Biden makes bizarre start to Tulsa speech by running off stage to 'make sure' two girls got ice cream - before getting date of the Capitol riot wrong
President Joe Biden delayed the start of his speech marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa massacre on Tuesday by asking two girls in the audience if they were getting ice cream.
The commander-in-chief noticed the two youngsters off the side of the speech and ran over before beginning his remarks.
'I just had to make sure the two girls got ice cream when this is over. Almost five years old coming to hear the president speak. My lord. In my faith we call that purgatory,' he said before heading back to the podium.
Biden was in Tulsa to mark the 100th anniversary of the Black Wall Street Massacre, when white rioters killed African Americans and looted businesses in the prosperous black neighborhood of Greenwood in 1921.
President Joe Biden delayed the start of his speech marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa massacre on Tuesday by asking two girls in the audience if they wanted ice cream
'My fellow Americans, this was not a riot. This was a massacre,' Biden said after meeting with the three living survivors of that event. 'Among the worst in our history but not the only one. And for too long, forgotten by our history.'
He then got the date of the Capitol Riot wrong - saying it was January 9 and not January 6.
Ahead of the trip, the White House said Biden was visiting the city to make sure the massacre, one of the worst - and largely overlooked - acts of racial violence in American history, was not forgotten. He is the first president to mark the occasion.
'Just because history is silent, it doesn't mean that it did not take place. And while darkness can hide much, it erases nothing,' he said. 'Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous, they can't be buried no matter how hard people try.'
'I come here to help fill the silence. Because in silence, wounds deepen. As painful as it is, only in remembrance do wounds heal,' he noted. 'We memorialize what happened here in Tulsa so it can't be erased. ... We simply can't bury pain and trauma forever.'
He then got the date of the Capitol Riot wrong - saying it was January 9 and not January 6 - and then cracked jokes about the age of the survivors
He urged Americans to remember the occasion and learn from it.
'We do ourselves no favors by pretending none of this ever happened or 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,' the president said.
Biden has made ice cream a part of his recent domestic trips. Last week he enjoyed a chocolate chip cone in Cleveland, Ohio (above)
Biden listed a litany of crimes committed against the residents of Greenwood over the two-day massacre: in less than 24 hours, 1,100 black homes and businesses were destroyed, insurance companies rejected claims damage, and 10,000 people were left destitute with the homeless placed in internment camps.
The destruction set back income and class mobility for a generation of residents of an historically black neighborhood that was growing in influence. It became a site of destruction with the racial fallout lingering to this day.
'What happened in Greenwood was an act of hate and domestic terrorism with the through line that exists today still,' Biden said.
He also used his remarks to invoke the late Congressman John Lewis and the struggle for black voting rights. Several states have made it tougher to vote in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
'This sacred right is under assault with incredible intensity like I've never seen, even though I got started as a public defender and a civil rights lawyer,' he said.
President Joe Biden with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge (third left), Director of the Domestic Policy Council Susan Rice (center) and Director of the Office of Public Engagement Cedric Richmond (left), listens to Michelle Brown-Burdex (right) during the tour
President Biden didn't answer questions on whether there should be an apology to the victims of the Tulsa massacre
Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking to reporters on Air Force One during the flight to Tulsa, didn't answer when asked Biden's thoughts on payments to survivors. She merely stated his previous position - that he supports a study on reparations.
'President Biden believes we have to take core steps right now to fight systemic racism,' she said. 'He also supports a study, as we've said before, for reparations, but believes that first and foremost, the task in front of us is ... to root out systemic racism where it exists right now.'
'Remember & Rise,' a high-profile event scheduled for Monday in Tulsa to close out the commemoration of the massacre, was canceled just days before. Singer-songwriter John Legend was set to headline and it was to feature a keynote speech from Stacey Abrams.
The star-studded tribute was called off after a lawyer representing survivors of the massacre demanded $1 million for each of them to appear, as well as a $50 million reparations fund for descendants.
The commission behind the event say they hope to reschedule and expressed disappointment over the cancelation.
The Tulsa Race Massacre - which left up to 300 people dead and burned the city's prosperous black neighborhood known as Greenwood to the ground on May 31 and June 1, 1921 - is one of the starkest examples of black wealth being decimated.
Jean-Pierre said Biden was visiting the city to make sure the massacre, one of the worst - and largely overlooked - acts of racial violence in American history, was not forgotten. He is the first president to mark the occasion.
'There are survivors of that violence who are still forced to fight for recognition,' she said. 'And that is the focus of what the president wants to do. He wants to make sure that this is on record, this is not forgotten - a story that has not been told is told. And, you know, it is an indictment of systemic racism that these survivors have been forced to fight for literally 100 years to have their humanity recognized, and to have justice served, and justice and fairness still eludes them.'
Tulsa Race Massacre survivors, from left, Hughes Van Ellis Sr., Lessie Benningfield Randle, and Viola Fletcher, demanded $1 million each to appear at a memorial event for the massacre
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