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| | HR1150 | | LRB100 22283 ALS 41007 r |
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1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
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2 | | WHEREAS, The term "holocaust" is defined as, "a great or |
3 | | complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire"; and
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4 | | WHEREAS, Chicago, the third largest city in the United |
5 | | States, is a thriving center of business, industry, and
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6 | | culture, with approximately 83,733 registered black owned |
7 | | businesses and approximately 40 black communities; it was also |
8 | | the location of the Red
Summer holocaust of 1919 and |
9 | | approximately 25 other racial holocausts; and
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10 | | WHEREAS, Black Wall Street - Illinois is an organization |
11 | | formed to partner with black business districts and communities
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12 | | in Illinois and abroad, setting a standard for building |
13 | | sustainable black businesses and communities as a means to stop
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14 | | violence, retaining current businesses while incubating new |
15 | | businesses, and growing through the rich historical blueprint |
16 | | in
the tradition of growth and prosperity with the original |
17 | | "Black Wall Street District" of Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood
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18 | | District; being ostracized from the mainstream, the business |
19 | | and economic population's leaders of
the "Black Wall Street" |
20 | | Tulsa area reportedly used "Black Dollars" instead of United |
21 | | States currency during the early 1900s, allowing them the |
22 | | ability to
track its recirculation within the district; and
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| | HR1150 | - 2 - | LRB100 22283 ALS 41007 r |
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1 | | WHEREAS, Racial holocausts not only destroyed black |
2 | | communities, but destroyed the people in those
communities as |
3 | | well; the wealth that was established for their children and |
4 | | the examples of pride and self-respect were destroyed as well, |
5 | | causing black
business districts to become nonexistent and |
6 | | leaving the black communities in economic despair; although |
7 | | there were
some reparations, those came years later and were |
8 | | not given to over 85% of the communities destroyed; and
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9 | | WHEREAS, In June 2015, South Suburban Black Wall Street and |
10 | | Black Wall Street - Illinois, with the help
of Illinois State |
11 | | Representative LaShawn Ford, formed and hosted their First |
12 | | Annual Convention and 3-day tour from Chicago to
the "Black |
13 | | Wall Street District" in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and |
14 | | WHEREAS, During the oil boom of the 1910s, the area of |
15 | | northeast Oklahoma around Tulsa flourished, including the
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16 | | Greenwood neighborhood, which came to be known as the "Black |
17 | | Wall Street District"; many black men and women moved to
the |
18 | | area, structuring a system for wealth that produced some of the |
19 | | first known black millionaires in the United States; the area |
20 | | was home to several lawyers, realtors, doctors, and prominent |
21 | | black businessmen, many of them
multimillionaires; Greenwood |
22 | | boasted a variety of thriving businesses, such as grocery |
23 | | stores, clothing stores,
barbershops, banks, hotels, cafes, |
24 | | movie theaters, 2 newspapers, and many contemporary homes; |
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| | HR1150 | - 3 - | LRB100 22283 ALS 41007 r |
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1 | | Greenwood
residents enjoyed many luxuries that their white |
2 | | neighbors did not, including indoor plumbing and a remarkable |
3 | | school
system; each dollar circulated 36 to 100 times, |
4 | | sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the community;
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5 | | Greenwood, Oklahoma implemented a blueprint for success |
6 | | imitated by other black business communities across the
world; |
7 | | and
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8 | | WHEREAS, The Tulsa, Oklahoma holocaust took place from May |
9 | | 31 to June 1, 1921; altercations between whites and blacks at
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10 | | the jail led to a race war; a mob numbering more than 10,000 |
11 | | attacked the black district; machine-guns were
brought into |
12 | | use, 8 airplanes were employed to spy on the movements of the |
13 | | blacks and, according to some, were
used in bombing what was |
14 | | considered the "colored" section of the town; by the time order |
15 | | was restored, the entire business
district of "Black Wall |
16 | | Street" and many homes totaling over $1.5 million in value were |
17 | | said to have been destroyed by fire; in
the wake of the |
18 | | violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, over 800 people |
19 | | were treated for injuries, 15,000 were left
homeless, and an |
20 | | estimated 1,000-plus deaths occurred; and
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21 | | WHEREAS, Within 5 years of the massacre, surviving |
22 | | residents who chose to remain in Tulsa rebuilt portions of the
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23 | | district; they accomplished their goal despite the opposition |
24 | | of many Tulsa political and business leaders and punitive
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1 | | rezoning laws enacted to prevent reconstruction; it resumed |
2 | | being a vital black community until segregation was
overturned |
3 | | by the federal government during the 1950s and 1960s; |
4 | | desegregation encouraged blacks to integrate
other surrounding |
5 | | communities and Greenwood lost much of its original vitality; |
6 | | since then, city leaders have attempted to
strip the landmark |
7 | | of its history; and
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8 | | WHEREAS, Jim Crow segregation, legitimized by the Plessy v. |
9 | | Ferguson (1896) Supreme Court ruling, forced black people
to |
10 | | use separate and usually inferior facilities; the southern |
11 | | justice system systematically denied them equal protection
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12 | | under the law and condoned the practice of vigilante mob |
13 | | violence; as an aspiring migrant from Alabama wrote in a
letter |
14 | | to the Chicago Defender, "I am in the darkness of the south and |
15 | | I am trying my best to get out"; blacks were ultimately forced |
16 | | to create their own neighborhoods, business districts, and |
17 | | economic base
to survive across the country; and |
18 | | WHEREAS, In 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina, political |
19 | | wars between prominent blacks and whites resulted in |
20 | | accusations of
sexual misconduct by black men against white |
21 | | women; a prominent black newspaper editor, Alex Manly, |
22 | | responded
with an editorial suggesting that it was possible |
23 | | that relations between white women and black men were |
24 | | consensual,
a taboo subject at the time; about 500 white men |
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1 | | attacked and burned Manly's office, along with other black |
2 | | businesses; and |
3 | | WHEREAS, Racial tension had been building in Atlanta, |
4 | | Georgia in 1906 and race-baiting in the state's gubernatorial
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5 | | election brought it to a boil; blacks in Georgia had begun to |
6 | | prosper economically and socially and the Democratic
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7 | | candidates for governor, Hoke Smith and Clark Howell, played on |
8 | | fears of a rising black middle class; about
10,000 white men |
9 | | and boys took to the streets, beating black men and burning |
10 | | businesses and homes; and |
11 | | WHEREAS, In August of 1908, a three-day racial holocaust |
12 | | took place in Springfield, Illinois; white mobs headed for the |
13 | | small
eleven-by-nine block area considered the "Negro" section |
14 | | and attacked homes and businesses in what is now
downtown |
15 | | Springfield; this holocaust, in the hometown of Abraham |
16 | | Lincoln, shocked Jane
Addams, who met the following year in New |
17 | | York City with prominent black civil rights activist W.E.B. |
18 | | Dubois to form
the NAACP to promote the equality of rights and |
19 | | the eradication of racial prejudice; and |
20 | | WHEREAS, Between 1914 and 1920, roughly 500,000 black |
21 | | southerners packed their bags and headed to the north,
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22 | | fundamentally transforming the social, cultural, and political |
23 | | landscape of cities such as Chicago, New York, Cleveland,
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1 | | Pittsburgh, and Detroit; the Great Migration would reshape |
2 | | black America and the nation as a whole; black southerners
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3 | | faced a host of social, economic, and political challenges that |
4 | | prompted their migration to the north; and
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5 | | WHEREAS, The City of East St. Louis was the location of one |
6 | | of the bloodiest racial holocausts in the 20th century; racial
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7 | | tensions began to increase in February of 1917, when 470 black |
8 | | workers were hired to replace white workers who had
gone on |
9 | | strike against the Aluminum Ore Company; the May 28th |
10 | | disturbances were only a prelude to the violence that
erupted |
11 | | on July 2, 1917; no precautions were taken to ensure white job |
12 | | security or to grant union recognition, which further increased |
13 | | the already high level of hostilities; and |
14 | | WHEREAS, In 1919, racial holocausts erupted in 26 U.S. |
15 | | cities during the course of
the year, including Washington, DC; |
16 | | Knoxville, Tennessee; Longview, Texas; Phillips County, |
17 | | Arkansas; Omaha, Nebraska;
and Chicago; many of the holocausts |
18 | | occurred during the summer months, in what is known as the "Red |
19 | | Summer"; racial
tension was particularly bad in northern |
20 | | cities, as white soldiers returning from World War I found that |
21 | | their jobs had
been taken by blacks who had migrated north; in |
22 | | addition, black soldiers returning from war became embittered |
23 | | by the
lack of civil rights extended to them, particularly |
24 | | after they risked their lives fighting for their country; and
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| | HR1150 | - 7 - | LRB100 22283 ALS 41007 r |
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1 | | WHEREAS, Postwar Washington, D.C., which was roughly 75% |
2 | | white, was a racial tinderbox; housing was in short supply and |
3 | | jobs were so scarce that ex-doughboys in uniform panhandled |
4 | | along Pennsylvania Avenue; however, Washington's black |
5 | | community was the largest and most prosperous in the country, |
6 | | with a small but impressive upper class of teachers, ministers, |
7 | | lawyers, and businessmen concentrated in the LeDriot Park |
8 | | neighborhood near Howard University; and
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9 | | WHEREAS, Drawn by Chicago's meatpacking houses,
railway |
10 | | companies, and steel mills, the African-American population in |
11 | | Chicago skyrocketed from 44,000 in 1910 to
235,000 in 1930; a |
12 | | racial holocaust ensued on July 27, 1919, lasting until August |
13 | | 3, 1919; after the holocaust, varying estimates of the death |
14 | | toll circulated, with the Chicago Police Chief estimating that |
15 | | 100 blacks had been killed; renowned journalist Ida B. Wells |
16 | | reported in the Chicago
Defender that 40 to 150 black people |
17 | | were killed in the rioting, while the NAACP estimated deaths at |
18 | | 100 to 200; 6,000 African-Americans were left homeless after |
19 | | their neighborhoods were burned; and
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20 | | WHEREAS, In August of 1919, a racial holocaust in |
21 | | Knoxville, Tennessee broke out after a white mob mobilized in |
22 | | response to a black
man being accused of murdering a white |
23 | | woman; the 5,000-strong mob stormed the county jail searching |
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| | HR1150 | - 8 - | LRB100 22283 ALS 41007 r |
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1 | | for the prisoner and freed 16 white prisoners, including |
2 | | suspected murderers;
after looting the jail and sheriff's |
3 | | house, the mob moved on and attacked the African-American |
4 | | business district; many
of the city's black residents, aware of |
5 | | the racial holocausts that had occurred across the country that |
6 | | summer, had armed
themselves and barricaded the intersection of |
7 | | Vine and Central to defend their businesses;
two platoons of |
8 | | the Tennessee National Guard's 4th Infantry led by Adjutant |
9 | | General Edward Sweeney arrived, but were unable to halt the |
10 | | chaos; the mob broke into stores and stole firearms and other |
11 | | weapons on their way to the
black business district; upon their |
12 | | arrival, the streets erupted in gunfire as black snipers |
13 | | exchanged fire with both rioters and soldiers; the Tennessee |
14 | | National Guard at one point fired 2 machine guns |
15 | | indiscriminately into the
neighborhood, eventually dispersing |
16 | | the rioters; shooting continued sporadically for several |
17 | | hours; outgunned, the
black defenders gradually fled, allowing |
18 | | the guardsmen to gain control of the area; newspapers placed |
19 | | the death toll at
just 2 persons, though eyewitness accounts |
20 | | suggest the dead were so many that the bodies were dumped into |
21 | | the Tennessee
River, while others were buried in mass graves |
22 | | outside the city; and |
23 | | WHEREAS, A racial holocaust in Detroit, Michigan in 1943 |
24 | | flared from the increased friction over the sharp rise in the |
25 | | black population, which led to competition with whites on the |
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| | HR1150 | - 9 - | LRB100 22283 ALS 41007 r |
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1 | | job and housing markets; on June 20, 1943, rioting broke out on |
2 | | Belle
Isle, a recreational area used by both races but |
3 | | predominately by blacks; fist fights escalated into a major |
4 | | conflict; the
first wave of looting and bloodshed began in the |
5 | | "Paradise Valley" and later spread to other sections of the
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6 | | city; white mobs attacked blacks in the downtown area and |
7 | | traveled into black neighborhoods by car; by the time
federal |
8 | | troops arrived to halt the racial holocaust, black communities |
9 | | and homes were damaged in amounts exceeding $2 million; and
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10 | | WHEREAS, Many blacks were economically distressed because |
11 | | of the loss of homes, businesses, and jobs from previous racial
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12 | | holocausts; they migrated to areas like Chicago, New York, |
13 | | California, D.C., New Jersey, and Maryland, where they
found |
14 | | refuge and safety with other family members as well as entry |
15 | | level employment, government subsidies, and low-income |
16 | | housing; and
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17 | | WHEREAS, Most of the black communities that were attacked |
18 | | from 1914 to 1943 were completely abandoned or regentrified,
or |
19 | | have continued to struggle because of the social, racial, and |
20 | | economic barriers that accompany generational
poverty; as |
21 | | descendants of black slaves struggled to recreate wealth and |
22 | | make demands for equal education and social and
workforce |
23 | | opportunities, over 700 racial holocausts took place between |
24 | | 1964 and 1971, adding to the debilitating forces against blacks
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| | HR1150 | - 10 - | LRB100 22283 ALS 41007 r |
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1 | | which further pushed them behind the economic development |
2 | | curve; and
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3 | | WHEREAS, Racial holocausts in the United States and their |
4 | | consequences for black communities have served as a constant |
5 | | reminder of the open platforms for constant displacement |
6 | | through the destruction of small
businesses and housing which |
7 | | has created the inability for blacks to rise above; lacking |
8 | | business or homeowners
insurance, blacks have left the land to |
9 | | be bought by developers or surrendered for delinquent taxes;
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10 | | solving the attendant poverty problems and re-building the |
11 | | economic capacity that could re-circulate community dollars |
12 | | would create sustainability; and |
13 | | WHEREAS, Research by social scientists William Collins and |
14 | | Robert Margo, published in the National Bureau of Economic
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15 | | Research Working Paper 10243, shows that black communities have |
16 | | never recovered from the economic
impact created by racial |
17 | | holocausts; the studies show economic disadvantages that were |
18 | | created to keep black communities under
the poverty level and |
19 | | classified as the working poor; finally, the studies show the |
20 | | impact of segregation on the rising prices of impoverished |
21 | | urban developments and the socioeconomic factors that created |
22 | | the downward spiral in black communities and
real estate |
23 | | values; and
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| | HR1150 | - 11 - | LRB100 22283 ALS 41007 r |
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1 | | WHEREAS, Many urban renewal initiatives and public housing |
2 | | transformation projects, among other pilot
programs, were |
3 | | created in the City of Chicago and other cities; other small |
4 | | business and community initiatives were
also implemented; |
5 | | however, other ethnic races entering black communities were |
6 | | able to be funded and financed, while
black business owners |
7 | | were driven to close and work part-time minimum wage jobs to |
8 | | survive; black citizens migrated to other communities in |
9 | | surrounding areas; the initiatives were promoted as a way to |
10 | | create access, growth,
and equal opportunities for |
11 | | communities, but promoted renting instead of property |
12 | | ownership, thus creating
an economic gap which allowed other |
13 | | nationalities to fill the demands for small businesses and |
14 | | property ownership in black
communities; therefore, be it
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15 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE |
16 | | HUNDREDTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we |
17 | | urge the United States Congress to rewrite history and redefine |
18 | | the race riots as racial holocaust; and be it further
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19 | | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be |
20 | | delivered to President Donald Trump, U.S. Senate Majority |
21 | | Leader Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck |
22 | | Schumer, U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, U.S. House of |
23 | | Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and all members |
24 | | of the Illinois Congressional Delegation.
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