Oklahoma's second-largest city of Tulsa will soon mark the 100th anniversary of the 1921 massacre on the Black community, as many continue to fight for justice and reparations for victims. Freddie Joyner has more.
The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma is gearing up this week to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1921 massacre, when a white mob killed and burned its way through the city's Greenwood district, which was at the time one of the largest and wealthiest Black communities in the United States.
Tulsa native, Duke Durant: “Booker T.
Washington walked here, came here and named it, 'The Negro Wall Street.'
Right?
It's like, 'Man this is like the Negro Wall Street.'
That's the significance of it.
This is the Mecca.” According to a Human Rights Watch report in May, around 300 people died in the massacre and more than 6,000 survivors were sent to internment camps, which is why many including Reverend Robert Turner, are calling for reparations... For nearly three years, the pastor of the historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal church has been leading weekly marches on City Hall: "This bipartisan, very much so, moderate, really right of center commission said we need, 'a,' reparations to the survivors, 'b,' in the absence of the survivors, reparations or payments given to the descendants, 'c,' scholarships for the descendants to go to college for free.
And number four is an economic incubator for the businesses of Greenwood, the historically black businesses to return.
And the fifth one, a memorial to house the bodies that were dumped in mass graves, a memorial to inter those bodies.
Not a one of those recommendations has been done.
And, I add a sixth one, which is a criminal investigation into the race massacre of 1921." The call for justice is now growing beyond Tulsa... Turner is also an advocate for H.R.
40, a bill to fund the study of "slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies." It has been floated in Congress for more than 30 years, but never taken up for a full vote.
Just a week ago, survivors of the Tulsa massacre like 107-year-old Viola Fletcher spoke in front of Congress asking for justice: "I've lived through the massacre everyday.
Our country may forget this history, but I cannot, I will not, and other survivors do not.
And our descendants do not."
