The Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa, and the gravesites

[irisblue]

Snip--twitter feed Researchers discover possible mass grave from the 1921 Tulsa race massacre
On May 31, 1921, a white mob marched on the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma — one of the richest black communities in the country at the time — burning much of the community to the ground. Experts at the University of Oklahoma say they have discovered a possible mass grave site from the massacre, though they have not determined how many bodies may be buried there.
Photo via @blkresist

Source-NBC news-
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/possible-mass-grave-1921-tulsa-race-massacre-found-researchers-n1102781


Snip--"
NBCBLK
Possible mass grave from 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre found by researchers
Experts in Oklahoma believe they found a mass grave site from the deadly race riots, recently recreated in HBO's "Watchmen."


"Experts at the University of Oklahoma believe they have found a possible mass grave site from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre at a city cemetery, although they are unsure how many bodies are underneath.

Geophysical scanning identified two spots at the Oaklawn Cemetery that might bear bodies of those killed in the city's race riots almost 100 years ago, Scott Hammerstedt, a senior researcher for the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, said Monday at a public hearing in Tulsa."

Surveys confirmed suspicions that one area might be a grave, in addition to a newly discovered trench under the soil of about 30 by 25 feet."

..."
The city is also working with the private owners of Booker T. Washington Cemetery in Tulsa to gain permission to scan the grounds, which researchers suspect could be home to another gravesite.".


Much more at article

[5X]

1. I was born and raised in Tulsa, born mid-fifties, never heard of this till adult and read

"A People's History Of The United States" by Zinn.

[irisblue]

2. Whitewashed history indeed.

[5X]

3. It was certainly never mentioned in history class

and this was one of the top rated public schools in the state.
In Oklahoma, each district has a lot of power.

[sweetloukillbot]

4. It's getting attention now because of "Watchmen"

The Tulsa race riot is a central plot point for the show.

[irisblue]

6. I remember learning about this in the early 2000s

I was astounded that such a huge event could be blotted from view in a not too distant past.

[Kind of Blue]

7. Yes, they did a good job because I think stories we tell

ourselves and stories we don't tell frame a narrative about people or a group of people. And to me in any form a good semblance of the truth is revealed does a lot to inform the public

A good piece in The New Yorker:

But what “Watchmen” nails, more than details of Greenwood’s history, is the way that history itself is so susceptible to manipulation, distortion, and erasure. In the real world, the massacre was initially national news, landing on the front page of the Times and prompting promises of recompense by embarrassed white Tulsans. But, unlike on the TV show, justice was never served in Greenwood. No white rioters were punished for their actions. Insurance companies and the city government refused to compensate black Tulsans for their lost property. Lawsuits stalled out in the courts. Many Tulsans, both white and black, stopped talking about what happened. A brutal invasion became a victimless crime, then a repressed memory, then a hazy urban legend that few people had even heard about.

But some of the people who remembered—black people on the outskirts of recorded history—never stopped talking about it.

Black people have always derived power from their ancestral stories, from their ability to speak a truth that immediately complicates or contradicts an American myth. The reason we know what happened in Greenwood at all—the reason that the massacre is tangible enough for Hollywood to re-create in a glitzy prestige cable show—is because folks in Tulsa kept talking about their memories, even when the conspiracy of silence was deafening. So it’s fitting that this new iteration of “Watchmen” turned out to be a story about a black family shaping and sharing history.

Where the show shines most is in how it conditions viewers to second-guess any story that is presented to them as a definitive historical account.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-great-achievement-of-watchmen-is-in-showing-how-black-americans-shape-history

[sweetloukillbot]

8. That show blew my mind

I loved the graphic novel, liked the movie but could never understand the fanboi love of Rorschach.
The TV show took the ambiguous morals of the book and recast it into a racial struggle and more and just hit it out of the park. Best TV series I've seen in a long time, probably since Game of Thrones in its prime, or maybe even Six Feet Under.

And in the case of Hooded Justice, they improved on the source material tremendously.

[irisblue]

5. Second story

Snip--"We are actively pursuing the truth on this, wherever it leads us, in a transparent way,” Bynum said. “The sad reality is that the better part of a century went by in which the people of Tulsa didn’t want to talk about this. People actively worked to cover it up … and very nearly succeeded.”

Last paragraph of article, more at source

Source--https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/racemassacre/a--by---foot-pit-scientists-find-reason/article_a5d54061-e19e-5e2d-9b15-2420d847baa8.html