WASHINGTON (NewsNation Now) — President Joe Biden Tuesday announced new initiatives to address the racial wealth gap in the country on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre.
The plan focuses on home and small business ownership in communities of color and disadvantaged communities, according to the White House.
Biden says he intends to address discrimination in the housing market by looking at inequity in home appraisals and to grow federal contracting with small, disadvantaged businesses by 50%. The administration says that will translate to an additional $100 billion over five years.
The administration also released new information on Biden’s American Jobs Plan proposals to “create jobs and build wealth in communities of color.”
They include:
- A $10 billion Community Revitalization Fund to support community-led civic infrastructure projects
- $15 billion for new grants and technical assistance to support the planning, removal, or retrofitting of existing transportation infrastructure
- A Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit to attract private investment in the development and rehabilitation of affordable homes for low- and moderate-income homebuyers and homeowners
- $5 billion for the Unlocking Possibilities Program, a new grant program that awards flexible funding to jurisdictions that take steps to reduce barriers to producing affordable housing and expand housing choices for people with low or moderate incomes
- $31 billion in small business programs that will increase access to capital for small businesses and provide mentoring, networking, and other forms of technical assistance to socially and economically disadvantaged businesses
President Biden is scheduled to visit Tulsa on Tuesday. Biden will be the first president to participate in remembrances of the destruction of what was known as “Black Wall Street.”
In 1921 — on May 31 and June 1 — Tulsa's white residents and civil society leaders looted and burned to the ground the Greenwood district and used planes to drop projectiles on it. Scores of Black lives were lost, homes and businesses burned to the ground, and a thriving Black community was gutted by the mob.
However, the violence visited upon Tulsa’s Black community didn’t become part of the American story. Instead, it was pushed down, unremembered and untaught until efforts decades later started bringing it into the light. And even this year, with the 100th anniversary of the massacre being recognized, it’s still an unfamiliar history to many — something historians say has broader repercussions.
Biden will deliver remarks from Tulsa at 4:15 p.m. ET. NewsNation will livestream the remarks in the player above.
Biden will meet with the handful of surviving members of the Greenwood community on the 100th anniversary of the killings, White House officials said.
The president will speak about the legacy of racism in the United States and is expected to acknowledge the challenges going forward, an administration official said, noting he cannot fulfill his promise to restore the "soul" of the nation without recognizing the complexity of its history.
In a proclamation on Monday, Biden asked all Americans to "reflect on the deep roots of racial terror in our Nation and recommit to the work of rooting out systemic racism across our country."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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