, “Taser!” before shooting a man in a police holding cell. Mr. Weintraub ultimately ruled out charges after finding that the shooting was “neither justified, nor criminal” and that the officer had an “honest but mistaken” belief that he had used his Taser against the victim, who was injured but survived.

Mr. Orloff said that had prosecutors known Mr. Mehserle was going to make that argument before charging him, “it would have made it more likely that a manslaughter charge was filed as opposed to a murder charge.” Mr. Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.Mike Rains, a lawyer in California who represents law enforcement in criminal and civil cases, including Mr. Mehserle, said officers mistake firearms for stun guns because they are on “autopilot,” and the officers should not be held criminally culpable.He said many officers in such cases have been trained to draw the stun gun with the same hand as their firearm. He said they typically have fired only one shot with the firearm, indicating a mistake — if they intended to use the firearm, he said, they would likely have fired multiple shots.

"President Trump and I have spoken many times since we've left office, and I don't know if we'll ever see eye to eye on that day," Pence said, "but I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years."

He tried to turn Jan. 6 onto Democrats, saying their calls for an independent commission to investigate the events of that day and what led up to it were political.

Two days after President Biden attended a commemoration marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a Black community was torched by a white mob, Pence asserted that "America is not a racist country," and that it was "past time for America to discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism." He also said, "Black lives are not endangered by police. Black lives are saved by police."

Pence called Biden "the most liberal president since FDR," and added, "They've proposed trillions of dollars in a so-called infrastructure bill that's just a thinly disguised climate change bill."