Viola Fletcher, a survivor of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Okla., attends a soil dedication ceremony May 31, 2021, at Stone Hill in Tulsa s Greenwood neighborhood to mark the 100th anniversary of the mass murder of Blacks. (CNS photo/Lawrence Bryant, Reuters)
TULSA, Okla. (CNS) Ahead of a May 30 ecumenical prayer service to recall the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, Bishop David A. Konderla said it was important “to pause and reflect on how such an unspeakable horror could take place so that we can avoid any such evil in our own day.”
“It is hard to believe that 100 years ago people could think and act in such a way. It is unthinkable. Still, it happened,” he said.
The 1921 Tulsa massacre is a horrific moment in American history, which has been concealed from public consciousness for far too long. But like all such events, how it is presented and analyzed is critical to drawing the necessary political lessons.
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LAST week the United States marked the first anniversary of the very public murder of George Floyd. The inescapable brutality of the police killing sparked protests on an unparalleled scale that were echoed far from American shores in other countries with a legacy of racist violence.
This week’s commemoration revolves around the centenary of the Tulsa massacre, which has been described by a local historian as an “American Kristallnacht”. On May 31-June 1, 1921, Greenwood, a thriving African-American section of the segregated Oklahoman town, was razed to the ground.
Greenwood’s relative prosperity led it to being dubbed the ‘Black Wall Street’ a red rag to the white supremacist bull that dominated Tulsa. The racists needed an excuse to live out their fantasies. They found it in a non-event.