Biden to visit Tulsa for centennial of Tulsa Race Massacre
25 May 2021
President Biden will visit Tulsa, Oklahoma, next week to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, the White House said Tuesday.
Why it matters: The visit will conclude a weekend of events commemorating one of the worst mass killings in U.S. history. On May 31, 1921, a white mob torched 35 blocks of a Black neighborhood and killed an estimated 300 people. No one was charged in the killings, and survivors say the community never recovered.
- Details of Biden's visit have not yet been made public.
The big picture: The last living survivors of the massacre testified before a House subcommittee last week, urging lawmakers to consider reparations for survivors and their descendants.
- "I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams," 107-year-old Viola Fletcher said.
- "I have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot."
- Biden visited Tulsa twice as vice president, per Tulsa World.
Go deeper: 100 years after Tulsa Race Massacre, last living survivors urge U.S. to not forget
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.