Oklahoman
TULSA One of the exterior walls of a historic church was dedicated as a sacred place of prayer on Monday during an interfaith ceremony in the Greenwood District.
Numerous local, state and national religious and elected leaders, including civil rights and social justice activists the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Bishop William J. Barber II gathered to dedicate the new Prayer Wall for Racial Healing at Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Rev. Robert Turner, Vernon s senior pastor, said when he learned that only the exterior wall of the church s basement survived the massacre, he was inspired by the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem to create a special prayer wall at his historic house of worship, 311 N Greenwood.
Oklahoman
TULSA A group of Tulsa City Council members, led by the council s only Black member, want the City of Tulsa to apologize for the Tulsa Race Massacre and commit to addressing the ways the tragedy devastated the predominantly Black Greenwood area.
Ward 1 Tulsa Councilwoman Vanessa Hall-Harper, who is African American, said she and three of her fellow council members Lori Decter-Wright, Mykey Arthrell-Knezek and Kara Joy McKee plan to introduce the Greenwood Prosperity, Legacy and Restoration resolution at Wednesday s city council meeting. The Greenwood District is divided between Hall-Harper and McKee s wards 1 and 4, respectively.
She spoke about the resolution at an interdenominational worship service Sunday at First Baptist Church of North Tulsa, where a racially diverse crowd gathered to commemorate the race massacre s centennial.
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee encouraged people to keep fighting for Tulsa Race Massacre reparations during her speech at a luncheon event in Tulsa.
After months of zero communication and under immense pressure that John Legend and Stacey Abrams may no longer participate if the survivors were not centered, a Zoom call with 10 people was scheduled for Saturday. Immediately following that call our legal team submitted a list of seven requests to ensure the survivors participation with the Commission s scheduled events, Solomon-Simmons said in a prepared statement.
Attorney requested $1 million for each living survivor, pledge for Greenwood funding
Friday, Solomon-Simmons, a Tulsa native and lead attorney for a reparations lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of the survivors and their descendants, told The Oklahoman that he and his co-counsel requested but did not demand funds for survivors and their heirs from the centennial commission. The attorney sent The Oklahoman a copy of an email he sent to the commission asking the group to agree to give $1 million to each of the three living massacre survivors.
Symbolizing Black Wall Street losses
What happened in 1921 Tulsa when a Black man named Dick Rowland entered an elevator where a white woman was serving as elevator operator? Why did the Black residents of Tulsa s thriving Greenwood District become the target of angry white mobs, resulting in one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history?
Plenty of Americans have sought out answers about the massacre that was kept out of history books for decades. Dwight said he was one of the people who hungered for Black history because he grew up without knowledge of such things and didn t know about iconic Black historic leaders like Harriet Tubman until he was in his 40s.