Tulsa shooting stirs memories of bloody race riot

[Cooley Hurd]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/04/us/tulsa-race-riot-memories/index.html

Editor's note: This story contains language some people may find offensive.

Tulsa, Oklahoma (CNN)When the police shooting of unarmed father Terence Crutcher happened on September 16 in Tulsa, the city's reaction was furious -- but peaceful.

<snip>

But the incident also shed fresh light on a dark moment in American history that has largely been forgotten -- or was never learned.

Ninety-five years ago on the very streets where protestors marched in September, chanting against the police killings of unarmed black men in America, hundreds of African-Americans died in just one terrible day.

It is known as the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. But that is not how the granddaughter of one of the survivors sees it.

<snip>

'Black Wall Street' boasted 300 businesses

Black Wall Street boasted more than 300 black-owned businesses including two theaters.

Black success, Brown said, was the source of friction in the town because it "caused some envy and anger among white people who commented, 'How dare those negroes have a grand piano in their house, and I don't have a piano in my house'," she said.

Not everyone was well off -- but Tulsa was fast becoming known as a place of opportunity for blacks who wanted to make a good living. What they didn't know is that by the end of the night on June 1, 1921, their neighborhood would be decimated.

Historians say the spark was an encounter between a 17-year-old white girl named Sarah Page and a 19-year-old black man named Dick Rowland.

</snip>

I'm well-over the 4 paragraph rule, but I encourage everyone to read about this event.

[Odin2005]

1. We need to quit calling it a "race riot", it was a RACIST POGROM.