SummerMadness

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A Century After the Race Massacre, Tulsa Confronts Its Bloody Past
It's been 100 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre — one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history. An armed white mob attacked Greenwood, a prosperous Black community in Tulsa, Okla., killing as many as 300 people. What was known as Black Wall Street was burned to the ground.

"Mother, I see men with guns," said Florence Mary Parrish, a small child looking out the window on the evening of May 31, 1921, when the siege began.
 

disciple Clint

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We are looking at something that happened in 1921 in that time period it is regrettable but understandable that a white woman being raped by a black man followed by a white man being shot by a black man would result in a riot and burning down a portion of the city resulting in a death toll that was recorded at 10 whites and 26 black people. It is much less understandable today when a riot results in burning down a portion of a city and the loss of human life.
 
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FreeinChrist

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We are looking at something that happened in 1921 in that time period it is regrettable but understandable that a white woman being raped by a black man followed by a white man being shot by a black man would result in a riot and burning down a portion of the city resulting in a death toll that was recorded at 10 whites and 26 black people. It is much less understandable today when a riot results in burning down a portion of a city and the loss of human life.

That is a sad apologetic based on bad facts. The article from the OP:

A Century After The Race Massacre, Tulsa Confronts Its Bloody Past

The massacre had been sparked by reports that a 19-year-old Black man had allegedly offended a 17-year-old white female elevator attendant. The murky incident got blown out of proportion by inflammatory newspaper accounts.
The newspaper inflamed it to "rape" and a white crowd descended on the jail demanding the young man be given to them to lynch.

Mass Grave Unearthed in Tulsa During Search for Massacre Victims

The 1921 massacre began after white people tried to lynch a young Black man over allegations that he had attacked a young white woman who was an elevator operator at a drugstore. The man was cleared, but when a group of white men converged with a group of Black men at a police station, shots were fired and a fight broke out.​

Your first sentence was wrong. The young man did not rape a white woman.


It wasn't just burning down "a portion of the city" - it was the utter destruction of the wealthiest black neighborhood in the town, referred to as America’s Black Wall Street.
from the OP article:

According to the commission's report, the massacre destroyed some 40-square blocks in Greenwood. Nearly 10,000 people were left homeless as 1,256 homes were looted and burned down. And the thriving commercial district was destroyed — some of the finest Black-owned and operated businesses in the country, including hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, a theater, a roller skating rink, hospitals and doctors' offices, law firms and churches.
Mass Grave Unearthed in Tulsa During Search for Massacre Victims

When the carnage was over, the unofficial count of the victims ranged as high as 300. Officials forbade funerals and buried the victims hastily without death certificates or other records.
It wasn't just 10 white men and 26 blacks.

There is no defense for this. It was ungodly, unChristian hate that led to the deisre to lynch the young man and then attack a prosperous black neighborhood and utterly destroy it.
 
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We are looking at something that happened in 1921 in that time period it is regrettable but understandable that a white woman being raped by a black man followed by a white man being shot by a black man would result in a riot and burning down a portion of the city resulting in a death toll that was recorded at 10 whites and 26 black people. It is much less understandable today when a riot results in burning down a portion of a city and the loss of human life.
Why you would take the perpetrators accounts at face value is beyond me. Well, actually, I can think of some reasons.
 
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SummerMadness

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What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed
Imagine a community of great possibilities and prosperity built by Black people for Black people. Places to work. Places to live. Places to learn and shop and play. Places to worship.

Now imagine it being ravaged by flames.

In May 1921, the Tulsa, Okla., neighborhood of Greenwood was a fully realized antidote to the racial oppression of the time. Built in the early part of the century in a northern pocket of the city, it was a thriving community of commerce and family life to its roughly 10,000 residents.
Brick and wood-frame homes dotted the landscape, along with blocks lined with grocery stores, hotels, nightclubs, billiard halls, theaters, doctor’s offices and churches.

Greenwood was so promising, so vibrant that it became home to what was known as America’s Black Wall Street. But what took years to build was erased in less than 24 hours by racial violence — sending the dead into mass graves and forever altering family trees.

Hundreds of Greenwood residents were brutally killed, their homes and businesses wiped out. They were casualties of a furious and heavily armed white mob of looters and arsonists. One factor that drove the violence: resentment toward the Black prosperity found in block after block of Greenwood.
 
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SummerMadness

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Just this weekend I was chatting with a young man who is heading to Tulsa next week to commemorate the massacre. His grandmother was a survivor of the attack. It's rather haunting to see how proximal we are to such violence and terrorism. As we consider the anniversary of George Floyd's murder, I think back to Tulsa and atrocities like the murder of Emmett Till. We've come far, but we have a long way to go.
 
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disciple Clint

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That is a sad apologetic based on bad facts. The article from the OP:

A Century After The Race Massacre, Tulsa Confronts Its Bloody Past

The massacre had been sparked by reports that a 19-year-old Black man had allegedly offended a 17-year-old white female elevator attendant. The murky incident got blown out of proportion by inflammatory newspaper accounts.
The newspaper inflamed it to "rape" and a white crowd descended on the jail demanding the young man be given to them to lynch.

Mass Grave Unearthed in Tulsa During Search for Massacre Victims

The 1921 massacre began after white people tried to lynch a young Black man over allegations that he had attacked a young white woman who was an elevator operator at a drugstore. The man was cleared, but when a group of white men converged with a group of Black men at a police station, shots were fired and a fight broke out.​

Your first sentence was wrong. The young man did not rape a white woman.


It wasn't just burning down "a portion of the city" - it was the utter destruction of the wealthiest black neighborhood in the town, referred to as America’s Black Wall Street.
from the OP article:

According to the commission's report, the massacre destroyed some 40-square blocks in Greenwood. Nearly 10,000 people were left homeless as 1,256 homes were looted and burned down. And the thriving commercial district was destroyed — some of the finest Black-owned and operated businesses in the country, including hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, a theater, a roller skating rink, hospitals and doctors' offices, law firms and churches.
Mass Grave Unearthed in Tulsa During Search for Massacre Victims

When the carnage was over, the unofficial count of the victims ranged as high as 300. Officials forbade funerals and buried the victims hastily without death certificates or other records.
It wasn't just 10 white men and 26 blacks.

There is no defense for this. It was ungodly, unChristian hate that led to the deisre to lynch the young man and then attack a prosperous black neighborhood and utterly destroy it.
My facts are correct you can check them yourself Tulsa race massacre of 1921 | History & Facts
Nothing about the facts improves the situation, it was wrong at the time it is still wrong today, it matters not who the participants are or what their reasons or excuses might be.
 
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disciple Clint

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Why you would take the perpetrators accounts at face value is beyond me. Well, actually, I can think of some reasons.
The facts came from historical events but you can think whatever supports your bias.
 
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SummerMadness

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Biden to travel to Oklahoma to commemorate 100th anniversary of Tulsa race massacre
President Joe Biden will visit Tulsa, Oklahoma, next week in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, the White House announced on Tuesday.

No other details were made immediately available about the trip slated for June 1.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of a race massacre in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, which encompassed more than 35 city blocks of entirely Black-owned businesses. A beacon for African Americans looking to escape the discrimination and violence of the Jim Crow South and live a peaceful and safe life, the district was founded by Black men and women -- many of whom were descendants of slaves -- and became known as Black Wall Street.
 
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disciple Clint

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You justified the murder of, at least, 39 (estimated to be many more), hundreds injured, the internment of thousands, and the destruction of 35 square city blocks because it was alleged that somebody raped somebody and another killed another. Justifications don't get more paltry than that. Your words, "regrettable but understandable." Ain't none of that understandable.

Notice, I scrubbed any reference to race for clarity. Your justification seems to imply white folks were justified in what they did to a black community because the alleged offenses were against white folks.

How can you not see the errors in your justification?
what you are ignoring and what my comments were considering was the time element in 1921 things were much different than they are today, in 1921 the events that happened would not have been considered at all unusual, that is the point I was making, I was not justifying anything, as I said it was regrettable but not unexpected in that time period. I am going to assume that you simply misunderstood what I was saying and not trying to spin them. We do however need to face the facts that as far as things have come we still have people who think that it is perfectly justified to riot, assault people, and burn down part of a city.
 
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public hermit

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what you are ignoring and what my comments were considering was the time element in 1921 things were much different than they are today, in 1921 the events that happened would not have been considered at all unusual, that is the point I was making, I was not justifying anything, as I said it was regrettable but not unexpected in that time period. I am going to assume that you simply misunderstood what I was saying and not trying to spin them. We do however need to face the facts that as far as things have come we still have people who think that it is perfectly justified to riot, assault people, and burn down part of a city.

I'm not sure of the salient feature you're trying to highlight by saying it was 1921. If all you're trying to say is this country's long history of whites enslaving, oppressing, terrorizing, murdering, and abusing blacks is a given, well then I agree.

And, that's the whole point of highlighting the Tulsa Massacre. If you are so concerned about what happens today, then I expect to see you supporting the remembrance of atrocities committed in the past.
 
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SummerMadness

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My facts are correct you can check them yourself Tulsa race massacre of 1921 | History & Facts
Nothing about the facts improves the situation, it was wrong at the time it is still wrong today, it matters not who the participants are or what their reasons or excuses might be.
Britanica supports what I wrote.

"Tulsa race massacre of 1921, also called Tulsa race riot of 1921, one of the most severe incidents of racial violence in U.S. history. It occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, beginning on May 31, 1921, and lasting for two days. The massacre left somewhere between 30 and 300 people dead, mostly African Americans, and destroyed Tulsa’s prosperous Black neighbourhood of Greenwood, known as the “Black Wall Street.” More than 1,400 homes and businesses were burned, and nearly 10,000 people were left homeless. Despite its severity and destructiveness, the Tulsa race massacre was barely mentioned in history books until the late 1990s, when a state commission was formed to document the incident."​

On May 30, 1921, Dick Rowland, a young African American shoe shiner, was accused of assaulting a white elevator operator named Sarah Page in the elevator of a building in downtown Tulsa. The next day, the Tulsa Tribune printed a story saying that Rowland had tried to rape Page, with an accompanying editorial stating that a lynching was planned for that night. That evening mobs of both African Americans and whites descended on the courthouse where Rowland was being held. When a confrontation between an armed African American man, there to protect Rowland, and a white protestor resulted in the death of the latter, the white mob was incensed, and the Tulsa massacre was thus ignited."
You wrote, and note what I am making red:

"We are looking at something that happened in 1921 in that time period it is regrettable but understandable that a white woman being raped by a black man followed by a white man being shot by a black man would result in a riot and burning down a portion of the city resulting in a death toll that was recorded at 10 whites and 26 black people."​

He hadn't raped her. The Britanica piece also supports what I said about the white folks gathering to lynch the young man, and that black vets stepped in to protect him.
The 'official' death toll was about 30 but experts believe it was far more. 10,000 homeless as a result.


Don't diminish what happened. It is an ugly piece of US history and the attitude behind the events played out in much of the US for a long time. Still is in some ways.
 
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I guess i need to explain that the values of 1921 regarding race are dramatically different from the values today. people just did not value black lives in those times. I doubt that any of us of today can even begin to understand how they thought then, I have read history so I know how they acted towards black people then. There is no way that people of today can begin to get our minds around to thinking like they did. You can feel free to expect anything that makes you happy, but dont even begin to expect me to conform to your expectations.
Stop apologizing for or justifying it.
 
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disciple Clint

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Stop apologizing for or justifying it.
Just so you understand, I am not doing either, I am setting it in historical perspective, nothing more or less that should be obvious.
 
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No, your first sentence was
"We are looking at something that happened in 1921 in that time period it is regrettable but understandable that a white woman being raped by a black man followed by a white man being shot by a black man would result in a riot and burning down a portion of the city resulting in a death toll that was recorded at 10 whites and 26 black people."​

However, it is not "understandable" and the white woman was not raped, and it is not was not okay to lynch the accused or demand to do that. The black men who defended the accused were vets. They were trying to prevent a crime by a white mob who went on to destroy homes and businesses of successful black folks.
The white mob is responsible for their actions that day.
 
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SummerMadness

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Once overlooked in classrooms, Tulsa race massacre now seen as 'important' lesson in Oklahoma schools
As the nation prepares next week to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre — considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the country's history — schools in Oklahoma are pushing to ensure that residents grow up knowing about the tragedy. The effort is an about-face after what many say was years of silence or inadequate education about the topic.

"We have to teach this and face the ugliness of what I believe we've been too ashamed to talk about in the past," said Joy Hofmeister, superintendent of the state Education Department. "We cannot turn our back on the truth."
 
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disciple Clint

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No, your first sentence was
"We are looking at something that happened in 1921 in that time period it is regrettable but understandable that a white woman being raped by a black man followed by a white man being shot by a black man would result in a riot and burning down a portion of the city resulting in a death toll that was recorded at 10 whites and 26 black people."​

However, it is not "understandable" and the white woman was not raped, and it is not was not okay to lynch the accused or demand to do that. The black men who defended the accused were vets. They were trying to prevent a crime by a white mob who went on to destroy homes and businesses of successful black folks.
The white mob is responsible for their actions that day.
Do you not think that it is important to view things in a historical perspective? The values that you are using to make judgments are not the same values that were being used at that time. I perhaps should have use the word allegedly raped but my mind was on trying to make the actions of people in 1921 understandable to people of our times rather than attempting to asses blame. Anything that we look at in history has to be viewed through the eyes of the people of that time. We have that same problem with people who read the Bible and fail to think about the fact that God was dealing with people and a social situation that was much different than what we have today.
 
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