saw this play last night at MuCCC and was amazed by the complete absence of such an important (and gruesome) story from american consciousness.
Brandon Weber: In 1921, the Greenwood district neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the site of one of the most devastating massacres in the entire history of United States. It was a massacre so ghastly, many chose to forget it and it was hidden from textbooks and even oral histories for decades. As we struggle today to understand contemporary violence against African Americans, it’s especially important to know this history and to try to understand what happened.
Known as “Black Wall Street” to those in the community, Greenwood in the early part of the 20th century was a thriving business district featuring African-American owned businesses, a strong black middle and upper class, schools, hospitals, and theaters. It was a bustling commercial and social “island” on the Northeast side of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In just two days in the Spring of 1921, however, it was all destroyed. Put in today’s terms, there was $30 million in damage, from fifty-five to 400 killed, 800 injured; family fortunes had evaporated overnight. Many accounts of the demise of Black Wall Street refer to it as a “race riot,” but nothing could be further from the truth. It is better described as a terrorist attack on an affluent black neighborhood. The armed black men involved were defending their homes, their businesses, and their lives.
