Tulsa burns in 1921
Having parents who grew up in the Oklahoma city, it was not uncommon to hear the story of the Tulsa race riot. Taking place over two days in 1921, a large number of white men attacked and burnt the city’s Greenwood District. Segregation laws had created this neighborhood and its concentrated African American population. The residents were the cooks, servants, and workers in other parts of the city. The white community wanted them for labor, but contrived to make sure they did not become neighbors. Written and unwritten rules relegated them to second-class citizenship. While poverty certainly reigned, the community nevertheless was strong and over the years it grew and thrived. With growth came an independent economy as some African Americans started their own businesses that served the Greenwood population. Linked to a city reaching its economic glory days, the hard-working and well-organized residents of the district had, by the 1920s, created the wealthiest African American community in the United States. Booker T. Washington called it the “black Wall Street,” and this success drew notice and provoked tension with the rest of Tulsa. Sparked by an encounter between a white woman and a black man in an elevator, a large number of white men surrounded and attacked the Greenwood District. After two days of violence 800 people were admitted to the hospitals, 6,000 African Americans were detained, 35 city blocks were burnt and razed, 10,000 were homeless, and somewhere around 300 were dead. This last figure is controversial because the original official statistic was just 35, but research has demonstrated something closer to the larger number.
My family’s role in these events was related with pride. A great grandfather who had become a wealthy physician told the African Americans who worked for him to gather their families and hid them in the basement of his house. This effort was told with a ring of heroism and must have provoked reflection in my father who grew up in a Tulsa which had erased the shame of the riots from its history books and continued the dehumanizing legalization of racially separated buses, water fountains, bathrooms, and neighborhoods.
My family’s role in these events was related with pride. A great grandfather who had become a wealthy physician told the African Americans who worked for him to gather their families and hid them in the basement of his house. This effort was told with a ring of heroism and must have provoked reflection in my father who grew up in a Tulsa which had erased the shame of the riots from its history books and continued the dehumanizing legalization of racially separated buses, water fountains, bathrooms, and neighborhoods.
| This story is a very American one and it is just one of the many backdrops for the 1960s and African Americans' fight for civil rights. The laws of segregation are no more, but the simple statistic that African Americans are 13.6% of our population, but make up 39.4% of the incarcerated points to a continuation of institutional racism that, although opaque in nature, is impossible to deny. Within this context and its associated tensions, our country inaugurates the second term of our first African American president. As a politician who sits at the pinnacle of our democracy's hierarchy it is our duty to question, criticize, and hold him to account. However, for this one day –which happens to coincide with the commemoration of the birthday of one of the civil rights movement’s most important figures- it is worthwhile to remember the extent of the change that this represents. On Monday Barack Obama will give a speech in Washington D.C. It likely will not be as important or as memorial as this other one that also took place in the capital. Yet the fact that only 50 years have passed since the older speech and 92 years since the Tulsa race riots is remarkable. There remain many obstacles to surmount, but today is a good one to reflect on the past and gain inspiration for the struggles that lay ahead. | |
