A Memorial Day for Tulsa

One hundred years ago today, the community of Greenwood, popularly known as Black Wall Street, was murderously razed to the ground. An economically successful Black area of Tulsa was, for all intents and purposes – because there was intent and purpose behind this massacre – erased.

We know how it happened. We know why it happened; although, that it happened it all is a damning indictment of race relations in this country. Why it happened has roots that go back to the founding of this country, in the erroneous, false, and fraudulent belief that humans can own other humans. More specifically, that white people can own Black people. Grammatically, I suppose I should capitalize “white”, but the very concept of doing so would mean to equate the oppressor with the oppressed; and in this historical instance, the murderer with the murdered.

That the Tulsa Massacre was paved over and shunted down American history’s memory hole should surprise no one. That the covering up was so successful for so long, perhaps, should. Two years after Red Summer, a horde of white people descended on Greenwood to punish an entire community for the allegation of the rape of a white woman by Dick Rowland, a young African American. The charges were dropped but not after a local newspaper spurred on white rage to exact revenge. The Tulsa Tribune headline of May 30, 1921 read “Nab Negro For Attacking girl In an Elevator.” Let that sink in for a minute. It resonates with all such rhetoric that fuels the flames of hatred and emboldens the bigot to band together with other bigots and spread further afield the fire.

The headline was a call to action for the armed white mob that headed for the jail where Dick Rowland, a shoe shiner, was being held. After word got out, a number of Black men from Greenwood, also armed headed for the jail to protect Rowland from what would certainly be a lynching of epic proportions. Bear in mind that 26 Black men had been lynched in Oklahoma in the two decades before Tulsa. This would have been business as usual had and in many ways, it was; a mob of angry white men exacting vengeance on Black people without any sense of due process, much less the concept that a person is innocent until proven otherwise. And there lies the rub, of course; in the eyes of these white Tulsans, Black people were not people.

“Business as usual”? In one sense, yes. In a larger sense, in terms of scope, in terms of devastation, in terms of human cost, it was far worse. The Tulsa Massacre was very much the apex of what white supremacy in the United States could look like at its most virulent and violent. Three hundred Black Americans – men, women, children – were dead by the end of this, I don’t know what other word to use, massacre. Slaughter. More than 1, 250 homes burned to the ground and the entirety of the Greenwood community of 35 blocks razed. As many as 10, 000 people were displaced, homeless well into the winter. Held by the National Guard, release was granted only when a white person vouched for the detainee.

After the massacre, many fled, many rebuilt. There is more to the story to tell, but there are others who are telling it far better than I could. I realize that today is Memorial Day, a day when we honor those who fought and died for this country. Let alone that many of the men who died in Tulsa this day one hundred years ago were veterans of World War I, in many respects the legacy of race relations in this country is as much a legacy of a war fought domestically as much any fought overseas.

Following are resources for further exploration and study and I recommend that over the coming weeks, all who read this, do so. I have dim memories of hearing about what happened in Tulsa a couple of decades ago, but the memories are dim because the way it was reported was apparently not particularly effective. This is not something I would have dismissed out of hand. Like many, the Tulsa Massacre came into sharper focus owing to the HBO series “Watchmen” and as one writer pointed out, we should not be learning about our history from HBO.

There is a great amount of material to study, documentaries to watch, and afterward, genuine changes to be made that start with each of us melatonin-challenged humans. If you say, “well, I don’t bear any responsibility for this; it was done by other people long ago”, I need to point out that attitude is precisely why you need think and reflect more. Also, a hundred years ago is no time at all and the injustice persists: we – the predominantly white society continue to kill Black people with impunity at a significant annual amount that averages around 227 fatalities a year or 75 or so less than estimated were killed in Greenwood¹. And yes, we all bear responsibility for not changing and continuing to hold onto our prejudice.

If you say, “I’m not a racist, I have Black friends” or “I don’t see color”, think again. You’re still indulging in tokenism and, basically, don’t understand the concept. Here’s something: if you “don’t see color”, you don’t see the richness and diversity of the multi-hued lotus that is humanity. You don’t really appreciate diversity. If you have to bolster yourself as a “not a racist” by touting that you have Black friends, I have to question how close you are that you trundle them out as defense.

Prejudice lies in somewhere in all of us. Admitting that is the first step to confronting it; listening should come along with that. No pre-emptive “buts”, no defensiveness. Keeping ear and heart open is where we begin.

We also need to ensure that this part of our shared history of this country is part of education. As evinced by House Bill 3979, the Republicans would like to introduce legislation that would restrict learning about the intertwined complexities of racism within the fabric of American history. Texas state representative Steve Toth, a sponsor of the bill (that died in the house), asked rather disingenuously, “Do you want our Texas kids to be taught that the system of government in Texas, in the United States, is nothing but a cover-up for white supremacy?”² Such is the reflexive nature of those of us who, frankly, know racism is wrong but continue to promote it.

Forgetting and burying history is collective version of trying to suppress memories. More trauma will arise the longer we work to actively ignore the uglier aspects of our history. We live in a world of “both sidesism”, “whataboutism”, and countless clever ways of dodging hard questions and unpleasant realities. The desire to bury the past is the sure sign that there’s healing to be done. The scab has been opened, it’s not going to heal without medicine.

Following are a series of articles and resources for educators and parents from the Zinn Education Project. For documentaries, I cannot tout “Tulsa: the Fire and the Forgotten” highly enough. Others I have yet to watch, but they are very much on the list.

Afterword

It is noteworthy that Dick Rowland apparently survived and vanished after the Massacre, as did Sarah Page, the woman who allegedly screamed when Rowland touched her. She did not press charges. 

Dick Rowland, also Roland, was not his name. His birth name was Jimmie or Jimmy Jones and there seems to be evidence that he was spirited out of Tulsa by Sheriff Willard McCullough.3

Notes

1. These figures are extrapolated from data points in Statista, 2021.

2. Quoted in Vognar.

3. See Brown, Wikipedia, and This Land.

Further Reading/Resources

Brown, DeNeen. The Seattle Times. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/after-his-arrest-sparked-the-tulsa-race-massacre-dick-rowland-disappeared/. May 30, 2021.

Christensen, Linda. “Burning Tulsa: The Legacy of Black Dispossession”. The Zinn Education Project. https://www.zinnedproject.org/if-we-knew-our-history/burning-tulsa-the-legacy-of-black-dispossession/. May 28, 2013.

Chugtai, Alia. “Know Their Names – Black People Killed by the Police in the U.S.” Al Jazeera. https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2020/know-their-names/index.html. 2020.

Clark, Alexis. “Tulsa's 'Black Wall Street' Flourished as a Self-Contained Hub in Early 1900s” History.com. https://www.history.com/news/black-wall-street-tulsa-race-massacre. January 27, 2021.

Deggans, Eric. “3 Documentaries You Should Watch About The Tulsa Race Massacre”. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/30/1000923192/3-documentaries-you-should-watch-about-the-tulsa-race-massacre. May 30, 2021.

"Dick Rowland". Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Rowland.

“Every High-Profile Death Of A Black Person By Police Since George Floyd's Murder” (video). Newsweek by way of MSN.com. https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/biden-calls-for-further-investigation-of-covid-19-origin/vp-AAKs3f6. May 27, 2021.

Hill, Karlos K. "Photographing the Tulsa Massacre of 1921". The Public Domain Review. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/photographing-the-tulsa-massacre-of-1921. May 27, 2021.

Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. “Tulsa Race Riot - A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.” https://web.archive.org/web/20100613071113/http://okhistory.org/trrc/freport.pdf.

Statista. “Number of people shot to death by the police in the United States from 2017 to 2021, by race”. https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/. 2021.

Sullivan, Missy. 'Black Wall Street' Before, During and After the Tulsa Race Massacre: PHOTOS. History.com. https://www.history.com/news/tulsa-massacre-black-wall-street-before-and-after-photos. May 24, 2021.

“This Day in History - May 31, 1921: Tulsa Massacre”. The Zinn Education Project. https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/tulsa-race-riot/.

This Land. "Is this the face of the man at the center of the Tulsa Race Riot?" This Land Press. https://thislandpress.com/2013/05/09/is-this-the-face-of-the-man-at-the-center-of-the-tulsa-race-riot/. May 9, 2013.

“Tulsa: the Fire and the Forgotten Preview” (video). PBS. https://www.pbs.org/video/tulsa-fire-and-forgotten-preview-s5vwka/. Links to schedules are under the TV Schedules heading. Times will vary according to location.

“Tulsa Race Riot Commission Recommends Reparations”. Democracy Now. https://www.democracynow.org/2000/2/8/tulsa_race_riot_commission_recommends_reparations. February 8, 2000.

Vognar, Cris. “Why we must remember the Tulsa Race Massacre”. The Houston Chronicle. https://digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/ODN/HoustonChronicle/shared/ShowArticle.aspx. May 30, 2021.