PoliticoJoe Biden in Tulsa: ‘Great nations … come to terms with their dark sides’

The US leader marked the 100th anniversary of the race massacre by calling on Americans to never forget the hundreds of black men, women and children killed

Biden is the first president to take in a commemoration of the destruction of the flourishing community known as Black Wall Street

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US President Joe Biden speaks at a rally during commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

Published: 7:26am, 2 Jun 2021Updated: 8:15pm, 2 Jun 2021

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Myah Ward on politico.com on June 1, 2021.

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday took part in a remembrance of one of the nation’s darkest and largely forgotten acts of racial violence, calling on Americans to come to terms with the nation’s “dark side” and to never forget the killing of hundreds of black men, women and children in the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.

“We do ourselves no favours by pretending none of this ever happened or it doesn’t impact us today, because it still does impact us today,” Biden said, speaking at the Greenwood Cultural Centre in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know, and not what we should know. We should know the good, the bad, everything. That’s what great nations do. They come to terms with their dark sides.”

Biden – the first president to participate in a commemoration of the destruction of the flourishing community known as Black Wall Street – called for a moment of silence in honour of the 300 black people who were killed a century ago.