Tulsa massacre: 100 years on

The 100th anniversary of an infamous massacre has been marked in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the US President in attendance. The incident resulted in the decimation of a dynamic Black neighbourhood, famed in America for its prosperity.

President Biden: “My fellow Americans, this was not a riot. This was a massacre.”

This heinous episode, witnessing the killing of an estimated 300 African Americans while upwards of 10,000 people's homes were razed to the ground, has been brushed under the carpet for decades. Modern day Tulsans want to break the taboo.

Barbara Tottress: "This has been hidden for so long. This has been hidden. It was not taught in our schools."

Beverly Smith: "It's really wild. It should be in textbooks. It should be everywhere. People need to know about this. I mean, why keep it a secret?"

The arrest of a young Black shoeshiner said to have assaulted a white female ignited the violence of 31st May 1921. A lynch mob of several hundred white men surrounded the courthouse, prompting Black men to assemble to help safeguard the accused.

After gunshots caused the African Americans to take refuge in the thriving quarter of Greenwood, nicknamed 'The Black Wall Street', white trouble-makers wreaked havoc, looting and later torching it to the ground.

The Tulsa Race Massacre Commission, tasked with unearthing details of the fray, disclosed that the white mob had been armed by the police force.

The President asserted that it was time Americans confronted reality.

President Biden: “For much too long, the history of what took place here was told in silence – cloaked in darkness. But just because history is silent, it doesn't mean that it did not take place."

While a raft of measures totalling billions in federal grants were unveiled by the White House in advance of the commemorative visit to address disparities in wealth, property ownership and to kickstart African American businesses, some locals are evidently unconvinced.

Anthony Hutton: "And, you know, again, looking for a lot more than rhetoric and gestures. You know, we're looking for results, you know. We're looking for, you know, opportunity, economic opportunity. The same opportunity they had, you know, elsewhere all around town."

Despite the 2001 proposal by the commission that financial redress should be paid to massacre victims and their surviving relatives, this step has yet to be taken. View Less