总统乔·拜登参观了俄克拉荷马州的塔尔萨纪念一百周年1921年塔尔萨种族屠杀，成为第一位在任总统访问历史悠久的格林伍德社区，承认那里发生的暴行。

拜登参观了格林伍德文化中心，然后私下里会见幸存者在他发表讲话之前，他宣布了他的政府正在采取的新行动，以缩小美国黑人和白人之间的种族财富差距。

拜登还呼吁6月份是“国会山就投票权立法采取行动的一个月”，并宣布他将任命副总统卡玛拉•哈里斯领导政府努力打击他所说的“对投票权的攻击”

总统是由劳伦·亚瑟介绍的，她是塔尔萨种族屠杀受害者的后代。活着的幸存者——年龄在101岁到107岁之间——在他的演讲中观看。

曼德尔·颜/法新社通过盖蒂图像

幸存者的亲属听着乔·拜登总统在

“你们是镜中依稀可见的一个故事的三个已知幸存者。但不再。现在，你的故事将在众目睽睽之下为人所知，”拜登开始说道。

他承认，在过去的100年里，袭击的历史被粉饰和忽视了——他说，他是第一位访问格林伍德的总统，这一事实证明了这一点。

拜登重复了他在早些时候参观该中心时说的一句话，告诉大约200名观众，“这不是暴乱，这是屠杀。”

拜登在发表讲话前会见了格林伍德社区三名幸存的成员:维奥拉“母亲”弗莱彻、休斯“红叔叔”范埃利斯和莱西“母亲兰德尔”本宁菲尔德兰德尔。

上个月，这三人都在国会作证，呼吁赔偿——但拜登在演讲中没有直接呼吁赔偿，尽管他的后代希望进行这样的对话。去年，他们对塔尔萨市和其他人提起诉讼，要求对袭击发生后几十年来他们和其他家庭遭受的持续“公害”进行赔偿。

苏·奥格罗基/美联社

塔尔萨种族屠杀幸存者休斯·范·埃利斯(左)和维奥拉·弗莱彻(右)，在休息时听着

拜登在讲话中详细描述了引发白人暴徒袭击格林伍德的事件。一名年轻的黑人男子被指控袭击一名白人女性电梯操作员并被逮捕后，法院外响起了枪声。

拜登说:“这是一场无辜的互动，演变成了一个可怕的头条新闻，指控一名黑人男性青少年袭击一名白人女性青少年。”他解释说，人群聚集在法庭外。

“字面上的地狱被释放了，”他说。

1921年5月31日晚上，直到第二天，一群武装的白人暴徒夷平了塔尔萨被称为“黑华尔街”的全黑绿林社区。

“一群暴徒把一个黑人的腰部绑在他们的卡车后面，当他们开车离开时，他的头沿着人行道砰砰作响。一个被谋杀的黑人家庭挂在他们家外面的栅栏上。拜登说:“一对老年夫妇被击中后脑，他们跪在床边，全心全意地向上帝祈祷。私人飞机投掷爆炸物，这是首次也是唯一一次针对美国城市塔尔萨的国内空袭

埃文·武奇/美联社

乔·拜登总统登上空军一号前往俄克拉荷马州塔尔萨市纪念100周年

拜登描绘了弗莱彻母亲说她每天生活的画面，他说，“100年前，在6月的第一天的这个时候，烟雾笼罩了塔尔萨的天空，从残留在灰烬和灰烬中的35个格林伍德街区升起，被夷为平地。”

由于执法人员和政府雇员反对黑人居民，俄克拉荷马州仅记录了36起死亡事件，但2001年一个委员会报告称死亡人数高达300人。该委员会发现了约180万美元的损失-再次呼吁赔偿-这将在2021年超过2500万美元。在大屠杀被描绘成一场“暴乱”以阻止黑人企业收取保险索赔后，多达10，000名居民流离失所或被关进拘留营。

拜登在掌声中说:“我来这里是为了帮助填补沉默，因为沉默会加深伤口。”。"虽然痛苦，但只有在回忆中伤口才会愈合."

塔尔萨大学通过美联社

一群黑人在武装护卫下走过第二大街和第一大街的拐角

拜登一度呼吁为格林伍德的后代默哀。

“愿他们的灵魂安息，”他低着头说。

他还警告不要自满，说“仇恨永远不会被打败”，但“只会隐藏”

“伙计们，我们不能——我们不能给仇恨一个避风港，”拜登说。“来自白人至上的恐怖主义是当今对本土最致命的威胁——不是伊斯兰国，不是基地组织，是白人至上主义者。”

为了开始弥补，总统在他的讲话中提出了一个更广泛的议程来解决塔尔萨以外的种族不平等——从为联邦政府赎罪开始。

政府希望采取的新措施包括将更多的联邦合同导向小型和少数民族所有的企业，扩大住房所有权的获得，以及启动旨在修复格林伍德等社区的基础设施项目。

但是全国有色人种协进会和其他民权组织批评拜登周二没有采取措施减少学生贷款债务，倡导者说，这是阻止美国黑人积累财富的最大障碍之一。

全国有色人种协进会主席德里克·约翰逊在一份声明中说:“学生贷款债务继续抑制着美国黑人的经济繁荣。”。"如果不解决学生贷款债务危机，你就无法开始解决种族财富差距问题."

布兰登·贝尔/盖蒂影像公司

尼希米·弗兰克在格林伍德向他的堂兄大卫·麦金太尔二世讲述塔尔萨大屠杀

当美国广播公司新闻白宫记者卡伦·特拉弗斯(Karen Travers)被问及空军一号(Air Force One)飞往塔尔萨的途中被遗漏一事时，让-皮埃尔(Jean-Pierre)从这个问题转向谈论总统关于投资历史上的黑人院校作为其美国家庭计划的一部分的提议。

“这些机构对于帮助代表性不足的学生走向收入阶梯的顶端至关重要，”她说。"拜登总统呼吁通过补贴学费和扩大机构及赠款，对可负担性进行历史性投资."

拜登没有呼吁对黑塔尔萨大屠杀的后代进行赔偿，但表示支持40号法案，该法案将成立一个委员会，研究和制定对非裔美国人的赔偿建议，目前正等待众议院的全面投票。

Biden delivers remarks on Tulsa Race Massacre after meeting with survivors

PresidentJoe Bidenvisited Tulsa, Oklahoma, tomark the centennialof the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, becoming the first sitting president to visit the historic Greenwood neighborhood to acknowledge the atrocities that took place there.

Biden toured the Greenwood Cultural Center and then privatelymet with survivorsahead of remarks in which he announced new actions his administration is taking to narrow the racial wealth gap between Black and white Americans.

Biden also called for June to be "a month of action on Capitol Hill" on voting rights legislation and announced he's appointing Vice President Kamala Harris to spearhead the administration's efforts to combat, what he called, "the assault on the right to vote."

The president was introduced by Lauren Usher, a descendent of a Tulsa Race Massacre victim. The living survivors -- aged 101 to 107 -- looked on during his speech.

"You are the three known remaining survivors of a story seen in the mirror dimly. But no longer. Now, your story will be known in full view," Biden began.

He acknowledged that the history of the attack has been whitewashed and overlooked in the past 100 years -- made evident by the fact, he said, that he is the first president to visit Greenwood.

Repeating a line he said on an earlier tour of the center, Biden told the audience of roughly 200, "It wasn't a riot, it was a massacre."

Biden met with the three living members of the Greenwood community who survived the massacre ahead of his remarks: Viola "Mother" Fletcher, Hughes "Uncle Red" Van Ellis and Lessie "Mother Randle" Benningfield Randle.

All three testified before Congress last month, calling for reparations -- but Biden did not directly call for them in his speech, despite descendants wanting to have that conversation. Last year, they filed a lawsuit against the city of Tulsa and others demanding compensation for what they called the ongoing "public nuisance" inflicted on them and other families for decades following the attack.

In his remarks, Biden detailed the events which sparked the white mob to descend on Greenwood. Gunshots were fired outside a courthouse after a young, Black man was accused of assaulting a white, female elevator operator and arrested.

"It was an innocent interaction that turned into a terrible, terrible headline allegation of a Black male, teenager attacking a white female teenager," Biden said, explaining that crowds gathered outside the court.

"Literal hell was unleashed," he said.

On the evening May 31, 1921, and into the following day, a mob of armed, white men flattened the all-Black Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa known as "Black Wall Street."

"A mob tied a Black man by the waist to the back of their truck with his head banging along the pavement as they drove off. A murdered Black family draped over the fence of their home, outside. An elderly couple knelt by their bed, praying to God with their heart and their soul, when they were shot in the back of their heads," Biden said. "Private planes dropping explosives, the first and only domestic aerial assault of its kind on an American city, here in Tulsa."

Painting the picture that Mother Fletcher says she lives with each day, Biden said, "100 years ago, at this hour on this first day of June, smoke darkened the Tulsa sky, rising from 35 blocks of Greenwood that were left in ash and ember, razed, in rubble."

With members of law enforcement and government employees working against Black residents, the state of Oklahoma recorded only 36 deaths, but a 2001 commission reported the number killed was as high as 300. The commission found an estimated $1.8 million in damages -- renewing calls for reparations -- which would come out to more than $25 million in 2021. As many as 10,000 residents were displaced or put in internment camps after the massacre was painted as a "riot" to prevent Black businesses from collecting on insurance claims.

"I come here to help fill the silence because in silence wounds deepen," Biden said to applause. "As painful as it is, only in remembrance do wounds heal."

Biden, at one point, called for a moment of silence for the descendants of Greenwood.

"May their souls rest in peace," he said, hanging his head.

He also warned against complacency, saying, "hate is never defeated" but "only hides."

"Folks, we can't -- we must not give hate a safe harbor," Biden said. "Terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today -- not ISIS, not al-Qaida, white supremacists."

In an attempt to begin to make amends, the president proposed a broader agenda to address racial inequities beyond Tulsa in his remarks -- starting with atoning for the federal government.

New steps the administration wants to take include directing more federal contracts to small and minority-owned businesses, expanding access to homeownership and launching infrastructure programs intended to repair neighborhoods like Greenwood.

But the NAACP and other civil rights groups criticized Biden for not including steps Tuesday to reduce student loan debt -- one of the biggest obstacles preventing Black Americans from accumulating wealth, advocates say.

"Student loan debt continues to suppress the economic prosperity of Black Americans across the nation," Derrick Johnson, the NAACP president, said in a statement. "You cannot begin to address the racial wealth gap without addressing the student loan debt crisis."

Asked by ABC News White House correspondent Karen Travers about the omission en route to Tulsa on Air Force One, Jean-Pierre pivoted from the question by talking about the president's proposal to invest in historically Black colleges and universities as part of his American Families Plan.

"These institutions are critical to helping underrepresented students move to the top of the income ladder," she said. "President Biden is calling for a historic investment in affordability through subsidized tuition and expanding institutional -- and grants."

Biden has not called for reparations for Black Tulsa massacre descendants but has expressed support for H.R. 40 -- a bill which would form a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans -- which is awaiting a full House vote.