Tulsa Race Massacre: A century later, calls for justice remain
Tulsa is marking 100 years past a two-day attack on an all-black neighborhood by a white mob. The Tulsa Race Massacre left as many as 300 dead. Author: Natalie Swaby Updated: 7:20 PM PDT June 1, 2021
SEATTLE Tulsa is marking the 100th remembrance of a two-day attack on an all-Black neighborhood by a white mob. The 1921 massacre left as many as 300 people dead.
To this day, survivors are demanding reparations for the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst race massacres in American history.
One hundred years later and more than 1,500 miles away in Seattle, Rev. Dr. Carey G. Anderson feels a deep connection to the traumatic event.
Viola Fletcher, a survivor of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Okla., attends a soil dedication ceremony May 31, 2021, at Stone Hill in Tulsa s Greenwood neighborhood to mark the 100th anniversary of the mass murder of Blacks. (CNS photo/Lawrence Bryant, Reuters)
TULSA, Okla. (CNS) Ahead of a May 30 ecumenical prayer service to recall the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, Bishop David A. Konderla said it was important “to pause and reflect on how such an unspeakable horror could take place so that we can avoid any such evil in our own day.”
“It is hard to believe that 100 years ago people could think and act in such a way. It is unthinkable. Still, it happened,” he said.
The 1921 Tulsa massacre is a horrific moment in American history, which has been concealed from public consciousness for far too long. But like all such events, how it is presented and analyzed is critical to drawing the necessary political lessons.
It could have begun with something as innocent as a stumble.
We donât know why Sarah Page, the teenage elevator operator in a four-story building in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, screamed.
Some say the elevator didnât stop level with the floors and Dick Rowland, a teenage shoeshiner, simply tripped and grabbed Pageâs arm to steady himself. Or perhaps it was something more nefarious â weâll never know.
What we do know is that is that a clerk for Renbergâs Department Store heard Pageâs scream, called the police, and the front-page headline the next morning in the Tulsa Tribune declared, in the language of the times, âNab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator.â