One hundred years ago, 10,000 state-sponsored White supremacists destroyed a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, OK. The history of the Tulsa Race Massacre .- when a white mob attacked the thriving Greenwood district, burned it to the ground, killing an estimated 300 of its black residents - was not part of my public school curriculum. In fact I was not taught about any major Black historical events of any kind. To include the full history of Black oppression would have been to contradict the White narrative of this great and ever-progressing nation. How bitterly ironic is the objection that taking down statues honoring the Confederacy is “erasing history” in light of the way in which Black history has been erased, a sin of omission, by design.
One hundred years after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, President Biden has proclaimed May 31 , 2021 a Day of Remembrance. This is fitting in that Memorial Day itself began as a commemoration by formerly enslaved Black Americans of the Union Troops - White and Black - who died fighting to end the blight of American slavery.
In addition to confronting its bloody past, it is time to move forward with reparations to compensate for the massacre that took place against the Black people of Greenwood. It is time for justice for the families and the descendants. To learn more about the Tulsa Race Massacre, watch the opening episode of the HBO special, "The Watchmen."