‘Should Not be Controversial’: Oklahoma Senator Chewed Out Dems for Stalling Monument Honoring Black Wall Street Before Approval More Than 100 Years After Race Massacre
Posted by Shelby Erdman | Published on: May 23, 2025
Reprinted by Sunny Imanche on: May 25, 2025
It’s been a long time coming. More than 100 years after a violent white mob attacked North Tulsa’s prosperous Historic Greenwood District, killing as many as 300 Black people and burning down the area known as Black Wall Street, the U.S. Senate passed, by unanimous consent, a bill designating the district as a national monument Friday.
It’s the largest massacre based on race in U.S. history. On May 31, 1921, the white mob, fueled by anger and hatred, destroyed over 35 square blocks, including 200 businesses and 1,200 homes, according to the Tulsa Historical Society. The attack started after a Black man was accused of assaulting a white woman.
“It’s a scar on our nation’s history and my state’s history,” Senator James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, told his colleagues in the Senate after the bill passed, “but it’s an era we remember for a reason because we know how far we’ve come.”
Lankford and New Jersey Democrat Corey Booker sponsored the bill and first introduced it last year.
“The community in North Tulsa and Greenwood they are turning tragedy into triumph, starting new businesses. It’s a beautiful area and continues to be able to grow and advance, but still bears the scars of over 100 years ago,” Lankford said.
Lankford and supporters say it’s important to remember as a nation that something significant happened in Greenwood.
“It’s not just about what happened that day, May 31st to June 1st of 1921, it’s what it was like before when it was Black Wall Street, a thriving community. It’s like what it was like afterwards when people stayed and rebuilt a community,” Lankford said.
“It’s like what it is now. People with great pride continue to be able to thrive in that community and still call it Black Wall Street based on the entrepreneurship that’s there,” the Oklahoma Senator added.
But it wasn’t easy getting to this point. Lankford called out his Democratic Senate colleagues this week when it looked like some of them would withhold their support.
“This is an important piece that literally every single Republican cleared, no struggle with this bill at all,” Lankford said in a video posted to YouTube Thursday by Forbes.
He challenged Democrats to get on board.
“So whatever struggle is happening among their conference, I would encourage them to be able to work it out so we can pass this because in the past, in this body, this has been a unanimous issue. This should not be controversial to say we as a nation recognize what happened on that day, and we honor the people of North Tulsa for what they are working to still create there in the Greenwood District.”
Lankford’s words must have helped because in the end, the measure unanimously passed the Senate. It now heads to the House and finally to the President’s desk, if the House passes it.
In the bill to designate Greenwood as a national monument, there’s no federal takeover of the area. Private property rights are protected. It’s simply a recognition that it’s important to remember what happened there, according to Lankford.
National monuments are usually established by the President through the Antiquities Act of 1906, but Congress can also create the designation. The U.S. has more than 100 national monuments throughout the country with most managed by the National Park Service.
