Hip-hop and healing: Commemorating Tulsa
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2021
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A century ago, one of the worst episodes of racial violence in US history took place - the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Greenwood was a prosperous and thriving district, nicknamed 'Black Wall Street' because it was a mecca for Black entrepreneurs and businesses. Dick Rowland, was wrongly accused of attacking a white girl in an elevator - a charge she would quickly recant. But after a sensationalist newspaper report, a mob gathered outside the courthouse. Violence broke out, many of the white mob were deputised and given arms. During the evening of 31 May 1921 and 1 June, 35 square blocks of Greenwood were looted and burned to the ground. Jerica D Wortham is an author, poet, and publisher, born and raised in Greenwood. Jerica invites us to witness how the community is marking the centennial.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Let me take you to a part of Tulsa I know really well. Here on the |
| 0:07.5 | corner of Greenwood and Archer I see facing north the one block radius that still holds the remains of the historic |
| 0:14.6 | district. I'm Jericho De Wertham, a poet, writer, and creative practitioner |
| 0:19.6 | born and raised in North Tulsa. Exactly 100 years ago, this historic Greenwood District was a thriving Mecca for black businesses. |
| 0:30.0 | It was independent and resourceful. |
| 0:33.0 | The Black Dollar circulated a countless number of times. |
| 0:37.0 | It was our ancestors' wildest dreams. |
| 0:41.0 | But on the 31st of May, 1921, the community was destroyed in what's known as the Tulsa |
| 0:49.3 | Race Massacre, one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history. |
| 0:55.0 | It's believed hundreds were killed, many thousands left homeless. |
| 1:00.0 | Here on the BBC World Service, I want to share how we as a community are marking the centennial of a terrible and terrifying event in the history of America. |
| 1:10.0 | Share how we're coming to terms with our past through art and music and explore how the legacy impacts Black Tolson's today. |
| 1:18.0 | So let's talk history. On May 30th, 1921, Tulsa was celebrating Memorial Day. |
| 1:28.0 | As was an |
| 1:35.0 | common in segregated America, the trigger for this appalling act of mob violence was an unproven |
| 1:37.5 | accusation of a black man assaulting a white woman. |
| 1:43.0 | In this case, a teenage shoeshine boy and an elevator girl. |
| 1:50.0 | Dick Rowland was a black gentleman, Sarah Page, a white woman. |
| 1:55.0 | Poet, Crystal Carter. |
| 1:58.0 | Essentially, these two were found together in a specific elevator. |
| 2:06.0 | There was a person outside of the elevator |
| 2:08.7 | who allegedly heard a scream from said woman. |
... |
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