THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE
This is not a photograph of a bombed-out French village in 1945. It is a picture of the neighborhood called “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma on this day in 1921 after it was attacked and burned to the ground by an angry white mob. Estimates range up to 500 Black Americans were slaughtered in the rampage. It is as dark and shameful chapter of our nation’s history.
Today, racist whites in many of the former Confederate states are, with the shameful blessing of the Supreme Court, moving to gerrymander Congressional districts on the basis of race. This is also dark and shameful, although today’s Southern bigots smirk proudly of their efforts.
Although not the raging violence of 1921, the intent by these hateful bigots today is the same as the Tulsa mob then: to dilute the visibility and influence of the Black population. Both of these actions are vile and depraved. What happened in Tulsa must always be acknowledged, taught and remembered as racial hatred and indifference to the lives of Black people.
What is happening today in the Old South is no less so.
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