[Tulsa isn’t the only race massacre you were never taught in school. Here are others.]
It’s important that all this be known. Yet it’s also important to recognize that what happened in that Oklahoma town was not some isolated event. No, Tulsa in 1921 is echoed by New York in 1863, Memphis and New Orleans in 1866, Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898, Atlanta in 1906, Springfield in 1908, East St. Louis in 1917, Chicago and Elaine, Arkansas, in 1919, Rosewood, Florida in 1923 — among others.
On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young black man named Dick Rowland was riding in the elevator in the Drexel Building at Third and Main with a white woman named Sarah Page. The details of what followed vary from person to person. Accounts of an incident circulated among the city’s white community during the day and became more exaggerated with each telling.
Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day and began an investigation. An inflammatory report in the May 31 edition of the Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between black and white armed mobs around the courthouse where the sheriff and his men had barricaded the top floor to protect Rowland. Shots were fired and the outnumbered African Americans began retreating to the Greenwood District.
In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was looted and burned by white rioters. Governor Robertson declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned all black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days.
Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, more than 800 people were treated for injuries and contemporary reports of deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died.
In order to understand the Tulsa Race Massacre it is important to understand the complexities of the times. Dick Rowland, Sarah Page and an unknown gunman were the sparks that ignited a long smoldering fire. Jim Crow, jealousy, white supremacy, and land lust, all played roles in leading up to the destruction and loss of life on May 31 and June 1, 1921.
How many times have I read on far right news sites and blogs "Why bring this up? That happened in the past." (These are the same folks who ride around their communities with the Confederate and "Trump Won!" flags blowing in the wind! Talk about not "getting over it!)
We bring up these atrocities to remind self-satisfied Americans that we need to be a bit more humble when chest-thumping about being "The Greatest Country or Exceptional Country" in the world.
Our Constitution is a great document, but it is often ignored and defiled when flawed human beings disregard it because of their fears and bigotries. What happened in the Greenwood section of Tulsa was not an exception. See above for the other American cities where thriving African-American communities were destroyed based on a rumor, whim, jealousy, or just plain racial hatred.
Massacres in U.S. History
Here is a list of some of the countless massacres in the history of the United States.
Most of these massacres were designed to suppress voting rights, land ownership, economic advancement, education, freedom of the press, religion, LGBTQ rights, and/or labor rights of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, and immigrants. While often referred to as “race riots,” they were massacres to maintain white supremacy.
At the same time those African-American communities were destroyed, lynchings of African-Americans were carried out across the South and other areas with impunity. Efforts to outlaw these extra-judicial killings were quashed by Southern Congressmen by means of the filibuster.
"...the modern filibuster’s first civil rights fatality actually occurred decades earlier in the searing 1922 defeat of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. The Senate’s abandonment of this landmark legislation in the history of anti-Black violence is little remembered today, but it set a path for partisan and ideological battles in the century since and continues to reverberate in our legal system." --WaPo
Read that again. A law that would end extra-judicial killings of Americans was blocked by the filibuster! Areas of the South celebrated lynchings as a day of fun and enjoyment for families. Souvenirs of the murdered victims' body parts were passed around for sale after the Black victims (men, women, and children) were tortured, burned, and hanged. Postcards with images of these horrendous killings were sold and eagerly bought and sent to relatives in other states.
The filibuster stopped legislation that would have stopped the extra-judicial murders of Americans.
Many Americans have never heard of the Tulsa Massacre or any of the other Black communities that were destroyed. And many Americans would like to forget the lynchings that were carried out across the South and other areas, because that all "happened in the past," and "we have to move on." Those folks have no understanding about how the massacres of thriving African-American communities robbed succeeding generations of treasure and the ability to build upon the wealth their forbears created.
Making America face what it did to our African-American citizens is a step toward reconciliation and reparation.
