By Abayomi Azikiwe
One of the major failures of the previous administration of Joe Biden was not following through on policy mandates aimed at ameliorating the historical phenomenon of institutionalized racist violence in the United States.
Two major promises made to the African American people during the presidential elections of 2020 by the Democratic Party were to make some amends for the Tulsa race massacre of May-June 1921 where approximately 300 people were killed as well as passing legislation to reform policing.
The national elections five years ago coincided with the mass demonstrations and urban rebellions in response to the police executions of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, among others, and the killing of Ahmaud Arbery by racists, during 2020. The first Trump presidency increased racial tensions across the country making bigoted and prejudicial attitudes among whites even more of an accepted norm within U.S. society.
National celebrations of Juneteenth that year reached unprecedented levels. This recognition of a holiday which extended back more than 150 years was the direct result of the political atmosphere engendered by popular mobilizations which reached millions throughout North America and the world.
Within the process of historical reclamation that often seeks to re-correct atrocities of decades past, the remembrance of the Tulsa Race Massacre of May-June 1921 gained renewed interest. This incident has become associated with the racist destruction of African American residential, economic and cultural communities.
African American establishments in the commercial areas of Greenwood in Tulsa had been designated as “Black Wall Street” by Dr. Booker T. Washington years prior to its violent destruction. The opening of small businesses within segregated Black residential areas was viewed by Washington’s adherents, many of whom had graduated from the Tuskegee Institute, as a solution to the racial problems in the U.S.
The example of the Tulsa massacre involving the physical destruction of Black Wall Street maintains a major focus within the historical outlook of African Americans well into the 21st century. Therefore, this continuing agony stemming from the horrendous events of 1921 was taken up by the Biden administration after its ascendancy a century later in 2021. Biden met with survivors of the massacre and expressed his sympathy for the experiences they endured.
However, as the Biden administration exited the White House in January, a 127-page report was issued saying that it was beyond the scope of contemporary law to redress the wrong done in the Tulsa massacre. The report does recognize the unjust system which fostered the mob violence against African Americans attempting to build an independent existence in the U.S. in the early 20th century.
The Tulsa incident was not an isolated episode in U.S. history. Untold numbers of African Americans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries were lynched, driven from their homes and imprisoned unjustly.
Just two years prior to the massacre in Tulsa where an estimated 300 people lost their lives, the so-called “Red Summer” of 1919 was the scene of state-backed white racist violence against African American communities in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Knoxville, Elaine, Arkansas, among other areas. The local, state and federal authorities have been complicit in these recurrent massacres and forced removals of African Americans.
This same complicity and refusal to accept responsibility for historical injustices was summed up by ABC News with quotes from the two survivors of the massacre, when it reported on January 17 that:
“Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher, both 110, who fled the mob as young children, said in a joint statement that ‘Justice is not saying to survivors that the entities that ran us out of town, hindered our rebuilding efforts, and erased us from history are absolved of their crimes. Justice is holding guilty parties to account so that the community can heal’…. After meeting with us during the probe, DOJ investigators released a report that falls heartbreakingly short,’ Randle and Fletcher said in their statement. ‘The DOJ confirms the government’s role in the slaughter of our Greenwood neighbors but refuses to hold the institutions accountable under federal law.’”
The Significance of This Legal Decision
By issuing this 127-page report which proposes no remedies for resolving the historical injustices of the Tulsa massacre and the destruction of Greenwood and its people, the government is exemplifying its continuing incapacity to bring about any semblance of racial reconciliation. The present administration under President Donald Trump has no interest in appealing to the sentiments of African Americans related to their quest for total freedom and reparations.
The tenure of the Biden administration was characterized by a series of broken promises to the African American people. This community played a critical role in the defeat of the Trump White House in 2020.
Yet, the pledge to pass legislation to reform law-enforcement operations within the African American and other oppressed communities failed despite the initial Democratic Party majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate during the first two years of the Biden administration. The final two years of the Biden administration was marked by a divided Congress where it was even more impossible to pass bills related to police reform, voting rights and social programs.
In the present period, the MAGA Republicans have total political control over both houses of the legislative branch, the White House and a majority on the Supreme Court. The minority Democratic loyal opposition have not put forward a political program for their own party to respond to the massive attacks being leveled against working class people in the U.S. beginning with the outright firing of federal employees.
The policy decisions of the Trump administration are placing at risk the majority of residents of the U.S. through the weakening and destabilization of the existing governmental apparatus which millions are dependent on for public health, education, medical services, scientific research, business and transportation regulations, etc. These drastic measures being enacted by the administration will inevitably have a disproportionate impact on African Americans and other oppressed peoples.
As the national elections gathered momentum in 2024, the Washington Post wrote in an opinion piece saying:
“As the campaign heats up and candidates jockey for Black votes, the very least the Biden-Harris administration could do is announce support for a federal investigation into the Tulsa massacre…. Why have Black victims of Tulsa’s mass racial terrorism been denied the same justice for decades? Time has run out for empty rhetoric and moral navel-gazing about a need for ‘national conversations’ about race. Norms, precedents and tangible, functional systemic delivery systems of investigation and repair already exist in America. They should be deployed for the victims of Tulsa and their descendants.”
Eventually by October the investigation was announced. However, by this time it was too little and too late. The openly white supremacist Trump administration has taken over the White House again imposing draconian executive orders aimed at furthering the disempowerment of the oppressed and working class.
This same failure to not only address these issues notwithstanding the burgeoning social unrest spawned from the Trump program of racism, anti-immigrant hostility and removals along with economic austerity, will pose monumental challenges to the current administration and Congress. The contradictions between the nationally oppressed communities and the working class as a whole against the ruling class cannot be wished away through the use of irrational economic policies.
The propensity for violence inside the U.S. is mounting daily. The fact that state violence against the oppressed and working people is increasing means that the historic victims of racism will not remain silent and inactive.
A report published by the website mappingpoliceviolence.org emphasizes:
“Since 2013, at least 13,395 people have been killed by law enforcement in the United States (As of 7/23/24). In 2023, there were 18,450 homicides, and 1352 police killings. This means that US law enforcement are responsible for at least 7% of all homicides in the US. US Law enforcement killings per year have ranged from 1,043 (2014) to 1,352 (2023). From 2013-2023, US law enforcement killed 1147 people per year. Despite Black people comprising only 13% of the population in the US, 28.2% of people killed by law enforcement were Black (excluding incidents where race is unknown). This means that Black people are 2.9x more likely to be killed by law enforcement in the US. The average age of a person killed by law enforcement in the US is 37 years old (33 for Black people and 44 for white people).”
These indicators for racist violence moving forward portend much for the oppressed peoples in the U.S. The failure of the Democratic and Republican parties compels the masses to organize independently of these ruling-class dominated entities. Racist violence and the exploitation of the people will continue until the system of capitalism is replaced with a socialist society where discrimination and racism are prohibited by law and deeds.
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