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May 31 , 1921: Planes were use to firebomb the black community of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Slayven

Member
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot

The Tulsa race riot was a large-scale, racially motivated conflict on May 31 and June 1, 1921, in which a group of whites attacked the black community of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Greenwood District, the wealthiest black community in the United States, was burned to the ground. Over the course of 16 hours, more than 800 people were admitted to local white hospitals with injuries, the two black hospitals were burned down, and police arrested and detained more than 6,000 black Greenwood residents at three local facilities. An estimated 10,000 blacks were left homeless, and 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences were destroyed by fire, resulting in over $26 million in damages. The official count of the dead by the Oklahoma Department of Vital Statistics was 39, but other estimates of black fatalities vary from 55 to about 300.

The events of the massacre were long omitted from local and state histories: "The Tulsa race riot of 1921 was rarely mentioned in history books, classrooms or even in private. Blacks and whites alike grew into middle age unaware of what had taken place."[1] With the number of survivors declining, in 1996, the state legislature commissioned a report to establish the historical record of the events, and acknowledge the victims and damages to the black community. Released in 2001, the report included the commission's recommendations for some compensatory actions, most of which were not implemented by the state and city governments. The state passed legislation to establish some scholarships for descendants of survivors, economic development of Greenwood, and a memorial park to the victims in Tulsa. The latter was dedicated in 2010.
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]The planes, six biplane two-seater trainers left over from World War I, were dispatched from the nearby Curtiss-Southwest Field outside Tulsa. Law enforcement officials later stated that the planes were to provide reconnaissance and protect against a "Negro uprising". Eyewitness accounts and testimony from the survivors maintained that on the morning of June 1, the planes dropped incendiary bombs and fired rifles at black residents on the ground
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Once taboo discussion, Tulsa Race Riot now included in state academic standards

Oklahoma history isn’t all “corn as high as an elephant’s eye” and “bright morning haze on the meadow.” It’s also tear-stained trails, starving sharecroppers and shady land deals.

And it’s Tulsa’s 1921 Race Riot.

For decades, the deadly events of that night and morning were shoved in the state’s vault of things not to be mentioned further back than Woody Guthrie and “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Few if any references to the riot could be found in ninth-grade Oklahoma history textbooks, and in any event students were kept too busy memorizing the state’s 77 counties and their county seats to spend much time on that or any other unpleasantness.

“Sometimes history is harder to hear when it happened in your backyard,” said Warren Fuselier, a junior at Booker T. Washington High School.

Fuselier is a student of BTW history, and social studies teacher Anthony Marshall is an ardent enthusiast for incorporating lessons from the 1921 riot into as much of the local curricula as possible.

“It’s more than a simple class in h
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outunderthestars

Banned
Great thread about a horrific event that has been swept under the rug. Thanks for posting.


A!so, everyone REALLY should take a few minutes to read the story. It is a fascinating read and goes to show just how fucked up things were.
 
F

Fat4all

Banned
Fuckin' a, man.

We did that to the Japanese too, ya? That's super fucked up, just random intense death and destruction.
 
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Slayven

Member
I could post threads all day of peaceful African American communities that were literally wiped off the map for little reason than it was a Tuesday.

Central Park in NYC? they took the homes of blacks to make it possible
 
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Subpar Scrub

Banned
andthebeatgoeson said:
One of the best cases to argue for reparations in this country.
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Let's not turn this into reparations debate thread. We have plenty of those frequently enough.

Fucking disgusting events. It's hard to read the articles on it and it's somewhat gross that I only learnt about this earlier this year.
 
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Mael

Member
That a country could open fire on its own citizen is despicable, of course you can tell they were never considered as such.
I wouldn't even be surprised if we leaned that white people involved in this actually engaged in cannibalism to make the whole thing ever grosser...Would be the only way it could become an even great shitcake.
Shame on the oppressive population, the state and the authorities.
 
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DontBeThatGuy

Member
I feel like this is always worth reposting, since damn near everyone still doesn't actually know about it. You could mistake the pictures of the bombed out buildings for something straight out of World War 2.
 
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Slayven

Member
Mael said:
That a country could open fire on its own citizen is despicable, of course you can tell they were never considered as such.
I wouldn't even be surprised if we leaned that white people involved in this actually engaged in cannibalism to make the whole thing ever grosser...Would be the only way it could become an even great shitcake.
Shame on the oppressive population, the state and the authorities.
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Castrating and taking the penis and balls of a lynching victim was a regular thing back in the day. Some folks kept them in jars in their homes as trophies.
 
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Mael

Member
DontBeThatGuy, that was actually my 1rst thought, if the timestamp wasn't there you could have been fooled.

RhynoTheStriker said:
Let's not turn this into reparations debate thread. We have plenty of those frequently enough.

Fucking disgusting events. It's hard to read the articles on it and it's somewhat gross that I only learnt about this earlier this year.
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Because if we know 1 thing is that it's never a good time to talk about trying to make up to a black community that has been unfairly torched to the ground.
The Cool One said:
Did the whites see the wealthy black community as a threat?
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Did the black community live in utter poverty under the boot of the white community? If that's a no, it's a clear sign.

Slayven said:
Castrating and taking the penis and balls of a lynching victim was a regular thing back in the day. Some folks kept them in jars in their homes as trophies.
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Well yeah.
I mean at this point if they took a bite out of a black guy it wouldn't even be more disgusting than what they already did.
 
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totowhoa

Banned
Such a crazy story. I've grown up in Oklahoma and like the article says, I was never taught this and neither was anybody my age (born in 86). I was shocked to learn about it outside of school in my late teens
 
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dramatis

Member
Slayven said:
Castrating and taking the penis and balls of a lynching victim was a regular thing back in the day. Some folks kept them in jars in their homes as trophies.
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I wonder how those people could have ever considered themselves superior when they were literally barbarians at that point
 
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Stormhammer

Member
maybe a "negro uprising" is what this country needed to get rid of the filth humans that could even think up things like this to do to their fellow man
 
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Laevateinn

Member
I find this depressing every time I hear about this. Imagine what Tulsa would have been like today had this community been allowed to grow and thrive. It could be a rival of any great northern city for sure.

Slayven said:
I could post threads all day of peaceful African American communities that were literally wiped off the map for little reason than it was a Tuesday.

Central Park in NYC? they took the homes of blacks to make it possible
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So, you're saying M. Bison was behind it?
 
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outunderthestars

Banned
Slayven said:
I could post threads all day of peaceful African American communities that were literally wiped off the map for little reason than it was a Tuesday.

Central Park in NYC? they took the homes of blacks to make it possible
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Hell, one could fill a massive book with just examples of highway planning boards routing roads through middle class African American communities with the explicit intent to break their community and any social/economic gains in progress. :(
 
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Mael

Member
outunderthestars said:
Hell, one could fill a massive book with just examples of highway planning boards routing roads through middle class African American communities with the explicit intent to break their community and any social/economic gains in progress. :(
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That's the hilariously sad part about reparations, you can make a case for reparations to the black communities based on everything that happened after the Civil War and STILL end up making a huge payday for something like 70% of the AA population in the country.
I guess it would be the fault of the states instead of the federal government though.

MANUELF said:
Thats horrible, first time hearing of it, I guess nothing happened to the attackers right?
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If you mean nothing bad, I guess.
If you mean nothing at all I wouldn't be surprised if some got some medals from the authorities though.
 
B

Big Baybee

Member
Mael said:
That's the hilariously sad part about reparations, you can make a case for reparations to the black communities based on everything that happened after the Civil War and STILL end up making a huge payday for something like 70% of the AA population in the country.
I guess it would be the fault of the states instead of the federal government though.



If you mean nothing bad, I guess.
If you mean nothing at all I wouldn't be surprised if some got some medals from the authorities though.
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This is why reparations threads are frustrating. People like to pretend that slavery ended and in the century after it was smooth sailing.
 
K

Kreed

Member
Fuselier is a student of BTW history, and social studies teacher Anthony Marshall is an ardent enthusiast for incorporating lessons from the 1921 riot into as much of the local curricula as possible.
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IMO it would be beneficial for stories like this to be in as many school history books as possible even outside of the towns/cities they happened in, but you'd probably need an entire class(es) devoted to these kinds of tragedies against US minorities to cover them all.
 
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cameron

Member
From the Tulsaworld link in the OP: "Photo Gallery/Timeline"
The most prominent Tulsan killed in the riot was Dr. A.C. Jackson, a 40-year-old surgeon living at 523 N. Detroit Ave. According to Jackson’s white neighbor, former police commissioner and retired judge John Oliphant, Jackson had raised his hands to surrender to a group of whites when two of them shot Jackson dead in what Oliphant called “cold-blooded murder.”
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Born in Memphis and raised in Guthrie, where his father was a law officer, Jackson graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, practiced for awhile in Tulsa and Claremore, then trained as a surgeon in Memphis. His work was such that he attracted the attention of the Mayo Brothers, and in 1919 he returned to Tulsa as a specialist in “chronic diseases and surgery for women.”

Jackson lived on what was one of the most exclusive blocks in all of Greenwood. His neighbors included Booker T. Washington High School principal E.W. Woods, Tulsa Star publisher A.J. Smitherman and physician R.T. Bridgewater. Why Jackson, one of the gentlest of men, would have been singled out is not known. Perhaps he was mistaken for the more outspoken Smitherman or Bridgewater. Perhaps he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The riot had all but died down, Oliphant said, when Jackson “came walking toward me with his hands in the air. ‘Here am I. I want to go with you,’ he said. A body of about seven men, all armed, intercepted him and two young fellows fired on him. He fell to the ground and one of the men fired again.”

Jackson’s killers were never identified.
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Many detainees were released within hours, while others remained at the fairgrounds camp for weeks. Generally, detainees were held until a white person vouched for them, at which point they were given a card to wear on their clothes. Those without cards were subject to arrest.

Those with nowhere else to go were allowed to stay at the fairgrounds camp, regardless of whether or not they had been released. At its height, the camp housed about 5,000.

Those who remained were required to pay for their meals, either out of their own pockets or by working at various tasks, including cleaning up the debris in Greenwood. For this, they were paid standard laborers’ wages. It was by no means an easy existence, but some whites soon complained that blacks were being “spoiled” at the fairgrounds and by the attention given them by the Red Cross and other charitable organizations.

Although the destruction of Greenwood was generally condemned by black and white Tulsans alike, overall blame was quickly assigned to the blacks who had gone to the courthouse to protect Dick Rowland.
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In April 1922, more than 1,700 Klan members marched through downtown Tulsa while an airplane carrying an electrically lighted cross flew overhead. In that spring’s city elections, Klan candidates swept every office, and did the same when county elections came around in the fall. In August 1923, Gov. J.C. Walton declared martial law in Tulsa County because of Klan activity.
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SpecX

Member
MWS Natural said:
...and still no reparations.
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I hate to say it and wish it would happen, but I don't think it ever will. People clamor about how we can't do it based on slavery, but events like these and all the issues from Jim Crow laws that impacted African Americans through out the 1900's is recent enough to justify it. There are plenty of people who are still alive that suffered from these things that could be given reparations, but it just will never happen.
 
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Enzom21

Member
RhynoTheStriker said:
Let's not turn this into reparations debate thread. We have plenty of those frequently enough.
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Why not?
Big Baybee said:
This is why reparations threads are frustrating. People like to pretend that slavery ended and in the century after it was smooth sailing.
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Well at least they weren't slaves anymore... and was slavery really that bad? At least they weren't in Africa and their masters gave them food and shelter... Make America Great again!

Even if we included destruction of successful black communities, segregation, Jim Crow, not being able to take part in the housing provision of the GI bill, separate but equal, war on drugs... etc etc. people would still be opposed to any discussion of reparations. Black people should not under any circumstances be given a leg up... it's not "fair".
"There's nothing that a white man with a penny hates more than a nigga with a nickel,"
 
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xVaalbarAx

Member
I live in Tulsa, and this is the dark side of this city that's for sure. There is nothing left of Greenwood still except for a couple of buildings and a new baseball stadiums
 
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Nastrodamous

Member
Hey, darkies if you just work hard like us you can be successful to, but not near us go start your own stuff.

WOAH WOAH WOAH you cant be that successful or we will get jealous and start bombing your establishments.
 
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Mammoth Jones

Member
Nastrodamous said:
Hey, darkies if you just work hard like us you can be successful to, but not near us go start your own stuff.

WOAH WOAH WOAH you cant be that successful or we will get jealous and start bombing your establishments.
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This unfortunately is EXACTLY the case. Also don't forget we're the real racists for bringing up history and not pretending it didn't happen...
 
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iavi

Member
Tulsa is one of those cases that's absolutely infuriating, flies in the face of the blacks just dont want to do by the bootstraps bullshit, and there's absolutely no sensible spinning or retort against that can be had by bullshitters. Even people who would want to try and spin this can see that the small minded jealousy was clear as day.

Which is why it's *never brought up in school. I'm almost sure some pact is made to never bring it up among teachers cause I've had some renegade history teachers and even they have fallen short of mentioning it.
 
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TalonJH

Member
Every year when the anniversary rolls by, It still awes me that there were actual planes dropping bombs. It was a literally organized purge.
 
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Mammoth Jones

Member
It just pisses me off with the "Slavery ended so long ago get over it!" crowds.

And I'll say it again Jim Crow was as bad if not worse than slavery. I'm speaking in terms of the impact in ensuring Black progress stayed at a snails pace.

When slavery ended but before Jim Crow laws really kicked in you didn't see Black folk seeking revenge, we immediately set about trying to find employment and carve a place out.

But integration scared the shit outta some and Jim Crow went into full effect. And those effects still linger to this day. Bootstraps my ass. We been did that shit. They got ripped off and burned down.
 
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Angelus Errare

Banned
Imm0rt4l said:
"Race riots"
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heh, and there were hundreds of these kind of "riots". Racist white folks going into black neighborhoods and basically killing them because of jealousy, hatred, and other bullshit.

But according to America. When slavery ended in 1865, we all held hands and sang Kumbaya and shit.
 
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