{"id":9598,"date":"2021-06-01T17:35:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T15:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/?p=9598"},"modified":"2021-07-13T16:17:51","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T14:17:51","slug":"tulsa-oklahoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/?p=9598","title":{"rendered":"Tulsa, Oklahoma."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While writing last year about Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half<\/a>, and the fictional childhood town of her protagonists, with its “coloured” populace peculiarly intent on becoming about as fair-skinned as they could; I diverged to mention the town of Eatonville near Orlando in Florida – one of the first all-black municipalities to be founded after Reconstruction – which was lived in and then “fictionalised” by Zora Neale Hurston. I didn’t investigate any further into where other such communities may have evolved and what their fate may have been. This week, though, I have learnt about one such other. Ended well did it not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From May 31st into this June 1st day in 1921, a white mob descended on the prosperous Black community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, murdering hundreds of residents and destroying more than a thousand homes. One hundred years late(r), a US President will visit a place, revisit an abominable event that has found no place in history books or civics classes, and pay respects, homage … and probably not much else. The careful dance around reparations, in this case as in others, and generally, will continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can be said, though, is that remembrance of this event has come at a time when ignorance can no longer be an excuse – not for governments, nor institutions and not for the public. The tragedy of Greenwood is out there for all to come to terms with. It is telling, I think, that it is another glaring omission both in the national historical narrative and, it follows, from many – or most – of the school history curricula in the United States. (If you don’t believe me or the mainstream media on this, Tom Hanks has his say<\/a>. A rare high spot in the new genre of “celebrity woke essay”!) And it is a tribute to the tenacity and courage of those who have kept the memory alive, who have fought for recognition and justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The New York Times<\/em>; an excellent photographic and multi-media essay<\/a> that juxtaposes the flourishing community that was, pulsing with human endeavour and industry, against the decimated remains after the rampage. And this<\/a> NYT Magazine<\/em> piece by Caleb Gayle (Black and from Tulsa) about the contemporary legacy of a trauma and a history too long wrapped in silence and rarely admitted to is a good read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While writing last year about Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, and the fictional childhood town of her protagonists, with its “coloured” populace peculiarly intent on becoming about as fair-skinned as they could; I diverged to mention the town of Eatonville near Orlando in Florida – one of the first all-black municipalities to be founded after … Continue reading “Tulsa, Oklahoma.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[171,18],"tags":[191,247,248],"class_list":["post-9598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","category-race","tag-brit-bennett","tag-greenwood","tag-zora-neale-hurston"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9598"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10179,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9598\/revisions\/10179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}