Tulsa marks 100 years since race massacre

Songs, prayer, and a call for justice in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Monday, as hundreds came together to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Over 300 lives were lost in the 1921 massacre, when a white mob killed and burned through Tulsa's Greenwood district, once one of the largest and most prosperous Black communities in the United States.

The three known remaining survivors, all over 100 years old, were honored in a ceremony on Monday.

106 year old Lessie Benningfield Randle spoke to Reuters about her experience.

"The soldiers were coming in. Run the rebels out and everybody was running and hiding and trying to get out of the way. I don't know. It was just a big mess."

Events marking the anniversary of the massacre, including a parade over the weekend and a vigil on Monday night, have shed light on an event which has long been ignored by state historians.

The massacre erupted after a Black man was accused of assaulting a white woman, allegations that have never been proven.

Homes were looted, buildings destroyed, and thousands of people left homeless, traumatizing an entire generation of Black Tulsans.

But the call for reparations and further awareness is growing.

U.S. Representative Shiela Jackson Lee took the stand at Monday's ceremony.

"We too are Americans. We too deserve, we too should be memorialized. We too should be repaired, restored, and there is, as the church said yesterday, no reconciliation without justice."

Tulsa's $20 million Greenwood Rising museum, remembering the victims of the massacre, is set to open Tuesday for a "limited preview."

President Joe Biden, who declared a day of remembrance for the massacre, is also slated to visit the city on Tuesday.