Greenwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma, May 1921
- Florence Sprague
- 3 days ago
- 1 min read
History is a bit like social media-- There is just SO MUCH of it. So many topics, so many people, so many perspectives, so many rabbit holes to dive down.
But we do not want to let history be only a list of dates, wars, and presidents. We need to see the lives of people on those dates, in those wars, under those presidents. We need to learn from the perspectives of those who were not our ancestors, whose stories never would have been passed down to us across the dinner table. We need to talk about hard things; we need to talk about Bruno.
I do not recall learning about Black Wall Street in the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa Oklahoma until PBS broadcast a program about its destruction in the violent, racist Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, around the time of its tragic centenary. When I tried to identify the program that I saw, I found multiple possibilities that came out between 2019 and 2021, among them Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten and Greenwood: An American Dream Destroyed. More recently, my husband attended a meeting in Tulsa, which was enhanced by a visit to the museum commemorating this tragedy with an interpreter of the experience. The materials he brought home with him brought it back to mind for me.
