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Artist Sarah Ahmad’s installation, which is part of the Greenwood Art Project, is built around a refugee tent similar to ones used by families left homeless by the massacre. The massacre left nearly 10,000 people homeless in what’s considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history.
Thousands of yellow and orange fabric marigold flowers represent firebombs that destroyed homes in the Greenwood District. But the marigolds are also a symbol of renewal in the aftermath of destruction.
Along with marigolds, the inside of the tent is filled with candles and archival photos of the massacre’s aftermath. This contrasts with the tent’s plain exterior to mirror how trauma is fundamentally an internal experience that Tulsa’s Black community has endured for generations.
Screenshot/C-SPAN
President Joe Biden came to Tulsa on Tuesday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, arguably the worst racist attack in American history.
Biden toured the Greenwood Cultural Center, the institution that preserves the heritage of the prosperous community known as Black Wall Street. He also spoke with the three living survivors of the massacre.
Biden s remarks at times included graphic descriptions of the attack on Greenwood, once deemed the Tulsa Race Riot so insurers did not have to pay claims of Black residents who lost everything. My fellow Americans, this was not a riot. This was a massacre, Biden said.
The KGOU Readers Club rounds out its special look into important books related to the Tulsa Race Massacre as the 100th anniversary of the destruction of