Biden Speaks in Tulsa Marking 100 Years Since Race Massacre: Great Nations ‘Come to Terms With Their Dark Sides’

President Joe Biden spoke in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Tuesday to mark 100 years since the horrific Tulsa race massacre.

The president said they’re in Tulsa “to shine a light, to make sure America knows the story in full.”

Biden talked in some detail about the “hate, resentment, and vengeance in the community” when a white mob attacked attacked Black residents and destroyed buildings. Up to 300 people are believed to have been killed in the massacre.

“Untold bodies dumped into mass graves. Families who at a time waited for hours and days to know the fate of their loved ones are now descendants who have gone 100 years without closure,” he said, “but as we speak, the process of exhuming the unmarked graves has started.”

Biden held a brief moment of silence for the victims and said, “My fellow Americans, this was not a riot. This was a massacre. Among the worst in our history, but not the only one, and for too long forgotten by our history.”

He talked about a “clear effort to erase it from our memory” and how schools were not teaching this significant part of American history. Biden also talked about members of Congress who were also open members of the Ku Klux Klan.

We do ourselves no favors by pretending none of this ever happened or it doesn’t impact us today because it does still impact us today. We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know. We should know the good, the bad, everything. That’s what great nations do. They come to terms with their dark sides, and we’re a great nation. The only way to build a common ground is to truly repair and to rebuild. I come here to help fill the silence, because in silence wounds deepen.

You can watch above, via CNN.