Wednesday, June 02, 2021

Today -100: June 2, 1921: Tulsa


The Greenwood/Tulsa Race Massacre. The whites of Tulsa, Oklahoma burn out the negro section, destroying 30 blocks of the city and shooting blacks trying to escape their burning houses. It started, as so many of these things do, with an accusation of assault by a black man, Dick Rowland, against a white woman – he tripped in an elevator and grabbed the arm of the elevator operator for balance, that’s it. He’s arrested; a white mob, spurred by headlines like “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator,” gathers at the court house; armed blacks show up to save Rowland from lynching; someone fires a shot, and away we go. Incidentally, the elevator operator will refuse to press charges and Rowland will leave town (along with many other black Tulsahoovians) and disappear from history. As of this first NYT story, the “race riot” is over, and 6,000 blacks are being held in makeshift detention camps. Tulsa police say racial animosity has been stirred up for months by the Wobblies.

Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood tells Parliament that there just hadn’t been enough soldiers in Ireland to guard important buildings like the now smoldering Dublin Custom House. He says that reprisals can’t be ordered by any officer below Brigade Commander; I’m not sure when they stopped denying that reprisals were official policy.

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