Beden commemorates the Toulsa massacre: Some injustices are terrible

To mark the 100th anniversary of the event, Beden visited the town of Tulsa, where he also discovered new initiatives that, according to him, will address racial inequalities in wealth, home ownership and business ownership.

“This was not rebellion, it was massacre”, said Beden before an audience in Greenwood County, while racial violence described it as “among the worst in our history, but not the only”.

Beden is the first American president to commemorate the massacre of a century ago.

It all started when a young African-American man named Dick Rowland was charged with assaulting a white woman a claim never testified to and after rumors that a crowd of white people planned his execution.

A crowd of Africans, many of them armed in an attempt to prevent execution, faced a crowd of white people, some also armed to the Rowland Court, leading to a deadly confrontation that left ten white and two African Americans dead.

Then white protesters killed African-Americans, robbed houses and set fire to the blocks of Tulsa's Greenwood neighbourhood.

In 2001, a Oklahoma State Commission officially registered 36 deaths: 26 African-Americans and ten whites.

However, some historians say that the death toll reaches up to 300 people, most of them African-Americans.

Nearly 10,000 people were left homeless and countless businesses were destroyed, ending an African-American economic and cultural centre.

The survivors were given no compensation, and insurance companies denied most African-American claims.

The events mostly lacked in history books until recent years.

The audience in Tulsa listening to President Biden's speech June 1st, 2021.
For a long time, the history of what happened here was shown silently”, Biden said.

Some injustices are so terrible, so terrible, so severe, they cannot be buried, no matter how hard people try. Only with truth can recovery come”, Biden said.

Beden, who had the support of African-Americans in the 2020 presidential elections, vowed to address issues such as police violence, racism and inequality.

Citizens welcome President Biden in Tulsa, June 1st, 2021.
Beden also announced that Vice President Kamala Harris will lead the voting reform efforts, in response to those whom the Democrats consider to be Republican efforts to adopt laws limiting the possibility of voting.

Republicans deny the Democrats' claims, saying that laws in some states like Georgia actually enhance the possibility of voting and are more involved than in a number of states led by Democrats.

Beden also announced some new initiatives, which his administration hopes will help narrow the gap in property between the approximately American and white, as well as boost investments in African-American communities by expanding their access to property ownership and ownership of small businesses.