There’s no real way to ease into this one tonight so I’m going to jump right in.

This morning while I was reading the news on the AP News website an article caught my attention. As I read it I became increasingly angry. My mind struggled to comprehend what had taken place almost 100 years ago. A minimum of 36 lives lost due to hateful violence (and possibly as many as 300). What I was reading about was The Tulsa Race Massacre:

https://apnews.com/article/tulsa-race-massacre-1921-100-years-later-3bc13e842c31054a90b6d1c81db9d70c

If you aren’t willing to commit to the entire article, I can sum up the hateful activity in one short paragraph from the article:

“More than 35 city blocks were leveled, an estimated 191 businesses were destroyed, and roughly 10,000 Black residents were displaced from the neighborhood where they’d lived, learned, played, worked and prospered.”

AP News – https://apnews.com/article/tulsa-race-massacre-1921-100-years-later-3bc13e842c31054a90b6d1c81db9d70c

Want your blood pressure to rise a little more? Just in case that paragraph doesn’t get you thinking “what the hell,” here’s another fun fact… No white person has ever been imprisoned for taking part in the massacre.

If you want more information you can find another article discussing the massacre here: https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/tulsa-race-massacre

How this was never shared in history class blows my mind. When I brought it up with a couple of different groups of friends there were only a few who’d heard of this event, and they’d only heard about it recently.

Our country has made mistakes in the past, huge mistakes. We can’t go back in time to fix them, they’ve already happened. The least we can do is engage in honest dialogue and remember the mistakes that were made. In knowing and remembering we can work to prevent making them again. By erasing them we’re doomed to repeat them.

Today, while I’m seething with anger that this hasn’t been taught, I am thankful for finally learning about an event I should have known about decades ago. At least now I have more of the truth and can see more clearly the past as it was, not as others would portray it to be.

Thanks!!!