Thread by @ACLU

One hundred years ago, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an armed white mob attacked Greenwood, a prosperous Black community.

Hundreds of Black Tulsans were killed and Black Wall Street was burned to the ground.
nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Since 1921, there has been a deliberate attempt to cover-up the Tulsa Race Massacre.

The original account from the local paper and city officials was that Black Tulsans were armed, intoxicated, and unjustifiably violent.

This racist narrative around the 1921 massacre is false.

The Black community was preventing a lynch mob from killing a Black man who was unjustly arrested.

Over two days, white mobs, including law enforcement, razed Greenwood to the ground.

Private planes dropped burning balls of turpentine on Black owned businesses and homes alike.

Black Tulsans were gunned down in the street as they fled burning buildings.

Prosecutors, law enforcement, and city officials disregarded this atrocity committed against the Black community of Tulsa.

A reckoning for the murder and intentional destruction of a thriving Black community in Tulsa is required and overdue.

Survivors of the massacre and their descendants have spent the last century fighting for the truth of May 31 and June 1, 1921 to be known.

Viola Ford Fletcher, 107, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 106, both survived the massacre and testified before Congress last week.

Despite the existence of identifiable evidence including photographs of people using weapons and documentation of who used planes that day, no one was ever prosecuted for their role in the massacre.

Even if no one alive can be prosecuted, naming names and placing responsibility where it lies is a critical part of a reckoning.

Apologies and commemorations are a necessary part of the reckoning process but they are not enough.

A true reckoning requires action and reparations.

Leaders of impacted communities in Tulsa should expect action when they speak about making what is wrong right again.