It's Up to Us to Know the Truth and Speak It

Tulsa, Oklahoma.

There were many surprises wrapped in the events that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and as the second impeachment trial in a year gets underway this week, there may be more surprises to come. 

One thing the deadly riot confirms is that the mob is always there in American life, waiting to be summoned. There is always someone - one person or a group - that feels betrayed, aggrieved, or ignored. No matter how strong the anger or resentment, we assume that most people can keep it in check. Political violence in this country is rare and that’s one of the reasons it is so shocking when it happens. The spark that lit the fire on January 6 was misinformation. The crowd had been doused with it and would no longer be ignored.

A similar crowd was let loose 100 years ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Misinformation was also to blame. When the violence was over, it is estimated as many as 300 people had been killed and an entire section of the city leveled and left in charred ruin.

The Tulsa Race Massacre started as a simple misunderstanding between two teenagers in the elevator of a downtown office building. One was Black and the other was white. In truth, no one really knows what happened in the elevator, but it was enough to feed a rumor mill that set off a string of events that culminated in an all out racially motivated attack on a prosperous section of the city known as Black Wall Street or Little Africa, depending on your place in Tulsa society.

On the next to last day of the month of May 1921, 19 year old Dick Rowland, who was Black, stepped into an elevator. Sarah Page, a 17 year old white girl, was already inside. For some reason Page screamed and Rowland was arrested the next morning on suspicion of sexual assault. A white crowd gathered outside the courthouse where he was being held demanding he be released to them. The police said no and the police also turned away a group of Black men who had come to help protect Rowland.

Rumors began to spread that the Black residents of the Greenwood section of town were arming themselves. Tulsa was a segregated city and there was white resentment over the success Black residents had worked for and enjoyed. Convincing themselves they were about to be attacked, groups of white residents of Tulsa swarmed into Greenwood and began looting and burning down almost everything in their path. At one point explosive devices were being dropped onto the neighborhood by plane.

More than 1,200 homes were burned to the ground, along with businesses and churches. In all, thirty-five blocks of the city of Tulsa were destroyed. By the time the National Guard was called in, the violence had stopped. At the time, and for decades after, the official death toll was put at about thirty, but recent investigations put the estimate at about 300. Almost all the victims were Black.

There was no evidence to support charges against Rowland and he was released and chose never to return to Tulsa. The violence and destruction was unjustifiable in every way, but it was rooted in lies, rumor, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. The mob was waiting to be summoned, but no one had previously imagined its strength.

Few people learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre in school history classes, because the white leadership of the community, including the local newspaper, made a deliberate effort to hide the story. In the years since, Black residents of Oklahoma, academics, politicians and others, demanded that the truth be told and special commissions were formed to record what actually happened so all can see the horror and begin to heal.

If you drive through Tulsa today, there are signs everywhere marking what happened. Two churches stand as living memorials to the violence. There are historic markers where Black businesses once stood. Murals depict Black Wall St. There is a memorial park and a main avenue named Reconciliation Way. It is hard to imagine the Greenwood section of today as the scene of such madness, but the story is no longer hidden.

Since January 6, many have commented about the fragility of democracy, but few have linked that fragility to the weaknesses of human nature. There is focus on the political movement and hate groups that led the riot at the Capitol. There is focus, as there should be, on the role of the former president. But whether in Tulsa, Washington, D.C. or in other cities that have experienced political violence during the course of U.S. history, the first ingredients are always misunderstanding, resentment, and ignorance. Those who would incite one group of Americans to turn on another, need jealously and hatred and bigotry, to light the fire. So it is within the power of each of us to resist and to refuse to be led down a shameful path.

The first step we can all take is to protect the truth. The truth of our history and the truth of the present moment. We need to take the responsibility to stay informed, because the best way to combat disinformation in the service of sinister forces is to be armed with the truth. And we can’t be afraid to tell the truth, especially to those who don’t want to hear it.

The mob was assembled in Washington, D.C. on January 6, and Black Wall Street was burned to the ground 100 years ago in Tulsa, because a small number of people in each case was willing to use misinformation maliciously to bring out the worst in their fellow Americans. But Americans also turned on each other in those instances, because people who knew the truth failed to share it and stop the violence before it began.