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Today is the anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre where racist whites slaughtered hundreds of people in a successful black neighborhood known as the Black Wall Street. It's one of the worst moments in American history. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/05/31/615546965/meet-the-last-surviving-witness-to-the-tulsa-race-riot-of-1921
What's worse is many Americans don't even know about it. Many just recently learned about it on the HBO show Watchmen which has a very visceral portrayal of the massacre in its fist episode.
I only learned of it a few years ago from black gun-rights activist Kevin Dixie. We still don't know how many people were killed during the massacre. Tulsa committed this year, nearly 100 years later, to investigating mass Graves associated with it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/02/03/tulsa-mass-graves-excavation/
It's important for us to remember and understand our past-including the worst parts of it. I think survivor Olivia Hooker's story is one we should know. Her closing words are poignant. "I think things can get better but maybe it won't be in a hurry," she said.
Olivia Hooker became the first African-Americans woman to join the Coast Guard, earned a doctorate in psychology, and created the Tulsa Race Riot Commission.
