HIS 100 Module Five Activity
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Feb 20, 2024
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HIS 100 Module Five Activity: Historical Interpretations
Identify the topic you chose to explore:
The topic that I decided to choose is the Tulas Massacre
Describe how exploring your research question improved your understanding of the historical roots of your current event.
Exploring my research question informed me of the historical roots of the Tulsa massacre. As I continued to research the Tulsa massacre, my understanding evolved, helping me to identify the
documented events that started the Tulsa massacre. For example, Dick Rowland and Sara Page didn’t start the Tulsa massacre. Even the police did not believe Page and thus did not arrest him, the newspapers found the story interesting and spread the word about a black man who had assaulted a young white woman, without considering that the police report did not accuse Rowland, The Tulsa Daily, which supported Page’s allegations for assault, issued an article entitled, ‘Nab negro for attacking girl in an elevator’, a clear motivation to lynch Rowland (Karatazs,2018). The Tulsa Daily’s article started the Tulsa massacre and destroyed the lives of the residents of Greenwood. Being aware of this historical event helps me to understand why the survivors are still currently fighting for reparations. Explain how biased perspectives influence what is known about both your historical and current events.
Biased perspectives of the Tulsa massacre and the testimonies given by the survivors on Capital Hill make it seem as if all White people hated all Black people. That was truly not the case, the survivors were children who only saw the Tulsa riot from a child's perspective. In the radio interview by Nellie Gilles, before she speaks to Olivia Hooker, she takes the time to acknowledge
Hal Singer who was 18 months old at the time of the massacre (Gilles, 2020). His mother worked as a cook for a wealthy White family in Tulsa. When the violence began the rich White family helped Hal and his mother escape to a train going to Kansas. Hal grew up to become a singer and saxophonist by the name of Cornbread (Gilles, 2020). Hal’s story is a wonderful example of how even in the mist of darkness good people were willing to risk it all to help black people.
Propose how the narrative about your historical event might change if it were told from a missing perspective.
If the Tulsa massacre were told from a missing perspective, it would possibly change the narrative of the Tulsa massacre. For example, a lot of people do not know that when the African American families were being attacked in the Tulsa massacre, many Jewish families made efforts
to help them by taking them into their homes and their businesses and hiding them, before and after the Tulsa massacre (Goldfrab, 2021). Since many of the Jews in Tulsa were immigrants, they knew firsthand about suffering through violence. The missing perspective that I identified earlier this week in my discussion is the fact that there are numerous. News articles and police reports that are missing from May 31st, 1921, through June 21st, 1921. It is my opinion that these perspectives can shed light on the Tulsa race massacre and how it may have started.
Propose how the narrative about your current event might change if it were told from a missing perspective.
It is my opinion that if the public had access to the missing articles, pictures, and police reports, or even if it was taught in our public school system in its entirety the Tulsa massacre could be understood differently. For example, there are massive grave sites in Tulsa at the Oaklawn Cemetery, and we have no idea where they are located because documents were destroyed. Just as recent as September of 2023 the remains of two more adults were found in the third excavation of this mass grave site in Tulsa,
families were never told whether their loved ones died or where they were buried, and there weren’t any funerals,
(Elassar, 2023). This means that even the family members of the victims were not told where their family members were buried. I believe that if these families had been given proper information as to where their family members were buried, it would have possibly eased the pain of the Tulsa massacre for the surviving family members. All over the world, as humans, we lay our family members to rest and that gives us some type of peace. Unfortunately, many of the surviving family members have yet to feel that peace.
References
Goldfarb, P., (January 6, 2021
), The Tulsa Race Massacre and Oklahoma’s Jews
, The Librarians, The Tulsa Race Massacre and Oklahoma’s Jews (nli.org.il)
Elassar, A., Langmaid, V., (September 16, 2023), Remains of two adults found so far in the third excavation of
Tulsa Race Massacre burial site
, CNN, Remains of two adults found so far in the third excavation of Tulsa
Race Massacre burial site | CNN
Gilles, N., (May 31, 2018), Meet The Last Surviving Witness To The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,
All Things Considered, Code Sw!tch, witf, npr.org, Meet The Last Surviving Witness To The Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921:
Code Switch: NPR
Karatzas, D., K., (June 2018), Interpreting violence: The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and its legacy, European Journal of American Culture, GIRES, Academia.edu, Interpreting violence: The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and its legacy | Dr. Konstantinos D . Karatzas - Academia.edu
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