and to deny that to the people that were dumped or killed during the race massacre, it s evil. it shows you that at that time period, people didn t even care about the souls of black folks, let alone their bodies. i believe there is no expiration date on morality. and if it was wrong in 1921, and that it has not been repaired for today, then we ought to do something about it.
black people in a box, dead. that s something that will be etched in your mind forever. and so for him to tell that story with such conviction, i said, let s dig him up now. so many people have said there were no bodies there. but you know, all the black folk in the community, we believe they re there. those stories were passed on to us. inch by inch, crews are digging into the history of the 1921 tulsa race massacre. tulsa s mayor, g. mayor g.t. bynum, initiated the investigation to try and find if there are any victims buried in mass graves. there was a systematic cover-up of the event. it should not have taken 99 years. we have to pay attention. we have to pick up the charred baton that has been left in our
i came to tulsa when i was in the sixth grade. so that s been, whew, i don t know how many years. my mother is from oklahoma. there was a strong black community in tulsa called greenwood. these people were the core of black entrepreneurship. and they would help you get your business started. 1920, greenwood was booming. people call it the black wall street. and you read the editorials and they would also post events that were happening.
people describe it as a massacre. i ve been calling it a war. there s systemic causes for what happened here in 1921. but we fixate on this trigger incident that involved a black boy and a white girl on an elevator. the teenage boy is a boy named dick rowan. he s at work on memorial day, shining shoes in downtown tulsa. dick rowland was 19 years old in the spring of 1921. he worked in a white-owned and white-patronized shine parlor on main street in downtown tulsa. his nickname is diamond dick, so he s known to be this flashy young guy. just another person in the community that everyone knows, but he s never been seen as a troublemaker.
white tulsans murdered black folks and were hastily trying to get rid of the bodies by dumping them in mass graves around the city. many awful things were done to get rid of the bodies. in the late 1990s, senator maxine horner and my father, state representative don ross, created the commission to study the tulsa race riot of 1921. which brought historians, consultants from around the world who tried to figure out what happened in 1921. i had many conversations with riot survivors. you know, you re sitting here, you re sitting there with a red light. nice little lady sitting here. that puts pressure on you from when you was five years old. it s one of the proudest