Page 39 - 1921 News Today

And the legislature and said weve never had an official study of this little known event. >> hey, that was inspired by the oklahoma city bombing when they said it was the largest urban disaster in america, wrong. more people were killed than any such disaster, wrong. >> i was asked to be the historian for commission. during that period i was thinking maybe we could use this to figure out how many people died and where they were buried. >> how many? go ahead. >> i am chair of the survivors commit...

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 has not been repaired before today, then we ought to do something about it. back then we could barely afford a hostel. im glad we invested for the long term with vanguard. and now, were back here again... no jobs, no kids, just us. and our advisor is preparing us for what lies ahead. only at vanguard, youre more than just an investor youre an owner. giving you...

State representative don rawls created the commission to study the tulsa race riot of 1921, which brought historians, consultants, from around the world to try to figure out what happened in 1921. >> i had many conversations with riot survivors. >> you know, you are sitting there, nice little lady sitting the better. when you are 5 years old. >> it was one of the proudest moments that i can remember my father, no other major republican mayor or democrat even thought about or touched the story of...

At us. we have a responsibility and an obligation to find the truth. >> the mass graves investigation started out in 97, actually, with don ross, kevin ross father. >> when he was first told about the massacre, my father he thought it was a lie, it didnt happen. it was not in the history books. but then in high school we heard first-hand from the survivors who are schoolteachers at the time, and that was something that stuck with him until he got to the point he could do something about it. >> w...

>> so many have said there were no bodies there, but you know all the black folk in the community, we believe theyre there. those stories were passed onto us. >> inch by inch crews are digging into the history of the 1921 tulsa race massacre. tulsas mayor, initiated the study to find out if there are any black victims in the 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 b...

Memorial day. people describe it as a massacre. ive been calling it a war. >> theres 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 boy was born in dick wellen. hes at work on memorial day shining shoes in downtown tulsa. dick rowland was 19-year-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 d...

Theres all kinds of good things that you find in south tulsa. youll find computer stores. youll find bookstores. youll find 24-hour pharmacy. youll find health food stores. none of those things can be found in north tulsa. north tulsa is a food desert, and thats got to change. >> one of the things that people dont generally know is that the greenwood community actually came back after it was destroyed. >> it was rebuilt because the rural community, a rural land was still owned mostly by black fo...

But tulsa has a truth problem. hiding the truth, and people who will not challenge what is perceived to be true. >> what is keeping tulsa from being the great shining city on the hill is dealing with the legacy of the so-called tulsa race riot of 1921. 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 were trying to get rid of the body, in the late 1990s, center maxine horn and my father,

In my pocket i go down on greenwood and i get a haircut they give me the latest scoop, i found out whats going on. what is up on greenwood now? ps barbershop, there is a legacy of my father getting his hair cut here. my son got his first haircut right here. >> how long has there been a barbershop in greenwood? >> the first barbershop i worked for was called nims barbershop, it was in the 1100 block of north greenwood, that was in 1963. they talk about greenwood, now, one block, but it was all th...

State of oklahoma was not culpable. >> we were shutdown by the city of tulsa, and at that point, you know, i thought the ball game was over. >> this is a historic day for tulsa and for our country as we begin a test excavation in oak lawn cemetery. >> theres nothing abstract. theres nothing theoretical. this is not a research project. this is an investigation. >> scientists are set to finally break ground in the effort to find victims of the tulsa race massacre. >> nearly 100 years later the fam...