Posted on Dec 12, 2022
In 2 U.S. cities haunted by race massacres, facing the past is painful and divisive
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https://www.npr.org/2022/12/11/ [login to see] /elaine-massacre-tulsa-race-riot
Shortly after going to work for the Tulsa Historical Society in 2001, Michelle Place recalls historian Richard Warner hefting a large cardboard box atop her desk. "This is the most important collection that the Tulsa Historical Society has," he told her. "Guard it with your life."
Warner had co-authored the final report of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission, created by the Oklahoma Legislature to present a historical accounting of the infamous massacre that left upward of 300 African Americans dead and resulted in the destruction of "Black Wall Street," in the city's prosperous Greenwood enclave. The box contained all of the research the commission had collected.
Place gravitated toward the photographs inside but couldn't stomach what she saw. "It was so horrific," she says. "Burned bodies and dead in the streets."
Just a few weeks earlier, Place had known nothing about the death and destruction depicted in those black and white images. It was only after fielding a call from an overseas journalist wanting to speak with someone about "the Tulsa race riot" that a colleague clued her in. "'You don't know, do you?'" she remembers the co-worker asking.
Shortly after going to work for the Tulsa Historical Society in 2001, Michelle Place recalls historian Richard Warner hefting a large cardboard box atop her desk. "This is the most important collection that the Tulsa Historical Society has," he told her. "Guard it with your life."
Warner had co-authored the final report of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission, created by the Oklahoma Legislature to present a historical accounting of the infamous massacre that left upward of 300 African Americans dead and resulted in the destruction of "Black Wall Street," in the city's prosperous Greenwood enclave. The box contained all of the research the commission had collected.
Place gravitated toward the photographs inside but couldn't stomach what she saw. "It was so horrific," she says. "Burned bodies and dead in the streets."
Just a few weeks earlier, Place had known nothing about the death and destruction depicted in those black and white images. It was only after fielding a call from an overseas journalist wanting to speak with someone about "the Tulsa race riot" that a colleague clued her in. "'You don't know, do you?'" she remembers the co-worker asking.
In 2 U.S. cities haunted by race massacres, facing the past is painful and divisive
Posted from npr.org
Tulsa
American History
Racism
Posted 2 y ago
Responses: 3
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Lt Col Scott Shuttleworth
Posted 1 h ago
This is good history...bad story and event but good solid history. This is what we need to be teaching...not picking and choosing what is history and what is not. It is the same for me about statues. Why move them when they spur discussion. They need to be out there so folks can talk about them and what they stood for.
We as a nation don't need to pick and choose what we teach and learn. We need to know all of our nation's history. Warts and all. That is why I am adamantly against removing any of it...add to it with the truth but don't remove one piece of history to teach another. When we do that, we are bound to repeat it in one way or another.
-- However, those who control things HAVE "picked and chosen" what was taught and studied and it's always been whitewashed versions of history. Statues? Really? Who is learning history from statues? Those can go into museums where they belong. Removing statues doesn't erase history. There aren't any statues of Hitler in Germany but they still know who he was and the Holocaust. Smh
Posted 1 h ago
This is good history...bad story and event but good solid history. This is what we need to be teaching...not picking and choosing what is history and what is not. It is the same for me about statues. Why move them when they spur discussion. They need to be out there so folks can talk about them and what they stood for.
We as a nation don't need to pick and choose what we teach and learn. We need to know all of our nation's history. Warts and all. That is why I am adamantly against removing any of it...add to it with the truth but don't remove one piece of history to teach another. When we do that, we are bound to repeat it in one way or another.
-- However, those who control things HAVE "picked and chosen" what was taught and studied and it's always been whitewashed versions of history. Statues? Really? Who is learning history from statues? Those can go into museums where they belong. Removing statues doesn't erase history. There aren't any statues of Hitler in Germany but they still know who he was and the Holocaust. Smh
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This is good history...bad story and event but good solid history. This is what we need to be teaching...not picking and choosing what is history and what is not. It is the same for me about statues. Why move them when they spur discussion. They need to be out there so folks can talk about them and what they stood for.
We as a nation don't need to pick and choose what we teach and learn. We need to know all of our nation's history. Warts and all. That is why I am adamantly against removing any of it...add to it with the truth but don't remove one piece of history to teach another. When we do that, we are bound to repeat it in one way or another.
We as a nation don't need to pick and choose what we teach and learn. We need to know all of our nation's history. Warts and all. That is why I am adamantly against removing any of it...add to it with the truth but don't remove one piece of history to teach another. When we do that, we are bound to repeat it in one way or another.
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As a nation, we should better understand the plight of others! Some events that occurred in our past are sometimes forgotten and or ignored! Divided we stand, and Divided we fall!
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