Joe Biden Acknowledges Tulsa Massacre of Black Americans 100 Years Later With Visit to City

Probably had it not been for the protests, often accompanied by vandalism and looting, unleashed after the death of George Floyd a year ago, the 100th anniversary of what is charitably referred to in the United States as the “Tulsa Race Riots.” they would have gone unnoticed.

However, the United States is experiencing a moment of tension in its racial relations, and today President Joe Biden did something exceptional: he traveled to the city of Tulsa, in the state of Oklahoma, met with the survivors of the massacre, and announced a series of of measures to favor the economic development of minorities in the US. These measures include giving priority to companies owned by minority ethnic groups in the awarding of public contracts, granting non-refundable loans to favor the development of services and infrastructure in these communities, which are often isolated due to the lack of means of communication, and the absence of public transport. These are decisions with which Biden hopes to strengthen his support among the African-American electorate, who voted overwhelmingly for him, in a country in which, increasingly, the Republican Party is that of whites, and the Democrats that of minorities.. Some minorities that in some cases -blacks- are marginalized economically, in others -Asians- politically, and in some more -Hispanics and indigenous people- both.

Joe Biden acknowledges the Tulsa massacre of African-Americans 100 years later

That's a consequence of the Tulsa “riots.”. Although applying the word “riot” to Tulsa in 1921 is imprecise. What took place in that city in 1921 was actually a pogrom in the strict sense of the word, in which several hundred blacks were hunted down like animals in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma.. It was more a war of extermination than a mass lynching. At least eight of the fifteen planes from the local airfield were used, first to identify where there were blacks, and then to drop firebombs on the houses. This is how the Greenwood neighborhood, the so-called 'Black Wall Street' of Tulsa, was destroyed: an area in which the descendants of slaves were achieving a considerable degree of prosperity.

properties were lost. There was no compensation or insurance. And, as a consequence, the road to prosperity for the neighborhood disappeared.. This is how he remembered it this week in the financial magazine Barron's John Rogers, who in 1983 became the first person from a racial minority -black, Hispanic, Asian or indigenous- to found an investment fund manager on Wall Street, Ariele Investments, which currently has 15,000 million dollars (12,250 million euros) in assets.

Rogers's maternal great-grandfather was named JB. Stradford, and not only was he the first member of his family to be born a free person, but also the owner of the largest black-owned hotel in the United States, the three-story, 54-room Stradford Hotel, located in 301 North Greenwood Avenue, in the heart of the massacre. On May 31, during the first day of the massacre, Stradford managed to defend the building accompanied by two armed African-Americans.. On June 1, the hotel was attacked by a small plane, and a mob set it on fire. Not even the foundations were left. His other 15 properties in Greenwood also burned. Stradford went from being the richest black man in Tulsa to having nothing.

This pattern of impoverishment is a constant in the history of minorities in the US. In many cases, the absence of legally recognized property titles has led to the members of these groups being progressively deprived of their assets.. It's something that continues to happen today in areas like coastal South Carolina and Georgia, a region where the descendants of slaves lived virtually independently for a century, to the point where they maintain African words, but which in the is currently experiencing a real estate 'boom'. People of low socio-cultural status do not have title deeds, and when they do have them, they are defective, or do not well define the boundaries of the plots, or the heirs. All these factors make it relatively easy for a developer to grab land at well below market price.

In fact, while the Tulsa massacre was taking place, less than 100 kilometers away, on the Osage Indian Tribe Reservation, an even bigger one was taking place: the murder and disappearance of hundreds of people from that community to take away their oil wells. Their land titles went to whites. Oklahoma’s oil has never again belonged to the Indians. Just like J.B. Stradford’s hotel.