Smoke billowing over Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1921
The
Oklahoma "where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain" didn't smell of wheat. It smelled of over 300 dead black bodies, homes and businesses burned in a
white massacre of black Americans, in the Greenwood suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which started on May 31 in 1921.
35 square blocks of homes and businesses were torched by mobs of angry whites. ... Over 600 successful businesses were lost. An estimated eight thousand citizens were homeless. Over one thousand two hundred homes destroyed.
It's been labelled as "
The Destruction of Black Wall Street" or "
The Tulsa Riot." I prefer the first rather than the latter, since the way that "riot" tends to be constructed when blacks are involved, casts blame on the victims, rather than the perpetrators. To this day there has been no
justice or reparations for the few living survivors. It took "80 years before the survivors of the riot even got an official apology from the city of Tulsa. Mayor Kathy Taylor held a “celebration of conscience” and honored with a medal each of the survivors the city could contact."
Expat Okie wrote about the legislative struggles in both Oklahoma and in Congress. Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) has repeatedly submitted bills attempting to achieve reparations with the John Hope Franklin Tulsa-Greenwood Riot Accountability Act, to no avail.
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If you have never heard Brother Arthur's rap about what happened during that terrible time, take a listen.
For Years, Brother Arthur has been a source of guidance and motivation for Tulsa's city youth. What he shares is deeply rooted in that experience. Br. Arthur shares some of his outrage about what happen in Greenwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma on 31 May and 1 June in 1921.
"It was not a race riot it was a massacre." He describes Greenwood, also known as Black Wall Street, and Little Africa being firebombed from the air, and the National Guard opening fire on terrified black residents with machine guns. Black people had no right to prosper. The vile envy of local racists demanded complete obliteration.
Panoramic view of the burnout damage
Panoramic view of the devastation
Taken from the southeast corner of the roof of Booker T. Washington High School, this panorama shows much of the damage within a day or so of the riot and the burning. The road running laterally through the center of the image is Greenwood Avenue, the road slanting from the center to the left is Easton, and the road slanting off to the right is Frankfort.
I've written about this history before, in
"NY Times, 'Uppity Nig**rs' and the destruction of Black Wall Street" and
"The Tulsa Massacre and the Destruction of Black Wall Street." Fortunately, today there are several excellent histories of what happened in Tulsa, and the aftermath.
Amazon has this
review of Alfred Brody's
Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Race Reparations, and Reconciliation:
The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot was the country's bloodiest civil disturbance of the century. Thirty city blocks were burned to the ground, perhaps 150 died, and the prosperous black community of Greenwood, Oklahoma, was turned to rubble. Brophy draws on his own extensive research into contemporary accounts and court documents to chronicle this devastating riot, showing how and why the rule of law quickly eroded. Brophy shines his lights on mob violence and racism run amok, both on the night of the riot and the following morning. Equally important, he shows how the city government and police not only permitted looting, shootings, and the burning of Greenwood, but actively participated in it by deputizing white citizens haphazardly, giving out guns and badges, or sending men to arm themselves. Likewise, the National Guard acted unconstitutionally, arresting every black resident they found, leaving property vulnerable to the white mob.Brophy's stark narrative concludes with a discussion of reparations for victims of the riot through lawsuits and legislative action. That case has implications for other reparations movements, including reparations for slavery."Recovers a largely forgotten history of black activism in one of the grimmest periods of race relations. . .. Linking history with advocacy, Brophy also offers a reasoned defense of reparations for the riot's victims."-Washington Post Book World
For further reading I recommend:
Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 by Scott Ellsworth (Author), John Hope Franklin (Foreword) and Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy, by James S. Hirsch (Author).
I look at the image of this black man with his hands in the air in 1921, and wonder just how far have we come? There is a
postcard from that time labelled "Captured Negroes on way to Convention Hall during Tulsa Race Riot, June 1st, 1921."
Just like rounding up animals, only these are two-legged. Where are the photos of the rounded-up white murderers? They do not exist.