HIS 100 Project Kbarrick
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Southern New Hampshire University *
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HIS-100-X2
Subject
History
Date
Feb 20, 2024
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docx
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6
Uploaded by MagistrateAtomGoose29
HIS 100 Project Template (1)HIS 100 Project Template
Use this template to address the steps in your Project Guidelines and Rubric. Replace the bracketed text with your responses. Ensure that you have considered your instructor’s feedback when revising your work. Proofread the entire document before submitting.
Part 1: Creating a Research Question
1.
Describe how your assumptions, beliefs, and values influenced your choice of topic.
I believe that my own assumptions, beliefs, and values influenced my choice of topic greatly. When I looked at the topics presented to us, I really felt that The Tulsa Massacre stood out to me more than the rest due to the way it was handled. I am a firm believer that everyone’s voices should be heard and respected and I felt like that belief helped me settle on my topic. There are so many unknows and silent voices related to this topic, and I wanted to take a deeper
look into that. I did come into this project knowing some information about the Tulsa Massacre, which did impact the way I approached studying it, but as I continued my research, I found that some of my opinions changed due to what I was uncovering. 2.
Discuss the significance of your historical research question in relation to your current event.
My historical research question is: In what way did the media shape the way people felt and understood the Tulsa Massacre and how did this affect the understanding of racial violence in America during that time. My question is significant when looking at my current event, the murder of George Floyde, because this act of racial violence was heavily covered by the media and didn’t always portray the victim in the best light. It’s very common for the news media to twist and sculpt a current or past event to make it more digestible and to give “reasoning” to meaningless racial violence. My research question helps myself and others find the common issues that are presented when looking media coverage like bias and missing voices. 3.
Explain how you used sources to finalize your research question.
In order to finalize my research question, I had to really look at all the sources I had available to me and decide which ones would be most beneficial to the question and decide if they were going to provide me with the Information, I needed to form a good cohesive question. As I did this, I found that I was seeing a lot of discrepancies in the news stories and what was compiled in the secondary sources. When looking at the news article in The Morning Tulsa Daily World from the time of the Massacre I saw an event painted in a completely different light then I did when looking at one of my secondary sources, Tulsa Race Massacre: Newspaper Complicity and Coverage. Seeing these very visible differences helped me feel like I was taking my research question in the right direction. My sources also helped me solidify my choice since racial violence is still prevalent in today’s times and is covered in almost the same fashion as it was in the 1920’s. Part 2: Building Context to Address Questions
1.
Describe the context of your historical event that influenced your current event.
The context of my historical event is one centered around racial violence, the rise of the KKK, 1
and the catalyst being the wrongful arrest of Dick Rowland. The Ku Klux Klan was sweeping the nation during this time. Kenneth C. Barns speaks on literature that shows us how central the KKK
was to popular culture in the 1920’s (Barnes. 2018). I feel like the context of racial violence and the inclusion of racially charged media output is the connection that links my historical event to my current event. When looking at the Tulsa Massacre I really think that the context surrounding it really helps a researcher understand the situation better and the way that it connects to the murder of George Floyde, who was also being detained for allegations that were far below the outcome of the situation. Floyde was detained for allegedly using a counterfeit 20-dollar bill (BBC News, 2021) and Dick Rowland was arrested for allegedly assaulting a white woman in an elevator. As we can see, both incidents were born out of non-founded claims and rooted in race.
2.
Describe a historical figure or group’s participation in your historical event.
A key figure in The Tulsa Massacre would be Dick Rowland. He was the catalyst for the events that we call The Tulsa Massacre. Rowland was portrayed in the newspaper as the reason that the “race riot” and it was stated that it was started because of his arrest and assault of a woman
in an elevator the Tuesday before the Massacre happened (The Morning Tulsa Daily World, 1921). We later find out that Rowland did not assault this woman, with “the most common explanation was that Dick Rowland tripped as he got onto the elevator and, as he tried to catch his fall, he grabbed onto the arm of Sarah Page, who then screamed.” (Ellsworth, 2001)
3.
Explain the historical figure or group’s motivation to participate in your historical event.
I personally don’t feel like there was a motivation for Dick Rowland to participate in The Tulsa Massacre, more so that he was forced into participation by Sarah Page (the woman on the elevator). Page’s false accusations again Rowland, who some say could have been an accident or
even a lover’s quarrel, lead to Dick Rowlands direct association with this event (Boyd, 2013). There were many participants in the Tulsa Massacre that were forced into participation due to the color of their skin. The only people who had any type of motivation were the white aggressors, whose only motivation was hate.
Part 3: Examining How Bias Impacts Narrative
1.
Describe a narrative you identified while researching the history of your historical event.
One of the narratives that I discovered while researching the history of The Tulsa Massacre is that of the children that survived the massacre. They are all that’s really let of the people who survived since it happened in the 1920’s. We can see in an interview with Olivia Hooker that as a
child, it was jarring to see people she had never met annihilate their home and things based off the thought of not wanting them to have it for no reason (100 Years Later, 2021). There was a reason for Kenny Booker, a child hiding during the massacre listening to the rioters call his father
racial slurs before removing them from the house and setting it on fire (Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921, 1990). 2.
Articulate how biased perspectives presented in primary and secondary sources influence what is known or unknown about history.
2
I believe that biased perspectives that are presented in primary and secondary sources greatly influence what is known about history. As we learned in The Imperfect Historical Record, it is almost impossible to find objective sources since the resources are “always a product of particular individuals, times, and dominant ideas.” (The Imperfect Historical Record, n.d.). It requires a researcher to dig deeper into the information about a historical event to create an informed decision or opinion about it due to the fact that a majority of the resources will have different perspectives. If a researcher wants to ensure that they are not looking at one sided storyline, they must be willing to investigate all types of sources, including secondary sources because primary sources usually hold more of the bias of the times and more likely to be lost or destroyed. 3.
Identify the perspectives that you think are missing from your historical event’s narrative.
There are two main perspectives that I believe are missing from the Tulsa Massacre narrative. The first and I feel most important narrative that is missing is that of the victims who lost their life during the Tulsa Massacre. There are details that we will never know because there are only 2 survivors left at this current time (Associated Press, 2023) and they are not able to provide since they were children and did survive the violence. This is a large part of the details that we will always be missing. The second perspective that I think is missing from the narrative on the Tulsa Massacre is the one of the perpetrators of the violence. The white men that carried out the murders of black citizens and burning of black homes and businesses were never identified or charged with any crimes related to the Massacre. There are no resources for it, no interviews,
or any records of who these people were or why they did what they did so the only thing that can be done is to speculate as to why.
Part 4: Connecting the Past with the Present
1.
Explain how researching its historical roots helped improve your understanding of your current event.
Researching the historical roots of my current event did help me connect my past and current events together. Racial violence is the main connection. It is an ongoing issue that faces America
till this day. 64.8% of hate crimes were racially motivated in 2021, 622 victims of anti-black assaults, plus many more that might not have been reported (USDOJ, 2023, Statista, 2022). Seeing how there are still so many victims of hate crimes due to the color of a person’s skin does
not necessarily help me understand why it continues, but it does help show how we continue to cover it in the media differently. If you look at The Morning Tulsa Daily World you will see the focus is more on how the African Americans are the cause of the violence with headlines like “Two Dead in Race Riot” and “Arrest of Young Negro on Statutory Charge Caused Battle Between the Races” (The Morning Tulsa Daily World, 1921). This still occurs today, with the media trying to push the Narrative that the George Floyde incident stems from a counterfeit $20
dollar bill and not police brutality and racial biases. 2.
Articulate how questioning your assumptions, beliefs, and values may benefit you as an individual.
In order for humans to continue to grow and evolve we must always question our assumptions, beliefs, and values. The most consistent thing that we will all face in life is change, there is no 3
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avoiding it and no point in fighting it. If we don’t reevaluate what we think we know or what we believe then we will not grow. There are many things that affect our values as adults, one of them being how we grew up. We all don’t experience the same events in the same way, resulting in beliefs and values that might now meet the outside world’s standards. In order to keep current and correct we must always keep reevaluating our assumptions and beliefs.
3.
Discuss how being a more historically informed citizen may help you understand contemporary issues.
I feel like being a historically informed citizen helps me understand contemporary issues in a more well-rounded way. History has a way of repeating itself, whether it be major historical events in the world or just small personal events, and knowing the history of these events and what they are rooted in can lead a person to make more informed decisions. I think that one of the biggest examples we were given than helped me understand this was given in “The Thanksgiving Myth Gets a Deeper Look This Year” by Brett Anderson. He speaks of Robert Magnan, a tribesman who equates celebrating Thanksgiving to Native Americans celebrating Colombus Day, who questioned why Natives would celebrate the individuals that actively tired to harm and eliminate them (Anderson, 2020). This idea is vastly different from the story of a shared meal that we were all taught. Knowing that what we learned or were “taught” as children or even young adults may not be entirely true or factual and we need to be willing to dig deeper into these past issues in order to form more well-rounded view of them in the current time.
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Resources Barnes, K. C. (2018). The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition. Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies, 49(2), 141–144.
BBC NEWS. Who was George Floyd and what happened to Derek Chauvin. 24 May 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56270334
The Morning Tulsa daily world. [volume XV. NO. 234] Arrest of Young Negro on Statutory Charge
Caused Battle Between Races. (Tulsa, Okla.), 01 June 1921. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042345/1921-06-01/ed-1/seq-1/
Dr. Scott Ellsworth Feb 28, 2001. Tulsa Race Riot A Re Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. The Tusa Race Riot. https://www.okhistory.org/research/forms/freport.pdf
BOYD, H. (2013, October 3). Firebombs dropped on Black Americans. New York Amsterdam News, 104(40), 28. https://eds-s-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?
vid=4&sid=99189417-25fe-4dd6-a04b-6d8be8c9f213%40redis
100 Years Later, A Survivor's Story Of The Tulsa Race Massacre [Radio broadcast transcript]. (2021, May 28). All Things Considered, NA. https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/apps/doc/A664343652/GIC?
u=nhc_main&sid=ebsco&xid=afbfaffc
Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921 Testimony Given. (1999, August 10). Morning Edition, NA. https://link-
gale-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/apps/doc/A558334253/UHIC?u=nhc_main&sid=bookmark-
UHIC&xid=5b47af60
Associated Press. Tulsa Race Massacre survivor dies at 102. The Journal Record. (October 11, 2023). https://journalrecord.com/2023/10/11/tulsa-race-massacre-survivor-dies-at-102/
#:~:text=With%20Van%20Ellis'%20death%2C%20only,dismissed%20the%20case%20in%20July
.
The Morning Tulsa daily world. [volume XV. NO. 234] (Tulsa, Okla.), 01 June 1921. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042345/1921-06-01/ed-1/seq-1/
Statista. Number of victims of hate crimes against Black people or African Americans in the United States in 2021, by crime type. (October 2022). https://www.statista.com/statistics/737907/number-of-black-or-african-american-hate-crime-
victims-in-the-us-by-crime-type/
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Anderson, B. (2020, Nov 17). The Thanksgiving Myth Gets a Deeper Look This Year. Retrieved October 15, 2023. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2460960951?
accountid=3783&parentSessionId=0PG5f8DUCwrsnRIS%2FXaaM%2BWg8ApATWjK2GZrTXkgSGo
%3D
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