Uplifting Black Excellence Across America through the Designation of the Historic Greenwood/Black Wall Street National Monument

Dear President Biden and Members of Congress,

Please exercise your powers as expeditiously as possible to create the Black Wall Street National Monument across the Historic Greenwood District to honor the three survivors still with us.

This designation will illuminate the incredible legacy of Black excellence and commemorate those who perished during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

As we stand united across the chasms of race, wealth, and politics, this monument’s resounding declaration will echo the words of this community’s foremost academic into the ether. “If the house is to be set in the order, one cannot begin with the present; he must begin with the past,” John Hope Franklin declared.

Accordingly, this national monument will eternally chronicle Greenwood’s existence deep into American soil, never to be erased from its history books -- illuminating this community’s ambitious, entrepreneurial rise in the shadow of Jim Crow two generations after Emancipation.  

On the hollowed grounds, where the ashes of charred bodies remain over a century later, this monument will stand, bearing painful wounds; yet, it will beckon those brave enough to lift the veil of America’s unfortunate past and will remind them of its promising bright future.

Historic Greenwood/Black Wall Street is the American story of unshaken resilience and deserves to be a federally recognized monument.  

Please hear our request and take this long-overdue action. 

Sincerely,