History, or Propaganda?

I’m 50 years old, and never heard about the Tulsa Race Massacre (June 1, 1921) once in 18 years of schooling. Even in the state of Oklahoma, it only became required in schools in 2020.

I learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre when I went actively searching for erased or rejected history.

The Tulsa Race Massacre is alternately referred to as the Tulsa Massacre, the Tulsa Riot, and the Tulsa Race Riot. Without knowing what exactly happened in the Tulsa Race Massacre, each of those phrases might lead you to make some assumptions about what happened.

The Tulsa Race Massacre is likely the single worst incident of racial violence since the U.S. Civil War. The two day attack was carried out on the ground and with private aircraft, and killed 26 Black people. It destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the Greenwood District of the city, often referred to as “the Negro [now Black] Wall Street” because of its prosperity. The official 2001 Oklahoma State Commission report estimated 75-300 deaths, property damages valued at (2019-USD) $32.25 million, and concluded that the city had collaborated with its White citizens against its Black citizens. The Commission recommended reparations to survivors and their descendants.

I learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre when I went actively searching for erased or rejected history. Of course, that was history erased or rejected from the White American narrative. That’s the one I regularly heard as a White American; it’s also the one dominating public school curricula. The Tulsa Race Massacre has always been widely known among Black Americans.

When people are erasing and rejecting history, it stops being history, and becomes propaganda. Propaganda is information meant to help or harm a person, group, organization, institution, idea, and also the act of spreading that information.

History is a dangerous subject because of its proximity to propaganda. A necessary subject, without question — but a dangerous one, too, without questions.

Make it your job to ask questions.

Here are links to organizations active in the space of producing history and eliminating White American propaganda. Please consider a reparative donation to one or more.

The Equal Justice Initiative, home to The Legacy Museum & The National Memorial for Peace and Justice (Montgomery, AL)

Black Past (Seattle, WA)

Teaching Hard History, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (Montgomery, AL)