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HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The term "holocaust" is defined as, "a great or
3complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire"; and
 
4    WHEREAS, Chicago, the third largest city in the United
5States, is a thriving center of business, industry, and
6culture, with approximately 83,733 registered black owned
7businesses and approximately 40 black communities; it was also
8the location of the Red Summer holocaust of 1919 and
9approximately 25 other racial holocausts; and
 
10    WHEREAS, Black Wall Street - Illinois is an organization
11formed to partner with black business districts and communities
12in Illinois and abroad, setting a standard for building
13sustainable black businesses and communities as a means to stop
14violence, retaining current businesses while incubating new
15businesses, and growing through the rich historical blueprint
16in the tradition of growth and prosperity with the original
17"Black Wall Street District" of Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood
18District; being ostracized from the mainstream, the business
19and economic population's leaders of the "Black Wall Street"
20Tulsa area reportedly used "Black Dollars" instead of United
21States currency during the early 1900s, allowing them the
22ability to track its recirculation within the district; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, Racial holocausts not only destroyed black
2communities, but destroyed the people in those communities as
3well; the wealth that was established for their children and
4the examples of pride and self-respect were destroyed as well,
5causing black business districts to become nonexistent and
6leaving the black communities in economic despair; although
7there were some reparations, those came years later and were
8not given to over 85% of the communities destroyed; and
 
9    WHEREAS, In June 2015, South Suburban Black Wall Street and
10Black Wall Street - Illinois, with the help of Illinois State
11Representative LaShawn Ford, formed and hosted their First
12Annual Convention and 3-day tour from Chicago to the "Black
13Wall Street District" in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and
 
14    WHEREAS, During the oil boom of the 1910s, the area of
15northeast Oklahoma around Tulsa flourished, including the
16Greenwood neighborhood, which came to be known as the "Black
17Wall Street District"; many black men and women moved to the
18area, structuring a system for wealth that produced some of the
19first known black millionaires in the United States; the area
20was home to several lawyers, realtors, doctors, and prominent
21black businessmen, many of them multimillionaires; Greenwood
22boasted a variety of thriving businesses, such as grocery
23stores, clothing stores, barbershops, banks, hotels, cafes,
24movie theaters, 2 newspapers, and many contemporary homes;

 

 

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1Greenwood residents enjoyed many luxuries that their white
2neighbors did not, including indoor plumbing and a remarkable
3school system; each dollar circulated 36 to 100 times,
4sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the community;
5Greenwood, Oklahoma implemented a blueprint for success
6imitated by other black business communities across the world;
7and
 
8    WHEREAS, The Tulsa, Oklahoma holocaust took place from May
931 to June 1, 1921; altercations between whites and blacks at
10the jail led to a race war; a mob numbering more than 10,000
11attacked the black district; machine-guns were brought into
12use, 8 airplanes were employed to spy on the movements of the
13blacks and, according to some, were used in bombing what was
14considered the "colored" section of the town; by the time order
15was restored, the entire business district of "Black Wall
16Street" and many homes totaling over $1.5 million in value were
17said to have been destroyed by fire; in the wake of the
18violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, over 800 people
19were treated for injuries, 15,000 were left homeless, and an
20estimated 1,000-plus deaths occurred; and
 
21    WHEREAS, Within 5 years of the massacre, surviving
22residents who chose to remain in Tulsa rebuilt portions of the
23district; they accomplished their goal despite the opposition
24of many Tulsa political and business leaders and punitive

 

 

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1rezoning laws enacted to prevent reconstruction; it resumed
2being a vital black community until segregation was overturned
3by the federal government during the 1950s and 1960s;
4desegregation encouraged blacks to integrate other surrounding
5communities and Greenwood lost much of its original vitality;
6since then, city leaders have attempted to strip the landmark
7of its history; and
 
8    WHEREAS, Jim Crow segregation, legitimized by the Plessy v.
9Ferguson (1896) Supreme Court ruling, forced black people to
10use separate and usually inferior facilities; the southern
11justice system systematically denied them equal protection
12under the law and condoned the practice of vigilante mob
13violence; as an aspiring migrant from Alabama wrote in a letter
14to the Chicago Defender, "I am in the darkness of the south and
15I am trying my best to get out"; blacks were ultimately forced
16to create their own neighborhoods, business districts, and
17economic base to survive across the country; and
 
18    WHEREAS, In 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina, political
19wars between prominent blacks and whites resulted in
20accusations of sexual misconduct by black men against white
21women; a prominent black newspaper editor, Alex Manly,
22responded with an editorial suggesting that it was possible
23that relations between white women and black men were
24consensual, a taboo subject at the time; about 500 white men

 

 

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1attacked and burned Manly's office, along with other black
2businesses; and
 
3    WHEREAS, Racial tension had been building in Atlanta,
4Georgia in 1906 and race-baiting in the state's gubernatorial
5election brought it to a boil; blacks in Georgia had begun to
6prosper economically and socially and the Democratic
7candidates for governor, Hoke Smith and Clark Howell, played on
8fears of a rising black middle class; about 10,000 white men
9and boys took to the streets, beating black men and burning
10businesses and homes; and
 
11    WHEREAS, In August of 1908, a three-day racial holocaust
12took place in Springfield, Illinois; white mobs headed for the
13small eleven-by-nine block area considered the "Negro" section
14and attacked homes and businesses in what is now downtown
15Springfield; this holocaust, in the hometown of Abraham
16Lincoln, shocked Jane Addams, who met the following year in New
17York City with prominent black civil rights activist W.E.B.
18Dubois to form the NAACP to promote the equality of rights and
19the eradication of racial prejudice; and
 
20    WHEREAS, Between 1914 and 1920, roughly 500,000 black
21southerners packed their bags and headed to the north,
22fundamentally transforming the social, cultural, and political
23landscape of cities such as Chicago, New York, Cleveland,

 

 

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1Pittsburgh, and Detroit; the Great Migration would reshape
2black America and the nation as a whole; black southerners
3faced a host of social, economic, and political challenges that
4prompted their migration to the north; and
 
5    WHEREAS, The City of East St. Louis was the location of one
6of the bloodiest racial holocausts in the 20th century; racial
7tensions began to increase in February of 1917, when 470 black
8workers were hired to replace white workers who had gone on
9strike against the Aluminum Ore Company; the May 28th
10disturbances were only a prelude to the violence that erupted
11on July 2, 1917; no precautions were taken to ensure white job
12security or to grant union recognition, which further increased
13the already high level of hostilities; and
 
14    WHEREAS, In 1919, racial holocausts erupted in 26 U.S.
15cities during the course of the year, including Washington, DC;
16Knoxville, Tennessee; Longview, Texas; Phillips County,
17Arkansas; Omaha, Nebraska; and Chicago; many of the holocausts
18occurred during the summer months, in what is known as the "Red
19Summer"; racial tension was particularly bad in northern
20cities, as white soldiers returning from World War I found that
21their jobs had been taken by blacks who had migrated north; in
22addition, black soldiers returning from war became embittered
23by the lack of civil rights extended to them, particularly
24after they risked their lives fighting for their country; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, Postwar Washington, D.C., which was roughly 75%
2white, was a racial tinderbox; housing was in short supply and
3jobs were so scarce that ex-doughboys in uniform panhandled
4along Pennsylvania Avenue; however, Washington's black
5community was the largest and most prosperous in the country,
6with a small but impressive upper class of teachers, ministers,
7lawyers, and businessmen concentrated in the LeDriot Park
8neighborhood near Howard University; and
 
9    WHEREAS, Drawn by Chicago's meatpacking houses, railway
10companies, and steel mills, the African-American population in
11Chicago skyrocketed from 44,000 in 1910 to 235,000 in 1930; a
12racial holocaust ensued on July 27, 1919, lasting until August
133, 1919; after the holocaust, varying estimates of the death
14toll circulated, with the Chicago Police Chief estimating that
15100 blacks had been killed; renowned journalist Ida B. Wells
16reported in the Chicago Defender that 40 to 150 black people
17were killed in the rioting, while the NAACP estimated deaths at
18100 to 200; 6,000 African-Americans were left homeless after
19their neighborhoods were burned; and
 
20    WHEREAS, In August of 1919, a racial holocaust in
21Knoxville, Tennessee broke out after a white mob mobilized in
22response to a black man being accused of murdering a white
23woman; the 5,000-strong mob stormed the county jail searching

 

 

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1for the prisoner and freed 16 white prisoners, including
2suspected murderers; after looting the jail and sheriff's
3house, the mob moved on and attacked the African-American
4business district; many of the city's black residents, aware of
5the racial holocausts that had occurred across the country that
6summer, had armed themselves and barricaded the intersection of
7Vine and Central to defend their businesses; two platoons of
8the Tennessee National Guard's 4th Infantry led by Adjutant
9General Edward Sweeney arrived, but were unable to halt the
10chaos; the mob broke into stores and stole firearms and other
11weapons on their way to the black business district; upon their
12arrival, the streets erupted in gunfire as black snipers
13exchanged fire with both rioters and soldiers; the Tennessee
14National Guard at one point fired 2 machine guns
15indiscriminately into the neighborhood, eventually dispersing
16the rioters; shooting continued sporadically for several
17hours; outgunned, the black defenders gradually fled, allowing
18the guardsmen to gain control of the area; newspapers placed
19the death toll at just 2 persons, though eyewitness accounts
20suggest the dead were so many that the bodies were dumped into
21the Tennessee River, while others were buried in mass graves
22outside the city; and
 
23    WHEREAS, A racial holocaust in Detroit, Michigan in 1943
24flared from the increased friction over the sharp rise in the
25black population, which led to competition with whites on the

 

 

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1job and housing markets; on June 20, 1943, rioting broke out on
2Belle Isle, a recreational area used by both races but
3predominately by blacks; fist fights escalated into a major
4conflict; the first wave of looting and bloodshed began in the
5"Paradise Valley" and later spread to other sections of the
6city; white mobs attacked blacks in the downtown area and
7traveled into black neighborhoods by car; by the time federal
8troops arrived to halt the racial holocaust, black communities
9and homes were damaged in amounts exceeding $2 million; and
 
10    WHEREAS, Many blacks were economically distressed because
11of the loss of homes, businesses, and jobs from previous racial
12holocausts; they migrated to areas like Chicago, New York,
13California, D.C., New Jersey, and Maryland, where they found
14refuge and safety with other family members as well as entry
15level employment, government subsidies, and low-income
16housing; and
 
17    WHEREAS, Most of the black communities that were attacked
18from 1914 to 1943 were completely abandoned or regentrified, or
19have continued to struggle because of the social, racial, and
20economic barriers that accompany generational poverty; as
21descendants of black slaves struggled to recreate wealth and
22make demands for equal education and social and workforce
23opportunities, over 700 racial holocausts took place between
241964 and 1971, adding to the debilitating forces against blacks

 

 

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1which further pushed them behind the economic development
2curve; and
 
3    WHEREAS, Racial holocausts in the United States and their
4consequences for black communities have served as a constant
5reminder of the open platforms for constant displacement
6through the destruction of small businesses and housing which
7has created the inability for blacks to rise above; lacking
8business or homeowners insurance, blacks have left the land to
9be bought by developers or surrendered for delinquent taxes;
10solving the attendant poverty problems and re-building the
11economic capacity that could re-circulate community dollars
12would create sustainability; and
 
13    WHEREAS, Research by social scientists William Collins and
14Robert Margo, published in the National Bureau of Economic
15Research Working Paper 10243, shows that black communities have
16never recovered from the economic impact created by racial
17holocausts; the studies show economic disadvantages that were
18created to keep black communities under the poverty level and
19classified as the working poor; finally, the studies show the
20impact of segregation on the rising prices of impoverished
21urban developments and the socioeconomic factors that created
22the downward spiral in black communities and real estate
23values; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, Many urban renewal initiatives and public housing
2transformation projects, among other pilot programs, were
3created in the City of Chicago and other cities; other small
4business and community initiatives were also implemented;
5however, other ethnic races entering black communities were
6able to be funded and financed, while black business owners
7were driven to close and work part-time minimum wage jobs to
8survive; black citizens migrated to other communities in
9surrounding areas; the initiatives were promoted as a way to
10create access, growth, and equal opportunities for
11communities, but promoted renting instead of property
12ownership, thus creating an economic gap which allowed other
13nationalities to fill the demands for small businesses and
14property ownership in black communities; therefore, be it
 
15    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
16HUNDREDTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we
17urge the United States Congress to rewrite history and redefine
18the race riots as racial holocaust; and be it further
 
19    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
20delivered to President Donald Trump, U.S. Senate Majority
21Leader Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck
22Schumer, U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, U.S. House of
23Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and all members
24of the Illinois Congressional Delegation.