Assignment task: On May 30, 1921, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, "a 19-year-old African American man named Dick Rowland entered a building in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. Approaching the elevator, which had not stopped evenly with the floor, he tripped and fell onto the operator, a 17-year-old white girl named Sarah Page who screamed leading people on the floor to yell rape." Page later declined to press any charges, though it was too late by that point. NOTE: for many decades in many cities people, usually women, were hired to sit in elevators in major buildings and even in some smaller ones and when someone would enter the elevator they would ask them what floor they wanted and then their job was to press the button for them and wish them a good day as they left the elevator. I remember in the 1960s the Montgomery Ward store in downtown Sherman had a woman who was the "elevator lady" and rode up and down all day long pushing the button for people and then telling them she hoped they enjoyed their shopping.
Police arrested Rowland and held him in the Tulsa County Jail. With the next day's Tulsa Tribune story--"Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator"--and its call for lynching, things swiftly escalated to an armed standoff between white residents and a group of black residents seeking to protect Rowland. After having their offer to help protect Rowland turned down by the police, a group of armed black men returned to the Greenwood district of Tulsa, the thriving, middle-class community widely known as the Negro Wall Street. As they were making their way there, a white man attempted to disarm one of them and a shot rang out beginning the attack.
"White mobs set fires on the edge of Greenwood during the night. On the morning of June 1, thousands of whites descended into the district, looting, setting fires and killing blacks who fought back but were described as outnumbered and outgunned. Napalm-like bombs were dropped from private fertilizer planes-the first bombs ever dropped on American soil. Authorities did little to stop the violence. The attack virtually destroyed Greenwood and in the process killed numerous residents. Estimates varied from a low of a few hundred to thousands."
The government "declared martial law and over 6000 African American Tulsans were interned in camps where they were reportedly beaten and starved. Within 24 hours 35 blocks of Greenwood lay in charred ruins, with more than 1000 homes and businesses destroyed and as of June 1, 9000 people homeless."
The Tulsa Race Riot is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history.
For decades the events of 1921 were rarely discussed and were not taught. In the 1990s, Dr. Olivia Hooker, who had survived the riot as a child established the Tulsa Race Riot Commission. Recently a historic display has been set up in Tulsa and there is an effort to bring teachers in to learn about the event and how to teach about the event to their students. Still there has been controversy over whether or not that should happen. Dr. Hooker became the first African American woman to enter the U.S. Coast Guard in February 1945. She later became a psychologist and clinical professor at Fordham University. Born in 1915, she died in 2018 at the age of 103. In October 2019 it was announced that the fast response cutter USCGC Olivia Hooker would be named in her honor. Recently more information about what took place has begun to be shared and this event is becoming more known.
Question:
Over the decades other race riots occurred in this country as well as people being lynched. Native Americans suffered greatly and faced their own atrocities. Japanese Americans were held in camps during World War II, in many cases losing their property and possessions, solely because their ethnic background was Japanese and the U.S. was now in a war with the Japanese.
Q1. How should we handle our past?
Q2. Should we acknowledge the mistakes and the tragedies and teach about them and commemorate them or should we try to forget?
Q3. Dr. Hooker's parents told her and her siblings that they shouldn't spend their time agonizing over the past. They should look forward and think how they could make things better. Were they correct? Should the Tulsa Race riot have continued to be hidden and forgotten or is it important for such things to be remembered? And if so, how should events like that be remembered?