A bipartisan bill creating a national monument honoring a race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, passed the Senate on Thursday.
S. 1051, sponsored by Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford and New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, would create the “Historic Greenwood District-Black Wall Street National Monument.” It passed by unanimous consent.
The monument would honor the two-day 1921 massacre in the Greenwood District of Tulsa. A white mob, beginning on May 31, 1921, attacked, lynched and burned those who lived there following accusations that a Black man had assaulted a white woman in an elevator. The massacre is estimated to have killed as many as 300 people and devastated a thriving Black business community.
The bill would allow the Interior secretary to acquire land only through donations, exchange or purchase from a willing seller. Lankford has pushed for the designation for several years now.
