Thread by @ChoctawFreedmen

A lot of Black people today spread misinformation about Tulsa—saying that Black people pulled themselves up through hard work and that Tulsa is an example of successful Black capitalism when in fact it’s an example of how government redistribution allowed for Black Oklahomans

https://twitter.com/choctawfreedmen/status/1327290169637138433

to build capacities for independence and wealth-building. Tulsa is NOT an example of Black people overcoming apartheid with capitalism and hard work. It’s an example of Black unity around redistributed land allotments and Freedmen investing the profits they made off of those

land allotments they received from the federal government. But keep in mind that Tulsa only became a center of Black flourishing because the Creek Nation’s collective land was forcibly broken up into individual land allotments for tribal members.

So just keep in mind that Black Creeks and other Black Natives coalesced with Black Americans because government policies also forced their tribes to effectively disband—land-wise and government-wise. This is also a story of Native dispossession.

#NativeAmericanHeritageMonth