Remember the Victims of The Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31, 1921 One Hundred Years Ago Today May 31, 2021
May 31, 2021
Contributed
TULSA (AGN.NEWS) – Today marks the 100th anniversary of the darkest day of racial violence perpetrated against Black citizens in America’s history. It’s called the “Tulsa Race Massacre” that took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921. Historians, citizens, government, and victims alike have labeled it one of “the single worst incidents of racial violence in American history”.
It was May 31, 1921 when the Black community of Tulsa, Oklahoma experienced the terror of several thousand white men, including police and city officials, finally converged in mass, upon the tax paying helpless citizens of the Greenwood district.
Greenwood was a thriving neighborhood of 35 blocks of homes, over 6,000 residents, over 1,000 businesses, shopping centers, and the largest Black-owned hotel in America (all valued at over $35,000,000 in today’s dollars).
This Greenwood neighborhood was the largest concentration of Black-owned homes and businesses in the United States called, “Black Wall Street.” A financially, self-sufficient $35 million dollar plus community of hard-working Black residents who were the envy of Tulsa’s other communities.
What happened? There were many theories but one reality. In 1921 segregated Tulsa, Black residents were not allowed to use “White Only” public restrooms. Black men and women had to use hard-to-find “Colored Only” restrooms. This explains why the downtown “Shoe Shine Boy”, 19-year-old Dick Rowland, had to take the elevator, operated by Sarah Page, the 17-year-old White elevator operator of the nearby Drexel Building.
Rowland had go to another floor where the “Colored Only” restroom was located. As the manually-operated elevator was being lowered to the ground floor it jerked and the Black “Shoe Shine Boy” fell forward and touched the girl.
At that point the elevator door opened and the girl exited. At seeing this scene, White residents in the lobby started accusing the “Shoe Shine Boy” of attempting to rape the girl. As innocent as this was, the “Shoe Shine Boy” was taken into custody and the local newspaper, operated by White Supremacists, ran the story of attempted rape and thereby pouring fuel on the fire of racial hatred in Tulsa.
After months of seeing each other in the building as employees and who knew each other, no one stopped to ask what really happened. There was no proof or testimony by Sarah Page that Rowland tried to rape her. The rumor mill churned out this outlandish story as an excuse to terrorized the prosperous Greenwood community.
Soon, over a thousand armed White men, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, gathered at the courthouse and prepared to lynch the “Shoe Shine Boy”. When the Black community heard that Rowland was to be lynched around 75 Black men, including World War I veterans, armed themselves, hoping to prevent a lynching.
When they arrived at the courthouse and jail the sheriff told everyone to leave and that he had the situation under control. As the crowd tried to leave a White man tried to disarm one of the Black veterans. In the struggle the gun fired one shot. According to the reports of the sheriff, “all hell broke loose.” At the end of the firefight, 12 people were killed: 10 White and 2 Black. As news of these deaths spread throughout the city, mob violence exploded. This was the spark that ignited the flame of two days of racial terror.
Soon there were several thousand armed White men walking through Greenwood shooting Black men, women, and children block by block. They looted businesses, homes, and set fire to every home, automobile, truck, and business. The large Black-owned hotel was spared at the beginning because the Black owner and some of his friends stood guard with guns on the ready.
That changed when local companies who had airplanes starting using them to bomb the hotel from the air. Those airplanes used machine guns, fire bombs, dynamite, gas bombs, and other bombs on every building and home in Greenwood.
The White mob started to round up every black man trying to flee the city. More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals, and as many as 6,000 Black residents were interned in large facilities, many of them for several days. Hundreds were detained while their wives and children tried to escape, some followed the railroad tracks out of town. Thousands were left homeless.
The “Official” record has been disputed. Many of the survivors and the state commission have said they believe at least 300 Blacks were murdered. The record shows officially 26 Blacks and 13 Whites. The true number may never be known. What is known is that many were buried in mass graves in an effort to cover up the massacre.
Viola Fletcher was seven years old when a white mob destroyed her home city in Tulsa, Oklahoma 100 years ago.
Fletcher, 107, one of the few living survivors from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, “I’m here seeking justice and asking my country to acknowledge what happened,” Fletcher said during the “Continuing injustice: The Centennial of the Tulsa-Greenwood Race Massacre” hearing in front of a House Judiciary subcommittee, calling for justice for the survivors.
Greenwood residents who stayed worked hard and within 10 years Black residents had rebuilt many of the homes and businesses. City officials coordinated among themselves to change zoning laws to prevent Greenwood from becoming what it was in 1921.
Both Black and White residents in Tulsa refused to talk about the Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31 and June 1, 1921 for well over 50 years. Even young intellectuals in Tulsa had never heard of it in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1996, 75 years after the massacre, a bipartisan group in the state legislature authorized formation of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.
A 2001 report issued by a state legislature-appointed commission admitted that the state’s historians largely ignored the massacre and children did not learn about it in school.
Today, we remember the thousands of victims including the survivors of this massacre. Today, there are events in Tulsa to remember the many generations of traumatized victims on both sides of the massacre including a candlelight vigil.
The commemoration is slated to include a visit by President Joe Biden on Tuesday and the unveiling of the $20 million Greenwood Rising museum. Even though the museum is not ready to open since it is still under construction, it will tell the story of Greenwood and what actually happened. This museum is part of the process of the healing needed by the victims.
Today, we remember the many victims, both Black and white, who are finally able to feel comfortable speaking of the horrors of May 31 and June 1, 1921. Justice for the victims will speed the healing process.
President Biden’s Proclamation
President Joe Biden issued a proclamation on Monday marking 100 years since a “violent white supremacist mob” descended on the thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 31, 1921, wrecking businesses, destroying homes and killing hundreds of Black people.
In the proclamation, Biden pointed to the racist mob that “raided, firebombed and destroyed … the thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood.”
“Families and children were murdered in cold blood. Homes, businesses, and churches were burned. In all, as many as 300 Black Americans were killed,” the proclamation reads. “Today, on this solemn centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, I call on the American people to reflect on the deep roots of racial terror in our Nation and recommit to the work of rooting out systemic racism across our country.”
Racial hatred in America never pays, it only costs a lot!
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