Does the above image remind you of Berlin 1945?

It isn’t. It’s the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921.

It wasn’t a Nazi stronghold. There wasn’t a war going on in Greenwood when this happened, at least, not one that had been Officially Declared. No enemy had been officially declared.

A more subtle conflict was raging there, though, because Greenwood was a prominent black neighborhood of so many black-owned businesses and professionals that it was known as “Black Wall Street.” There was absolutely nothing wrong with it – except that it made the worst sort of whites in Tulsa jealous…

So the whites went on a rampage. Their excuse? A young black boy got into an elevator, tripped and bumped into the female white operator. That was enough for the whites to let all hell break loose, going ape-shit at the thought of a black guy making moves on a white girl. No charges were ever brought against the guy by the girl so it’s likely that even she probably knew this was all ridiculous but that didn’t stop the mob from going berserk.

I’d heard of this riot before but the latest information that has come to light about it is among the worst things I’ve ever heard. The whites didn’t just burn down the town, kill about 300 blacks, and go completely insane. They also took a page out of the World War I flying aces’ book and used airplanes to drop bombs on our own black Americans from the air!

That ought to be enough, but there’s more. Three hundred murders though there were, and 35 blocks of homes and businesses were burned by arsonists, yet nobody was ever charged with a crime. No official ever even issued an apology.

It’s a damn shame that the Oklahomans – all Oklahomans – didn’t have the guts to be proud of Greenwood. From all accounts it sounds like a jewel of a neighborhood. Many of the pros working on Black Wall Street had begun their lives as slaves. Any person of goodwill anywhere would have been thrilled about Greenwood. Unfortunately there was a dearth of people with open hearts and minds among the rampaging whites of Tulsa. Dropping bombs out of planes, though? That takes pettiness, jealousy, racism and plain old stupidity all the way to a sick new level, easily the sickest one I’ve ever heard.

This week there have been many specials on the massacre that include interviews with some of the remaining survivors, ones who were terrified children at the time. They deserve reparations for everything they and their families lost, and so do the descendants of the rest of the residents of Greenwood.

Want to help them? It’s never too late to right a wrong, and these people deserve all the decency we can give them. Please support their efforts by signing the petition here:

https://www.change.org/p/state-of-oklahoma-reparations-for-1921-race-massacre-survivors-and-descendants?signed=true