95 years ago today, white Tulsans burned down the richest black neighborhood in the country

[Recursion]

http://tulsahistory.org/learn/online-exhibits/the-tulsa-race-riot/

(NB: The city of Tulsa only started publicly admitting this happened a few years ago...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot

Tulsa was the jewel of the first wave of the Great Migration. The neighborhood of Greenwood was where black migrants from the cotton states who had made money working the oil wells settled, prospered, and eventually grew richer than their white neighbors; it was known throughout the near west as "Black Wall Street" (they probably didn't say "black" at the time, but anyways). 1500 black-owned businesses and residences were burned and looted, and 300 residents (mostly African American) killed. The neighborhood partially rebuilt, but was leveled in the 1950s in the frenzy to bulldoze black neighborhoods and put freeways over them.

For 95 years the survivors and their descendants have sought reparations. In 1996 the state legislature finally agreed to do a study; the only provisions that were actually enacted were a historical center (which has since lost all of its public funding) and a scholarship fund for survivors' descendants (which has since been cut).

[Jesus Malverde]

1. Dropped bombs on them...nt

[Recursion]

2. Interestingly the soldiers universally reported taking fire from both black and white groups

I've never been sure what to make of that.

[brush]

3. The blacks were most likely defending themselves, the whites . . . who know?

They probably thought the solders were stopping them from more killing.

[Recursion]

5. Not to mention the soldiers were mostly recent WWI vets

Like, people who you probably wouldn't want to shoot at if you'd like to not die, but they managed to not slaughter the white Tulsans.

[JHB]

14. There were likely veterans among all sides

Among the OKlahoma NG soldiers, among the white rioters, and among the black defenders.

[raging moderate]

9. Maybe the white shooters were just blindly firing at everybody.

They sound as if they were not behaving rationally.

[Hydra]

4. Absolutely horrible stuff

The growing realization that we are all related makes this even more horrible and hateful. "How dare you be successful and think you're as good as us! We'll destroy you!"

[Islandurp]

6. Why call it a riot?

That was a straight up pogrom.

[Hortensis]

15. Yup.

[malaise]

19. Precisely

Last edited Tue May 31, 2016, 07:42 PM - Edit history (1)

They find a way to destroy black wealth any time folks achieve.
You'd never know it was white people who enslaved us- the hatred remains palpable because when we achieve it destroys centuries of myths. It's why they hate Obama.

[heaven05]

24. +1000

true.....this hate receded for a while, but the election of our current POTUS brought them out of their stinking sewers and fetid swamps again. And now they have a full blown racist as their leader and just look at his raving, lunatic and racist base of cretins just chomping at the bit to be let loose on minorities of all persuasions. How many would stand around, with tobacco juice from their chew dribbling down their redneck chins, drinking whiskey while guffawing and celebrating as a black body or bodies of black men, women and children were gunned down or had bombs dropped on them. This is still one racist ass country, no doubt.

[malaise]

25. Excellent post

[bluestateguy]

7. This is what struck out at me

Newspaper coverage

The Tulsa Tribune, one of two white-owned papers published in Tulsa, broke the story in that afternoon's edition with the headline: "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator", describing the alleged incident. According to some witnesses, the same edition of the Tribune included an editorial warning of a potential lynching of Rowland, and entitled "To Lynch Negro Tonight." The paper was known at the time to have a "sensationalist" style of news writing. All original copies of that issue of the paper have apparently been destroyed, and the relevant page is missing from the microfilm copy, so the exact content of the column (and whether it existed at all) remains in dispute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot

[gollygee]

17. In the book Sundown Towns

The author talks about how he'd hear about a racial terrorism incident, such as a lynching or riot or other violence, and then he'd go to the local library to read about it, and generally that issue of the paper would be mysteriously missing.

[Hulk]

8. You would be lucky to find one in 1000 Americans who even know of this fact

You would be lucky to find one in 1000 Americans who even know of this fact. We are purposely kept ignorant. This is one tragic event this hidden deep in the archives of atrocities against the Negroes in America.

Watch the kitten Burns documentary on reconstruction sometime. "We are #1" is such shallow bull shit. Our history is filled with courageous characters and centuries of atrocities.

[Recursion]

10. Or the 1898 Wilmington coup (nt)

[SunSeeker]

11. K & R for exposure. nt

[Feeling the Bern]

12. The production company I work for has a TV series lined up about this called Greenwood

We have a bunch of these socially conscience projects lined up. I'm writing two of them now.

[Babel_17]

13. "1,000 whites at the courthouse went home for their own guns"

The wikipedia article itself is hair raising. I'm sure a good history would be even more so.

[Igel]

16. Last I read it, it was.

It left a few places where the incident was dying down, only to have it revved back up again.

No innocents, lots of suspicion.

The "soldiers were fired on by both sides" makes sense if the entirety of the Wiki piece (as it was last year, at least) is accepted. If you absolve your own community and believe that it has to be entirely the other side's fault, well, then, some of the facts just can't fit and have to be overlooked.

[Babel_17]

20. With "a good history" I was thinking of a book length accounting

I have no issue with the wikipedia entry though my wording did leave that up in the air. Sorry about that.

I just meant that even the highly abbreviated telling at wikipedia was hair raising, and that a longer version would be more so.

[brer cat]

18. K&R

[aikoaiko]

21. A sad and horrible piece of US history.

I'd like to see the full report on reparations for this event and what was recommended.

[Blue_Tires]

22. k+r

[ret5hd]

23. A short video of Reconciliation Park in the Greenwood and Archer area of Tulsa:

[Dont call me Shirley]

26. Those attacked and terrorized...

[yellerpup]

27. They actually did call it the "Black Wall Street"

This was after Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBoise started people thinking of themselves in a different way - with pride in their dark skin. This was also a time of the largest growth of the KKK since the Civil War, and hideously violent movement. With a population of about 1,100 in 1900 that grew to 110,000 by 1921 (oil), Tulsa was the only city in the US where telephone booths were segregated. What is almost never mentioned about the "Greenwood Massacre" (formerly known as the Tulsa Race Riot) is that the 'downtown' area of Tulsa was moved away from the Greenwood area a few miles south a year after statehood (1908) because the mixed-bloods (Native American/Black, White/Black) owned the property and there was no 'ground floor' in real estate left. I know quite a lot about it, I was born in Tulsa, I am Cherokee mixed blood. I believe that this attack was in the planning stages, including the aerial assault, for at least two years beforehand. They were trying to duplicate the bloody "Red Summer" of 1919 when poor whites rioted and killed hundred near St. Louis.

[Catherine Vincent]

28. Thank you!

It's always a good idea to be reminded of this tragic event that happened in the good ole USA.