US President Joe Biden speaks during a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

US President Joe Biden led emotional commemorations on Tuesday to honor victims of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, saying the US must learn from one of the worst episodes of racist violence in the country's history.

The Democratic leader marked the centenary of the massacre by meeting survivors in the city, after the White House announced new initiatives including billions of dollars in grants to address racial disparities in wealth, home ownership and small business ownership.

"This was not a riot, this was a massacre," Biden said to loud applause. "[It was] among the worst in our history - but not the only one and, for too long, forgotten by our history.

"As soon as it happened, there was a clear effort to erase it from our collective memories... for a long time the schools in Tulsa didn't even teach it, let alone schools elsewhere."

On May 31, 1921, a group of black men went to the Tulsa courthouse to defend a young African-American man accused of assaulting a white woman. They found themselves facing a mob of hundreds of furious white people.

Tensions spiked and shots were fired, and the African-Americans retreated to their neighborhood, Greenwood.

The next day, at dawn, white men looted and burned the neighborhood, at the time so prosperous that it was called Black Wall Street.

In 2001, a commission created to study the tragedy concluded that Tulsa authorities themselves had armed some of the white rioters.

The mayor of Tulsa formally apologized this week for the city government's failure to protect the community.

Historians say that as many as 300 African-American residents lost their lives, and nearly 10,000 people were left homeless.

"I come here to help fill the silence because in silence, wounds deepen," Biden said.

AFP