I was so shocked at the recent TV and newspaper media stories about the 1921 Tulsa, Okla., race massacre. In my 79 years I had never heard the story before. And I am sure I am not the only one. How could such an event not have been in our history books in high school or college? I don’t know if it has anything to do with the “critical race theory” stuff that has been blowing around that no one seems able to define or explain simply.
I do now know that there was a commission in 2001 that studied the event, but its findings were not significantly broadcast. But what is for sure is that on May 31-June1, 1921, the prosperous Greenwood district of Tulsa, Okla., populated by Black people, was destroyed by a white mob. Triggered by a confrontation between white men planning a lynching and Black men intent on stopping it, a 16-hour spasm of violence – including home-made fire bombs dropped from airplanes – left 100 to 300 Black people dead and most of Greenwood, including more than 1,250 houses, burned to the ground. No one was criminally prosecuted, and no damage was covered by insurance.
I am so glad that the information has finally hit the front pages and newscasts. Not because we should be somehow finding ways to identify and punish the mob members, but so that as many of us as possible could see that such an horrid event actually happened in a free post-Civil War America, so that we can study about how such an event came to pass, and learn what we need to do to make sure that such an event never happens again.
Fred Ash, Sandy