The past is still very much alive as we still see cases like George Floyd.
One of the many terrifying events of racial terrorism against the Black community is the “Tusla Massacre,” also known as the “Tulsa race massacre” or “ Black Wall Street Massacre.”
The outrage took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921. Black residents were attacked by white resident violent groups, who were provided arms by city officials. Black communities and activists remember the day as documentaries are released covering the story.
Twitter also mourns, as the very less known massacre finally gets the attention it deserves.
The sixteen-hour clash was sparked by a conflict between white men planning to lynch a black man accused of assaulting a girl and Black men determined to stop it. It ended up killing 100 to 300 people and burned down most of Greenwood, including more than 1,250 houses.
As Tulsa commemorates the 100th anniversary of the attacks on Monday – and as the country grapples with the long history of anti-Black racism, slavery, and state violence – Tulsa massacre survivors and their descendants continue to demand recognition and compensation.
According to Guardian, one of the emerging themes from the victims is the silence that surrounds the massacre. Most of them mentioned that they had not heard about it till they reached adulthood.
Along with the silence, a sense of deep loss resides in each and every one of the survivors.
The Tulsa race massacre has gone from virtually unknown to a symbolic representation of a community in an astonishingly short period. A national reckoning drove it with racism and, in particular, sanctioned violence against Black Americans. This awareness is reflected in a surge of new television documentaries commemorating the 100th anniversary of the massacre.
Some of the documentaries are: “Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre” (Sunday on History), “Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street” (Monday on CNN), and “Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten” (Monday on PBS).
As the director of the PBS documentary, Jonathan Silvers, who worked with Reporter DeNeen L. Brown, said, “(The Tulsa massacre) is not known to the larger community, certainly not known by white America, “I think the Black American experience has been overshadowed. We white Americans have no idea. That historic violence does cast a very long shadow.”
All of these mentioned documentaries are overlapping commentaries on the drastic event. But what these documentaries fail to do is to provide testimony from survivors.
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