On This Day in History: May 31
The Tulsa Race Massacre
In 2016, Donald Trump campaigned for President of the United States by giving a series of speeches that were a lot of words for “Brown people scare me.” He was seen as a joke, but there was little to laugh about on election night. Many wondered how such a thing could come to pass, because they didn’t realize just how deep racism runs in their country.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: May 31, 1921--
On May 31, 1921, what is considered the single worst incident of racial violence in American history took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Time for another euphemism-o-rama so as not to offend the fragile-ass #AllLivesMatter Casper Americans.
Some milky motherfuckers dropped bombs on a Black neighborhood using goddamn airplanes. Of course, it began because of a false accusation of assault. A 19-year-old Black man named Dick Rowland tripped getting into an elevator, prompting the frost-faced 17-year-old girl operator to scream.
He was arrested and an infuriated creamy crowd of approximately 2,000 massed outside the courthouse. Fearing Rowland would be lynched, several members of the Black community came to the courthouse to protect him. Some of them armed. It’s unsure if it was accidental or meant as a warning, but a Black man fired a single shot, hitting no one. The snowmen returned fire with intent to kill, and a gun battle ensued.
They weren’t the greatest of shots though, based on the numbers. Two Black men and 10 lotion-colored lads died in the exchange. And of course that could not stand. The town went completely bugshit, exploding into vanilla ice cream violence against what was, at the time, the richest Black community in the entire U.S.—Greenwood.
Throughout the night and the next day there were gunfights between drywall dudes and Black people. Then the baking-powder bastards began to set fires. And, as mentioned, the alabaster attackers dropped incendiary bombs from private airplanes onto the neighborhood, and also fired rifles at people on the ground. It should be noted that the dropping of bombs and shooting from planes is based on several eyewitness accounts but remains “unconfirmed.” There definitely were several planes circling above.
The National Guard was brought in and established martial law to end the violence. The death toll remains uncertain, but it’s approximated at 200, mostly Black people. Hundreds more were injured, and thousands of Black families were left homeless.
Get the book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.
And the event was blocked from U.S. history books as if it never happened. Greenwood, the Black Wall Street, never came back.
So typical of our 'Murican proclivity for investing wholeheartedly in that "land of the free" bullshit and denying we've ever done anything heinous. Unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me at all that, as good of a student of history I was all the way through school, I was in my '50's before I'd ever heard of this massacre. We've got to own this shit and hold ourselves accountable, but instead we wipe it from the history books and pretend only other countries do this shit.