Fires burning in Tulsa’s Black community of Greenwood on June 1, 1921, during the Tulsa Race Massacre.Photo: Courtesy of University of Tulsa - McFarlin Library Special Collections
Growing up, Regina Goodwin heard firsthand from relatives how a murderous white mob 100 years ago burned down a Tulsa, Okla., neighborhood that was so vibrant and prosperous it was known as Black Wall Street. It was a story of horrificracial violence— but it was a story that was too seldom told.
“When you say there was a conspiracy of silence, for sure, because No. 1, a crime was committed,” says Goodwin, 58, who grew up in that neighborhood of Greenwood, and now represents its residents and businesses in the Oklahoma Legislature.
“Some 300 people were murdered, 1,256 homes burnt to the ground,” she tells PEOPLE. “White folks in particular that had committed the crime didn’t want it discussed, of course. And the Black folks that were victims of the crime knew that no one was ever charged or convicted, so it would be difficult to really have a conversation if you thought you were going to get justice.”
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The attack of May 31-June 1, 1921 that became known as the Tulsa Race Massacre eventually earned mention in history books, even as it was left out of local school curriculums. Now, belatedly, the horrific magnitude of the crime is being acknowledged. On Tuesday,President Joe Bidenwill visit Tulsa to mark the centennial anniversary, reportsThe Associated Press.
A PBS documentary,Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten,premiering Monday (9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT; check local listings), is one of many commemorations.Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacredebuts Sunday on The History Channel (8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT). National Geographic will premiereRise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summeron June 18.
Aftermath of the Tulsa Race Massacre, June 1, 1921.Courtesy of University of Tulsa - McFarlin Library Special Collections
Among the open questions: Exactly how many people were killed? And is there a mass grave into which unidentified bodies were dumped?
“This is not some history project for the city,” Tulsa’s current mayor, G.T. Bynum, who is white, says in the PBS documentary. “This is a murder investigation, and we are trying to find neighbors of ours who got murdered and find out where their remains are, so that their families can know.”
Excavations in an historic Black cemetery, conducted as recently as last fall, continue the search for victims. Meanwhile, a bill paving the way for survivors and descendants to seek reparations for lives and property lost was recently introduced in Congress.
“I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home,” 107-year-old Viola Fletcher, one of three living survivors of the massacre, testified last week before a House Judiciary subcommittee, reportsThe Washington Post. “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams.”
Greenwood’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church burns during the Tulsa Race Massacre, June 1, 2021.Courtesy of University of Tulsa - McFarlin Library Special Collections. Thanks, Jeff
Greg Robinson, a descendant and Tulsa community activist interviewed for the PBS documentary, tells PEOPLE: “The harm that was done during the Tulsa race massacre was physical, in terms of violence and the loss of life, but it was also economic. And so we need to repair that. If we take that route, then we’ll start to see a turnaround in trends of equity that we have not seen here in the city for a hundred years.”
‘Trouble Was Coming’
According to the PBS documentary, the massacre was sparked after a young Black man entered a downtown elevator and bumped a white woman, who screamed and alleged he’d assaulted her. With the Black teen jailed, theTulsa Tribunenewspaper ran an editorial headlined, “To Lynch Negro Tonight,” reports thePost.
Black men from Greenwood went to the courthouse to protect him. A gunshot rang out. A white crowd then moved on Greenwood, where looting and fires erupted.
Goodwin’s grandfather and great-aunt, then both students at Booker T. Washington High School, were decorating inside one of the Greenwood district’s hotels for a prom. “They got word that trouble was coming,” Goodwin says, recalling her family’s handed-down account.
“What they needed to do is hurry up and get out of there,” she says. “I remember my grandfather telling me that people would put on another set of clothes on top of their clothes, he put his jacket on top of his jacket, and that’s what you left with. And when people say they were left with only the clothes on their back, they meant that. So many stories I’ve heard of what people had to suffer and how they escaped, and how people were murdered.”
Her grandfather’s father was the business manager for one of Greenwood’s two Black newspapers; the family owned the Goodwin building and a number of rental properties, many of them destroyed.
The state commission placed the property losses at $1.8 million, equivalent to $27 million today.
Hundreds of the displaced fled to other towns or states. Two weeks later, then Tulsa Mayor T.D. Evans concluded in a written City Commission report, “Let the blame for this negro uprising lie right where it belongs … on those armed negroes and their followers who started this trouble and who instigated it,” according to the documentary.
Massacre Curtailed Potential for Black Generational Wealth
Greenwood slowly rebounded, achieving another peak in the mid-1940s with more than 200 documented Black-owned businesses and enterprises. Then integration in the 1950s and 1960s scattered its residents, and urban renewal of the 1970s battered what remained, dividing the district from downtown with a highway.
The 1921 destruction of property and commercial business that could have built a foundation for future generational wealth drives the current demands for accountability.
Says Robinson, a Black former Tulsa mayoral candidate: “Housing ownership in the City of Tulsa in 1921 for African-Americans was 30 percent. For whites, it was 35 percent. That’s a gap of 5 percent.”
Today, he says, home ownership in Tulsa is 32 percent for Blacks, and 57.9 percent for whites. “That shows, in a tangible way, what has been lost, not just in housing, but in education and criminal justice and mental health – the lack of equity.”
Adds Goodwin: “You can talk about home ownership, and helping with that through public-private partnership. You can talk about scholarships for students, descendants in particular, and you can talk about apprenticeship. You can talk about returned land in that community, helping Black businesses to be shored up and to be implemented. So the question becomes, really, what do reparationsnotlook like?”
She adds: “Black lives for some folks still don’t matter in Oklahoma. And certainly when you saw a massacre, and you talk about the fire and the forgotten, that was evidence that those Black lives did not matter. Before there was aGeorge Floyd…,” she pauses.
“The through line is continual. And the difficulty is when people don’t want to learn the facts,” she says.
“History will be forgotten if it’s never taught,” she says.
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source: people.com
