Don’t Let Yourself Forget the Importance of Equality

One of my favorite lines is discussing how we as human beings, are programmed to forget. Scientists say a mother during childbirth has chemicals released so that she might forget the anguish. Obviously the death of a loved one is overwhelming and we must forget that pain to survive ourselves. Just knowing from an early age that your life is limited to a finite number of years is in itself quite daunting, and so what would you do if you couldn’t forget that?

Such is our battle with equality. Such is our battle for power. Such is our battle for money.

We just keep forgetting.

Just the other day I was telling friends of mine, of how little I knew about the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. I’d either never learned of it in school or as the theme is today, simply forgot about it.

It took a watching of a fictionalized television show before I “remembered” it.

The Watchmen television show has it’s origin in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921 could have been the symbol for post-civil war success. It was a booming oil city, it was part of a newly formed state, and as a result supported many affluent, educated and professional African Americans.

Greenwood was the district heralded by Booker T Washington when he toured the area in 1906. It was so prosperous it became known as “The Black Wallstreet.” It had several grocers, two newspapers, two movie theaters, nightclubs, and numerous churches. There were black doctors, dentists, lawyers and of course clergy maintaining a peer based social order.

Exactly what you want fifty years after a racially based civil war, right?

Equalization of income. Equalization of education. Equalization of status!

This is how market based success happens. It’s natural.

And then in 1916, the new state legislature enacted a number of Jim Crow laws, restricting where black people could live in proximity to white people, as well as restricting voting.

Between the declaration of statehood and 1921, thirty-one people were lynched in Oklahoma. 26 were black. Most were men or boys.

Then on May 31st of 1921, an incident with a black shoeshine boy, Dick Rowland and a white elevator operating girl, Sarah Page happened. The extent of the crime was never established. The two most definitely knew each other, as that was the only access to the BLACKS ONLY bathroom on the top floor.

The only evidence?

A clerk heard a scream. Saw Rowland exiting the elevator. Saw a distraught Page and then decided she’d been assaulted.

The ensuing threat of a lynching lead to 300 people, overwhelmingly black being murdered. 800 were wounded.

The city, instead of attempting to quell the situation, simply deputized more and more white people. Airplanes flew over the district of Greenwood and dropped fire bombs on tops of buildings. And trucks with mounted machine guns fired indiscriminately into crowds of African American citizens.

Thirty six blocks of “The Black Wallstreet” were decimated. 10,000 people were left homeless. Over 32 million dollars (adjusted for 2019) of real estate and personal property was lost or damaged. And they would never recover it or be compensated for it.

White people with black workers were forced to turn them over to the mob or their houses would also burn.

Three days after the massacre, the President of the United States, Warren G. Harding spoke at the all black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He referenced the atrocity in Tulsa and declared justice would be had, so that no other event like this might ever transpire.

And then in 1922 in Perry Florida, thousands of white people stormed a jail, seized a black male accused of murder, tortured a confession out of him, and burned him at the stake. They burned him at the stake! They then subsequently lynched two other black men before burning the community’s school, Masonic lodge, church, amusement hall as well as several families’ homes!

And then later that same year in Rosewood Florida, another black community, was decimated by a white crowd. Between 26 and 150 were reportedly murdered.

Do not forget how cruel a human being can be.

And we’re not even talking about the massacres before Tulsa!

We’re not talking about the Atlanta Massacre of 1906 or the Ocoee massacre of 1920, or the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, or the countless other acts of mass violence against people of color, between the end of the Civil War and 1921.

But I am talking about forgetting them. And how we must instead remember them! We cannot afford to forget. Not for 75 years. Not for 75 days. Not for 75 minutes.

If you wish to evolve. If you wish to be reborn. Actively accepting others as your equal must be every moment of your life.

Never forget.