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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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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
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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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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
| ||||||
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
| ||||||
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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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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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
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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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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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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
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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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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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