On this day in 1935, a fire extensively damaged the historic Brady Hotel, a building that played a prominent role in the early history of Tulsa and Oklahoma.
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2:31 pm UTC May. 26, 2021
Editor s note: The following may include first-person accounts of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre contain graphic depictions and antiquated racial terminology. We have chosen not to edit these survivor accounts to leave their stories unencumbered by interpretation or exclusion. Mother, I see men with guns.
Mary Parrish was reading when her daughter alerted her to the violence coming to their doorstep. The daughter, Florence Mary, 6, called the young journalist and teacher to the window. Like many Black Tulsans in Greenwood, they fled as bullets flew and houses were set afire that night of May 31, 1921.
Built by the sons of slaves, Greenwood in the early 20th century grew into America s most prosperous Black community, only to be destroyed in 18 hours of murder and destruction by a white mob.
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According to eyewitnesses, my great-grandfather, W. Tate Brady, played an active, albeit ignominious, role in the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Brady, a prominent businessman and one of the founding fathers of Tulsa, is said to have volunteered for guard duty on the night of the race riot. During his watch, he reported seeing several dead Black people in the streets around Greenwood. One victim had been dragged behind a car through the business district, a rope tied around his neck. On that fateful night, the proprietor of the Brady Hotel was apparently on the wrong side of the street and on the wrong side of history.
The man who arrived from America had permission to travel to Melbourne under the exemption scheme to see a family member in palliative care. He had received a negative test at Sydney airport before flying to Tullamarine, but still should have gone directly into hotel quarantine, which was at the time taking travellers with exemptions and Melbourne people unable to quarantine at home.
However, he was not greeted at the airport by a government official and taken to a hotel. A state government spokeswoman has confirmed that officials did not have his flight details, so they were unaware of his arrival.