Greenwood Massacre aka Tulsa Race Riots - 1921

[hanimmal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/18/tulsa-mask-protesters-jeer-black-pastor-reparations/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_tulsa-protests-930am:homepage/story-ans

TULSA — A group of white anti-mask demonstrators jeered a black pastor outside Tulsa’s City Hall this week as he demanded reparations for the 1921 race massacre.

The confrontation took place Wednesday as the Rev. Robert Turner delivered his weekly message about the need for reparations for one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history. A group of white people protesting Tulsa’s new mask ordinance swarmed him, poured water on him and grabbed at his bullhorn.

A video shows the group shouting, “USA! USA! USA!” as Turner began his sermon explaining the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which left as many as 300 black people dead and leveled a 40-square block area of the all-black community of Greenwood.

On Monday, Tulsa broke ground in its search for suspected mass graves from the century-old massacre.
A century after a race massacre, Tulsa finally digs for suspected mass graves

Turner, senior pastor of the historic Vernon AME Church in Greenwood, has come to City Hall each Wednesday for more than two years to protest the massacre and demand reparations for survivors and descendants.

“A racist mob of white people descended on Greenwood and dropped a bomb on Greenwood and killed black people,” Turner shouted in the bullhorn. “And not one of those angry, racist thugs was charged with a crime. God sits high and looks low.”

As Turner continued his sermon, the group of white demonstrators mocked him, with one asking if he took credit cards and another warning that he was “the sign of the beast.”



Protesters hold up signs and chant while the Rev. Robert Turner, of Vernon A.M.E. Church, speaks into a megaphone about reparations for the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. (Ian Maule/Tulsa World/AP)

As the group jeered, Turner shouted: “You care more about a face mask than you do justice, than you do for people whose bodies are still in mass graves.”

One white man shouted, “My ancestors freed your people.” Another shouted, “You are a baldfaced liar.” One white man, wearing a red hat, screamed in Turner’s right ear. Two women are seen in the video grabbing Turner’s left arm.

Tulsa Police Communications Officer Jeanne Pierce told The Post that the department has not determined whether a police report about the incident was filed. “If a report is not filed,” Pierce said, “there will be no investigation.”

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, a Republican, denounced the attack on Turner.

“The plaza in front of City Hall belongs to every Tulsan, and every Tulsan should feel welcome to make their voice heard in that space,” Bynum said.

“Reverend Turner and I have had our differences of opinion, but I will always support his right to express that opinion. I encourage all crime victims to file a report with the Tulsa Police Department so they can follow up accordingly.”
The anti-mask protests followed a vote by the city council approving an ordinance requiring that face coverings be worn in public settings in Tulsa, where covid-19 cases have spiked. The mask ordinance passed weeks after President Trump appeared in Tulsa at a campaign rally that drew more than 6,000 people to an indoor arena, where few wore masks.

During an interview inside the historic Vernon AME Church, Turner said he was not physically injured but said someone in the group poured liquid on him.



A protester puts money into a megaphone while Rev. Robert Turner speaks outside Tulsa City Hall. (Ian Maule/Tulsa World/AP)

“I hope it was water,” Turner said, standing outside the sanctuary where black people sought refuge during the massacre.

“A lady grabbed my shoulder,” he said. “But as a black man, I couldn’t grab my arm back because if I do that it is going to be seen as a threat.”

Turner said he felt surrounded: “I saw a small glimpse of what it must have felt like on the [slave] auction block. As a black man, people poking and prodding you.”

Turner said one man insulted him by throwing money at him.

“I won’t get any reparations from the race massacre,” Turner explained. “I’m not from Tulsa. I’m from Alabama. It’s not for me. It’s for the people in this community, who have seen so much damage and suffering. And then for people to call you ‘boy’ and ‘Get out of here you, liar.’ And then the look in their eyes was just so hateful.”

 

[hanimmal]

https://apnews.com/article/us-news-tulsa-oklahoma-violence-massacres-36ffa98643b3f8dbb8c0bf7c7488b4f0

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A second excavation begins Monday at a cemetery in an effort to find and identify victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and shed light on violence that left hundreds dead and decimated an area that was once a cultural and economic mecca for African Americans.

“I realize we can tell this story the way it needs to be told, now,” said Phoebe Stubblefield, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Florida and a descendant of a survivor of the massacre who is assisting the search, told The Associated Press. ”The story is no longer hidden. We’re putting the completion on this event.”

The violence happened on May 31 and June 1 in 1921, when a white mob attacked Tulsa’s Black Wall Street,killing an estimated 300 people and wounding 800 more while robbing and burning businesses, homes and churches.

“People, they were just robbed, white people coming in saying Black people had better property than they had and that that was just not right,” said Stubblefield, whose great-aunt Anna Walker Woods had her home burned and property taken. “Burning, thieving, killing wasn’t enough. They had to prevent Black people from recovering.

“Personally, professionally, spiritually I have an investment in this,” said Stubblefield, a Los Angeles native who said she is in her early 50s and learned of the massacre and her ancestor, who she doesn’t recall ever meeting, in the 1990s.

The two locations to be searched are in Oaklawn Cemetery in north Tulsa, where a search for remains of victims ended without success in July, and near the Greenwood District where the massacre took place.

The earlier excavation was done in an area identifiedby ground-penetrating radar scans as appearing to be a human-dug pit indicative of a mass grave. It turned out be a filled-in creek, said Mayor G.T. Bynum, who first proposed looking for victims of the violence in 2018 and later budgeted $100,000 to fund it after previous searches failed to find victims.

The massacre — which happened two years after what is known as the “Red Summer,” when hundreds of African Americans died at the hands of white mobs in violence around the U.S. —- has been depicted in recent HBO shows “Watchmen” and “Lovecraft County.”

It also received renewed attention after President Donald Trump selected Tulsa as the location for a June rally amid a national reckoning over police brutality and racial violence. Trump moved the date to avoid coinciding with a Juneteenth celebration in the Greenwood District commemorating the end of slavery.

Bynum, who is 43, said he didn’t learn of the massacre until about 20 years ago during the mayoral campaign of his uncle Bill LaFortune, and his grandparents confirmed the events.

“That’s a very common thing in Tulsa. That’s how you learned about it, not through books or the media or in school,” Bynum said. “People didn’t start talking about this event in Tulsa until about 20 years ago.”

Bodies, if discovered, will not be disturbed, Bynum said. The excavation would stop, and investigators would “do what they need to do to identify them and determine a cause of death,” Bynum said.

Efforts would also be made to find any descendants, a project that could prove difficult, according to Bynum.

“A hundred years after the fact, the descendants are scattered all around the world. Tracking down the descendants could take years,” Bynum said.

One site to be searched, known as the Original 18, is where old funeral home records indicate up to 18 Black people who were massacre victims were buried. The other site is where a man named Clyde Eddy said in the 1990s that, as a 10-year-old boy, he saw Black bodies being prepared for burial shortly after the massacre, but was told to leave the area.

Archaeologists have identified two additional possible sites, said state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck, who is leading the investigation.

“We have multiple areas that we have identified as having merits for investigation,” based on the 2019 radar scans, Stackelbeck said. “We just have to ask for grace and patience” during the search.

The latest search is scheduled to last about a week, but could be extended, according to Stubblefield.

“I’m fully prepared to find human remains,” she said. “The questions are just whether they’re the remains we’re looking for.”

 

[hanimmal]

 

[hanimmal]

 

[hanimmal]

wake and bake

Good morning.

 

[Fogdog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/18/tulsa-mask-protesters-jeer-black-pastor-reparations/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_tulsa-protests-930am:homepage/story-ans
View attachment 4627870

liberals are so very divisive.

 

[hanimmal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/29/tulsa-race-massacre-centennial-reparations-tensions/

TULSA — A “Remember and Rise” concert organized by the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission was abruptly canceled. Oklahoma’s governor was ousted from the commission for pushing limits on how racism is taught in schools. And some residents are planning to boycott the opening of Greenwood Rising, a new museum that construction workers are racing to finish in the heart of Black Wall Street.

As Tulsa commemorates the 100th anniversary of the brutal 1921 race massacre, political tensions and racial divisions have erupted in a city still grappling with how to heal a century after one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history.

The devastation of the Tulsa Race Massacre

The commission organizing the commemoration has been denounced by some community groups who are staging their own events in Greenwood focused on massacre survivors and descendants.

Amid the strife, the city is braced for armed groups to march through Greenwood, including a Second Amendment demonstration Saturday evening by the New Black Panther Party. And President Biden is scheduled to visit Tulsa on Tuesday, the day the city resumes its excavation of a mass grave in Oaklawn Cemetery that could be connected to the massacre.

Much of the acrimony in Tulsa revolves around the issue of reparations for the violence unleashed by a White mob on May 31, 1921, which left as many as 300 dead and10,000 homeless and destroyed one of the most prosperous Black neighborhoods in the country.



The centennial commission, chaired by Black state Sen. Kevin Matthews (D), raised $30 million for the commemoration, the construction of Greenwood Rising and other projects. One of the most highly anticipated events was the “Remember and Rise” gathering on Memorial Day at ONEOK Field, which featured a performance by John Legend and a keynote speech by voting rights activist Stacy Abrams.

On Thursday, the concert was suddenly canceled “due to unexpected circumstances with entertainers and speakers,” the commission said in a statement.

But Tulsa activists and lawyers representing three of the last known massacre survivors — Viola Fletcher, 107, her brother Hughes Van Ellis, 100, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 106 — said the celebrities pulled out after the commission failed to address requests that it use some of its funds to compensate survivors and descendants for what they lost during the rampage.



Matthews told reporters Friday that the lawyers for the survivors had initially sought inclusion in “Remember and Rise” in return for $100,000 each and a $2 million donation to a reparations fund.

After the commission agreed to those terms, Williams said, the request changed to $1 million for each survivor and $50 million for the fund. “We could not respond to those demands,” he said.

But his account was disputed by the attorneys representing the survivors in a reparations lawsuit filed last year against Tulsa, Tulsa County, the state and the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce.
The ‘whitewashing’ of Black Wall Street

(not the video on Washington Post page)

The legal team, it said in a statement, submitted a list of seven requests “to ensure the survivors participation with the commission’s scheduled events. The list included pledging to raise money for a fund that would provide direct financial support to the survivors and descendants.”

“There was never a non-negotiable demand for $50 million dollars. The non-negotiable issues were that the fund would provide direct financial support to survivors and descendants and that the fund would be administered by descendants and North Tulsa community members, and the fund be held in a Black bank.”

In an interview, Matthews said he would not comment on why the celebrities pulled out of the concert. The commission’s candlelight vigil, a ceremony scheduled for 10:30 p.m. Central time Monday to mark the time the first shot was fired in the 1921 massacre, will go on as planned.

“It is disappointing the national folks who were going to come to ONEOK Field are not coming,” Matthews said, "but that is not as important as the candlelight vigil, where we will honor those who have fallen and gone before.”




A number of activists said that Matthews had failed to include survivors, descendants and Greenwood community activists in the initial stages of planning for the city’s centennial events.

“I’m speaking from experience,” said Jamaal Dyer, senior pastor of Friendship Church in North Tulsa, who resigned from the Tulsa Race Massacre Commission in 2019. "I was very vocal, ‘If we are going to do this for the community, we need to allow them to be part of the decision-making body.’ That was not welcomed. A year or two later, they went to them, but they had already started making decisions. They are still trying to control the narrative.”

Last week Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) was ousted from the centennial commission after he signed a bill that would prohibit public school teachers from teaching about “critical race theory” or lessons about race and racism that would make some students uncomfortable.

Carly Atchison, a spokeswoman for Stitt, said in a statement that the governor’s role on the commission “has been purely ceremonial."

Meanwhile, city officials have prepared for potential clashes between extremist groups, aware that Tulsa could be a target for White nationalists as well as the New Black Party demonstration scheduled for Saturday.

“Black self-defense groups, and African-American gun clubs from all over America will be gathering by the hundreds (maybe thousands) to demonstrate,” the party announced last month.
"A national defense program for Blacks is coming into existence.”

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum (R) said the city has been working with state and federal officials to make sure "people who want to participate in activities and mourn this event, the worst event in our city’s history, feel comfortable being in public doing that with different groups coming to town.”

“It’s the classic case of hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” said Bynum, who reopened the investigation into whether there are mass graves from the massacre.



On Friday, Greenwood bustled with speeches, parades, vendors and a concert headlined by gospel legend John P. Kee that were organized by the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival.

"The Black Wall Street Legacy Festival is the only community-centered series led by survivors and descendants commemorating the 1921 Tulsa race massacre,” said organizer Tiffany Crutcher, who testified before Congress on May 19 alongside the three massacre survivors to call for reparations.

Her group arranged for a parade Friday morning that featured the survivors, Fletcher, Ellis and Randle, in a procession through Greenwood and down Black Wall Street. They rode in a white carriage, drawn by a white house, as they waved to crowds.

Last month Randle issued a cease-and-desist letter demanding the commission to halt using her name or likeness to promote the official commemoration.

The survivors have accused the city of enriching itself by appropriating the massacre for “cultural tourism” that would benefit White developers.

During the May 19 hearing before a House Judiciary subcommittee, Damario Solomon-Simmons, the lead attorney in the reparations lawsuit , told Congress that the city and the centennial commission had not shared any of the $30 million raised for the commemoration with survivors.

“As I speak the same perpetrators of the massacre — the city, the county, the chamber, the state — are utilizing a massacre to pad their own pockets,” Solomon-Simmons testified.

"Not one penny has been given to any of the survivors. Not one dime has been paid for any of the outstanding claims.”

Tulsa officials have said they cannot comment on the pending lawsuit.

 

[schuylaar]

1) i think the re-enactment shit should disappear.

2) i also think that just because 'we didn't do it personally' we have an obligation here and now to make this right.

it is up to us as an example to newer generations.

 

[hanimmal]

1) i think the re-enactment shit should disappear.

2) i also think that just because 'we didn't do it personally' we have an obligation here and now to make this right.

it is up to us as an example to newer generations.

I don't know if you are watching Tiffany Cross today on MSNBC, but it is a really good conversation about all of this.

I never thought about the re-enactment stuff, but you are right about having a obligation to get our nation to finally and fully reckon with what Wealthy Melanin-light Heterosexual Males have done to keep power in their hands.

I really look forward to watching the generation that our society raises when this is finally happens. I think they are going to really do outstanding things for us all.

We are so close.

 

[schuylaar]

liberals are so very divisive.

i couldn't believe they were putting their hands on him.

 

[schuylaar]

I don't know if you are watching Tiffany Cross today on MSNBC, but it is a really good conversation about all of this.

I never thought about the re-enactment stuff, but you are right about having a obligation to get our nation to finally and fully reckon with what Wealthy Melanin-light Heterosexual Males have done to keep power in their hands.

I really look forward to watching the generation that our society raises when this is finally happens. I think they are going to really do outstanding things for us all.

We are so close.

my exhusbands family fought American Revolution and Civil War for the North. They were from Buffalo, NY area and never owned slaves. there's even a graveyard with all their people buried from as far back as this country would take them. some of the stones you can't even read. A whiz on everything Civil War always had a dream to belong to a re-enactment club . i was like why? you know what that shit stood for.

The South had a hard time parting with their free labor and pussy. and white women? were just a skosh lower than The Masters horse..you did exactly as he wanted or you'd be locked in the attic with your children to never be seen again.

 

[schuylaar]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/29/tulsa-race-massacre-centennial-reparations-tensions/
View attachment 4911935

I'm watching Watchmen on HBO about Tulsa Riots..it's fvcking awesome! only 8 installments so nice little day binge.

 

[hanimmal]

I'm watching Watchmen on HBO about Tulsa Riots..it's fvcking awesome! only 8 installments so nice little day binge.

Yeah that opening was eye opening to me. I never heard of it until I started looking into it after seeing that.

 

[hanimmal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ahead-of-tulsa-trip-biden-to-unveil-new-plans-to-reduce-black-white-wealth-gap/2021/05/31/b80c9c4e-c269-11eb-8c18-fd53a628b992_story.html

President Biden plans to unveil a set of policies intended to narrow the wealth gap between Black and White Americans in a speech he’s set to deliver Tuesday in Tulsa, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the massacre there that ravaged a once-prosperous Black business district and neighborhood.

The president will offer a raft of policies intended to bolster homeownership and help minority small businesses and entrepreneurs, an administration official said.

They include using federal purchasing power to pump more money into minority-owned businesses and setting aside $10 billion in infrastructure funds to rebuild disadvantaged neighborhoods across the country.

He also plans to shore up the Fair Housing Act in ways that will allow the agency to “more vigorously enforce” the law, a senior administration official said, with the goal of increasing Black homeownership.

The policies, some that had already been announced, are intended to show that the president is providing some action, rather than mere commemoration, to support the Black community in Tulsa. The policies will affect the entire country, but they are designed to boost communities like Tulsa, administration officials said, discussing the president’s plan on background during a conference call with reporters Monday night.

In addition to his address, Biden will meet with living survivors of the massacre at the Greenwood Cultural Center. Biden’s aides said this will mark the first time a sitting U.S. president has gone to Tulsa to commemorate the events.

Biden’s proposals drew immediate criticism from the nation’s most prominent civil rights group, the NAACP, whose leader said the president’s plan omitted canceling student debt, one of the most effective ways to shrink the wealth gap, according to some researchers.

“Components of the plan are encouraging, but it fails to address the student loan debt crisis that disproportionately affects African Americans,” said Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP. “You cannot begin to address the racial wealth gap without addressing the student loan debt crisis.”

Although he applauded Biden’s focus on homeownership as a way to build wealth, Johnson pointed out that many African Americans simply won’t qualify for needed loans because of a high debt-to-income ratio. That’s particularly true, he said, among government workers.

“That must be addressed if there is going to be a question of dealing with the racial wealth gap,” Johnson said. He supports cutting as much $50,000 per person in student debt but said it is not a “magic number.”

During his campaign, Biden said he supported erasing $10,000 per person in federal student debt, but he has done little publicly to move forward on that agenda item in the early phase of his presidency.

During the call with reporters Monday night, administration aides were pressed repeatedly about omitting student loan forgiveness from the president’s plan.

“I certainly appreciate the interest in the topic, and it’s useful to hear a sustained interest on this call,” said an administration official.

In April during a Politico Playbook interview, White House chief of staff Ron Klain said that Biden had requested a memo to determine whether the administration has the ability to wipe out student debt via executive action, as many activists have said. At the time, Klain said the memo would be done in “weeks.”

There was no update Monday about the status of the memo, according to administration officials.
The median wealth of White households in the United States was $189,100 in 2019. For Black households it was $24,100, according to a report by the Center for American Progress. The gap widened in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic hit minority communities harder than White ones, according to the report.

Biden’s speech will lay out some of his plans to attack the wealth gap, including directing about $100 billion in federal contracts over five years to small disadvantaged businesses, according to an administration official. Currently about 10 percent of federal contract funds go to these types of businesses, the official said.

The plan to dedicate about $10 billion to civic infrastructure is intended to be used to re-claim vacant storefronts and buildings and provide low-cost office space for community services, an administration official said. The funds can also be used to clean toxic waste dumps and create new parks.

Biden also wants to target about $15 billion in transportation funding toward neighborhoods that have been historically cut out of public transit.

On housing, Biden will launch an interagency effort to address inequality in housing appraisals, which are persistently lower than similar homes in White neighborhoods and another major factor that erodes wealth.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will publish two directives intended to strengthen the Fair Housing Act by reinstating a rule known as the “discriminatory effects standard,” which triggers liability under the act regardless of intent. The other will empower HUD recipients to determine when a Fair Housing problem exists, the official said.

“In both cases, [HUD aims to] return to traditional interpretations of the Fair Housing Act, which reverses the last administration’s attempts to weaken the act’s protections,” said a senior administration official.

Last year, President Donald Trump scheduled his first campaign rally of the pandemic, a huge indoor event in Tulsa, on Juneteenth. The plans raised racial tensions at a moment when the coronavirus was surging. Under pressure, Trump moved the rally to June 20.

Trump also was set to accept the Republican nomination for president in Jacksonville, Fla., on the 60th anniversary of what has become known as “Ax Handle Saturday,” when a White mob angry at Black civil rights protesters began beating Black people in the street. The timing outraged local civil rights leaders, but in the end the GOP convention was moved to Washington amid surging infection rates in the Florida city.

 

[Rob Roy]

1) i think the re-enactment shit should disappear.

2) i also think that just because 'we didn't do it personally' we have an obligation here and now to make this right.

it is up to us as an example to newer generations.

Who is "we" ?

How does a person become obligated to do something ?

Is it right to obligate person A for the acts of person b ? How would that work ?

 

[schuylaar]

Who is "we" ?

How does a person become obligated to do something ?

Is it right to obligate person A for the acts of person b ? How would that work ?

'we' are the people who have the obligation.

how it becomes an obligation personally is your choice.

it is right to obligate to right a wrong.

question to Rob: do you think what the white people did in Greenwood OK 1921 and to it's black residents right or wrong?

 

[Rob Roy]

'we' are the people who have the obligation.

how it becomes an obligation personally is your choice.

it is right to obligate to right a wrong.

do you think what the white people did in Greenwood OK 1921 and to it's people right or wrong?

Are you saying people that weren't involved (or even born yet) in a massacre also bear responsibility for that massacre based on being the same race as the killers ? Are you saying people that weren't attacked should be compensated by people who didn't attack them ?



White people smell funny and should learn how to dance better. Murder is bad and white people that do it should cut the shit.

 

[hanimmal]

Are you under the assumption that someone is going to come in and throw someone in jail for their grandfathers murdering a bunch of highly successful black people, burning down their entire city, and then moving the 10k that were left homeless into prison camps?

And you are making the same bullshit argument that somehow it is only going to be melanin-light men that are going to be the ones that pay the taxes that would be used to help get this portion of our society set up for success. We need 100% of our population operating at full capacity to overcome all the problems we have caused due to small minded thinking that burned it's way across our nation.

 

[mooray]

Who is "we" ?

How does a person become obligated to do something ?

Is it right to obligate person A for the acts of person b ? How would that work ?

A person feels obligated to do something when they feel one iota of a connection to their fellow man. However, if they've embraced our cliche American selfishness and narcissism, this concept would be very confusing. It wouldn't come naturally for them and they'd have to ask lots of stupid questions, of which they wouldn't understand any of the answers.

 

[Rob Roy]

A person feels obligated to do something when they feel one iota of a connection to their fellow man. However, if they've embraced our cliche American selfishness and narcissism, this concept would be very confusing. It wouldn't come naturally for them and they'd have to ask lots of stupid questions, of which they wouldn't understand any of the answers.

I feel obligated to respect others choices as long as those choices are rightful. Meaning they aren't removing another persons rights etc. I don't see that as being selfish.

You calling me selfish by insinuation is weak. Maybe you have a fundamental misunderstanding about what selfish is or perhaps low confidence and a guilty conscience. Did you lay around your mom's basement all day again today? You know you were supposed to vacuum and then go look for a job!


I also feel obligated when I make a commitment or an agreement with other people to do something. I don't feel obligated when others act as if I owe them something, when I don't. Certainly don't feel obligated to pay any kind of reparations to any person I never harmed because somebody else thinks I should.

As far as a connection with "fellow man". I sometimes choose to do charity, but that's my business. When you're not minding others business what nice things do you do for people?