An American Pogrom: Reckoning with the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

This program’s original recording transcript is below. This transcription was created automatically during a live program so may contain inaccurate transcriptions of some words.

Ari Goldstein: i'm Ari Goldstein Senior Public programs producer at the Museum of Jewish heritage, a living memorial to the Holocaust and it's a pleasure to welcome you to today's program on the 1921 total surveys massacre.

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Ari Goldstein: We are new york's Holocaust Museum, and this event is not about the Holocaust, but it is about one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history.

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Ari Goldstein: and one that was covered in a veil of silence for far too long.

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Ari Goldstein: we're proud to host this evenings conversation because it's our responsibility as Jews to draw connections between the Holocaust and other injustices.

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Ari Goldstein: And because it's our responsibility as Americans to reckon with our own country's past.

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Ari Goldstein: Is this a particularly meaningful moment for us to host the discussion as well because we're approaching the centennial of the massacre in about a month as the nation's attention turns towards Tulsa sodas hours.

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Ari Goldstein: Here, with our partners at Jewish Jen and Jews and all Hughes and we're here with a very esteemed panel.

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Ari Goldstein: moderated by Judy woodruff anchor and managing editor the PBS news hour and with three excellent panelists.

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Ari Goldstein: Dr Heidi of diner is the Paul and Sylvia steinberg professor of American Jewish history at New York university renowned historian and among her many books is in the almost promised land American Jews and blacks 1915 to 1935.

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Ari Goldstein: Jonathan silver's is a documentary filmmaker and founder of saybrook productions who's directing Tulsa the fire and the forgotten.

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Ari Goldstein: A centennial exploration of the 1921 race massacre, which will premiere nationwide on PBS on may 31 at 9pm Eastern.

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Ari Goldstein: We hope you all had a chance to watch the 15 minute clip from Tulsa at the fire in the forgotten that we sent out in advance of this evening's discussion, it will remain available until Monday for streaming.

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Ari Goldstein: Finally, Hannibal Johnson and author attorney historian.

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Ari Goldstein: and civic leader in Tulsa who chairs the education committee of the city centennial Commission he's features as featured as an expert in jonathan's film.

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Ari Goldstein: And he's authored several books, including black Wall Street 100 an American city grapples with its historical racial trauma that you can order at the link in the zoom chat welcome Judy Hannibal Jonathan and hosea.

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Ari Goldstein: Before our panelists begin their discussion we're going to play a brief video clip to set the stage, this is a clip from jonathan's upcoming PBS special.

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Ari Goldstein: Once the clip is over Judy will kick off the discussion audience members should feel free to share questions in the zoom Q amp a box at any time.

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Ari Goldstein: That further ado here's our.

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Ari Goldstein: screen share that again and make sure sound is coming through.

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On Tuesday morning may 31 1921 greenwood was a beacon of black prosperity two days later greenwood was rubble and ash Christie Williams has spent decades researching the atrocities of those days, which are great on escaped.

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The massacre began when a young black man was in an elevator with a young white woman he bumped into the young white woman and she screamed.

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And then, they said that this young black man assaulted this young white woman, the young black man was put in jail.

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When he was put in jail all the men in greenwood got together they went down to City Hall, to the jail, where he was to protect him from being lynched and they had guns with them.

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And they were tons of white man and police around the jail and there was one black man who have a gun, one of the white man said, what are you gonna do with that guy.

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And he said i'll use it, if I have to, and they struggled for the gun just started a big fight, they were shooting at each other running trying to get away and they ran through downtown back into greenwood, then the looting started.

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And then the fires to the homes.

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My grandfather being that he was a senior in high school and my great art at the time they were both at Booker T Washington high school.

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And seniors in that class and typically when we would be going through what we know as prom and getting ready to graduate it was my grandfather, they were down there decorating the hotel where they were prepared to.

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celebrate and they got word that trouble was coming right on May the 31st trouble was coming they had no idea.

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75 years later survivors like Bernie sims and George Monroe still remember the horrors they saw as children.

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We could hear the Buddhist for solace in a yard in this where my father told us, since we got to go.

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We didn't know where to fall down and run a hood I you didn't hear know where they had to do in the House and we sit there and could see the blaze of the fire, you know whether we're bringing in things like that.

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On this side of the term, so what I remember, mostly.

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Is when.

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All of a sudden my mother was excited is because that.

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she's so for men coming toward a house.

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And all of them had torches lighted torches on their side coming straight to her house.

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We get here planes and new the fight was going on here in the shooting things because you did it was just like oh.

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you're just a boom boom boom boom that's all you get here boom boom the.

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police were unable or unwilling to stop the violence, possibly because the police chief had sworn in, hundreds of white mob Members as special deputies.

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The National Guard was called in firemen were unable or unwilling to stop the conflagration they would take them the wounded, you know the head they set up a place where they take the wounded.

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The head cuts, you know these army cots that's what the wounded was on they would they would they be sewn shut up just all types wounded me and when these people came in these four men came in.

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They walked right past the bed right straight to the curtains.

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In the House.

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And they set fire to the curtains.

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And, as a result, everything in and around.

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Was burning.

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and

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that's what I remember, more than anything else, and that eventually they left after then and eventually this fire caused our House to burn down completely to the ground.

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I learned what was destroyed in our family I know the the the tear that they experienced when they were in their home and.

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You know, they were hiding in the bathtub and had a neighbor come by then made my relatives get out of their own bathtub so that they could have some kind of safety.

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I know the stories of people going down the train tracks and having only their suit of.

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clothes and they would put on another pair of pants On top of that pair of pants and another jacket, on top of that jacket because that's all they had, and they would take off right trying to go to some kind of safety.

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The fact that the House they're very House was saved because there's a story that says James Goodwin who was very fair complex it it looked like a white man right it's very, very complex, but he was black.

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When the white racist mob was coming he directed him away from the House right and they they kept going so that house was say, but many are there other properties.

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were destroyed and and again that never, ever, nobody was ever charged nobody ever convicted in terms of the murder in terms of the looting, in terms of the burning in terms of the terroristic acts that took place.

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Judy Woodruff: And I am Judy woodruff and you have seen, just now, a just a short excerpt from that very powerful film Tulsa the fire and the forgotten airing on.

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Judy Woodruff: PBS and I encourage everyone who can to try to watch the entire film, I want to thank our Goldstein for inviting me.

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Judy Woodruff: i'm just so pleased to be here it's an honor to be part of this program with these panelists.

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Judy Woodruff: And to be part of a program involving both the Museum of Jewish heritage, as well as the Jewish federation.

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Judy Woodruff: Of Tulsa it's a discussion, as we know about an important moment in the history of our country a moment that has received far too little attention.

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Judy Woodruff: But, which deserves not only to be remembered, but to be studied.

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Judy Woodruff: And to be understood as well as we can understand something so horrible what humans are capable of doing to one another and and to see what lessons we might learn from it.

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Judy Woodruff: And I just want to add quickly that I have a personal interest in the subject because, in addition to my interest as a journalist and as an American.

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Judy Woodruff: I was born in Tulsa I live there only until I was about five years old, my father was in the military we lived and traveled around the world, different.

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Judy Woodruff: Different basis, he was assigned to but I continue to have family in the state of Oklahoma across Tulsa and that has only intensified my interest in the history.

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Judy Woodruff: And my desire to learn more about what happened in 1921 and to learn about the legacy.

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Judy Woodruff: I think it is so important to look at that and to look at the connections some of what we're doing tonight between what happened in Tulsa.

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Judy Woodruff: In 1921 and the history of the Jewish people we are so fortunate, as I said to have this excellent panel, and I would to get to them, just as quickly as I can, and Hannibal Johnson i'm going to start with you.

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Judy Woodruff: The film goes to the history of the green wood district, how it came to be the prosperous place that it was, but I want I want you to flesh that out for us.

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Judy Woodruff: How did blacks come to be living in Oklahoma in the first place in Tulsa how did they settle on greenwood help us understand its place in Oklahoma and in American history.

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Hannibal Johnson: Well, there are two major waves of black migration into Oklahoma now Oklahoma before it became a State was divided into twin territory Indian territory in Oklahoma territory.

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Hannibal Johnson: Some of the listeners may may know that the so called five civilized tribes the cherokee the muskogee creek the choctaw chickasaw on the seminal or forcibly removed from the southeast United States to what is now Oklahoma and the 1830s and 1840s.

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Hannibal Johnson: Now, in those migrations those so called trails of tears, there were a number of people of African ancestry because all five tribes engaged in the practice of chattel slavery.

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Hannibal Johnson: So that were that were both free people of African ancestry and enslaved people of African ancestry migrating with the tribes, and the 1830s 1940s, to what is now Oklahoma.

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Hannibal Johnson: Then in the late 1800s there was a movement called boosterism Oklahoma had a number of land runs and land lotteries and some of the people who came on the land runs were black.

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Hannibal Johnson: Say state claims people like EP mccabe who founded the town of langston or langston university is mccabe actually began.

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Hannibal Johnson: recruiting other people of African ancestry to come to Oklahoma on the theory that they can escape the oppression that they face in the deep south.

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Hannibal Johnson: And that there was abundant land opportunity, an opportunity for for wealth building.

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Hannibal Johnson: He was somewhat successful he actually met with President of United States Benjamin Harrison in 1890 and they talked about carving out an all black state within what was then Oklahoma territory.

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Hannibal Johnson: mccabe also was instrumental in founding the all black towns Tulsa became the oil capital of the world in the early part of the 20th century and was on an upward trajectory at the turn of the century.

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Hannibal Johnson: Oil was discovered in places like Lynn pool, for example, 1905 so.

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Hannibal Johnson: o o w girly who's a person from Arkansas relatively wealthy black man came in in the land run in 1889 he migrated to Tulsa.

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Hannibal Johnson: And he and other black man created this community that we call the greenwood district it's a segregated black community in Tulsa part of Tulsa separated quite literally by the frisco tracks, it became a bustling business community.

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Hannibal Johnson: Much more of a black Main Street with small businesses and service providers, like doctors, lawyers accountants and dentist.

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Hannibal Johnson: than a black Wall Street, which is the decks designation given to the Community it wasn't an investment in banking community, it was a small business entrepreneurial Community really successful and became really the talk of the nation.

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Judy Woodruff: And, and we heard in the in the little bit of the film that we just saw the the exact circumstances about around how the the.

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Judy Woodruff: The events of may 31 in June 1 happen, but I think all of us want to know how did, how did they get away with it, I mean, why was no one held accountable yeah and we know there was, I guess, one trial.

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Judy Woodruff: or hearing but but not much happened.

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Hannibal Johnson: i'm glad you asked that question because the answer to that that's talked about the elevator incident that's a trigger answer that.

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Hannibal Johnson: There were a number of systemic factors that really are the cause of what happened in Tulsa what happened and tells us emblematic of the racial violence and racial trauma occurring in the United States during this period.

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Hannibal Johnson: Generally, so sociologists historians often call this period the nature of race relations in America, the low point.

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Hannibal Johnson: Because there's two years prior 1919 there were over two dozen major events called race riots in the United States.

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Hannibal Johnson: New York baltimore Washington DC omaha Chicago elaine Arkansas longview Texas and and on and on and on, so what happened in Tulsa 1921 it's a continuation.

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Hannibal Johnson: Of this racial violence and racial trauma that afflicted United States during this period.

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Hannibal Johnson: Also, this is a period during which lynching is prevalent throughout the United States lynching as a form of domestic terrorism and primarily people of African ancestry.

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Hannibal Johnson: And so we have this racial crucible in the United States generally during this period.

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Hannibal Johnson: So then it's not surprising that no one was ever held accountable for the violence that occurred in Tulsa as no one in most cases was held accountable for for lynchings and for the other violence that occurred throughout the United States.

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Judy Woodruff: And to Jonathan silver is now how I mean the person who, who is looked at this so closely and put it put the documentary together.

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Judy Woodruff: about it, why was the story buried and frankly just not known I mean, I have to say, as somebody who thought I knew a little bit about American history it wasn't until a few years ago that I even heard about the Tulsa Ryan.

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Jonathan Silvers: yeah I i've spent a career nearly 30 years looking at conflict and human rights abuses around the world oftentimes the news hour.

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Jonathan Silvers: About two years ago I read a very brief piece in the Washington Post talking about mass graves.

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Jonathan Silvers: discovered possibly discovered in Tulsa and I was fascinated because i've been in a lot of mass graves around the world, and I had no idea that mass graves could exist in our country and.

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Jonathan Silvers: People not know about it and I started researching the mass graves and I learned to my shame about the not just the Tulsa massacre of 1921 but about this era of racial terrorism, which was given a name red summer.

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Jonathan Silvers: I know nothing about this and I think I got a pretty good education and the idea that racial terrorism is part of the American fabric that I knew nothing about compelled me to start digging into this and I enlisted the help of my.

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Jonathan Silvers: friend and occasional collaborator Eric stover, who is the preeminent war crime investigator, and we, at a very early stage.

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Jonathan Silvers: Also included dineen brown who's article spurred my initial interest dineen is a native of Oklahoma or father's a pastor in North Tulsa.

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Jonathan Silvers: And the three of us started investigating not merely the history of the massacre, but the present day impact of that mouth security now i'm not a historian.

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Jonathan Silvers: I defer to experts on the subject of history, but I do know something about current events and I found it.

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Jonathan Silvers: almost intolerable that a crime from 100 years ago continues to have an impact, a almost a marginalization of the black community in parts of Tulsa, not just in parts of Tulsa but throughout the United States.

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Jonathan Silvers: And I think the film is a reflection of my outreach and my shame, but it's also a reflection of our hope that once you learn a true.

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Jonathan Silvers: You might be able to make some positive change, and I had the honor of seeing the Tulsa heart and Hannibal was one of the gentlemen who helped me get as close as I could to that truth.

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Judy Woodruff: And, and I do want to remind everybody who's joining us that i'm going to you're going to have an opportunity to ask questions.

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Judy Woodruff: In the chat function if you could put your questions there, I think, already told us that early ever just a reminder we're going to continue our discussion and then for the last 10 minutes of the hour we're going to take your questions.

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Judy Woodruff: But Jonathan how tell us a little bit about the making of the documentary how difficult was it to get information was it readily available how hard, did you have to dig to get what you found out right.

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Jonathan Silvers: Well, the film began in one world and in quite a quite another we started shooting in October 2019.

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Jonathan Silvers: And that was an exploratory issue to prove the concept that is the concept that this film is is viable, but the issue is viable that we were ahead of the curve, so to speak, a bit there are a number of films on the subject coming out around the time we premiered.

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Jonathan Silvers: And, and I have to say that very few people acknowledge crime and acknowledge that it was worthy of a documentary so we spent probably several months on our own dime doing exploratory filming, not just in Tulsa but throughout the country.

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Jonathan Silvers: And then the world changed when the pandemic struck and suddenly it became a near impossibility to do the kind of journalism that I do that you do, that the best of US tried to do, which is immerse ourselves in an environment and embed ourselves with people.

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Jonathan Silvers: Individuals are the heart or the films, I made in the journalism that I do and getting people to participate in this film meant exposing them to a certain risk, after all, I was flying to Tulsa it was an eight hour flight and connecting.

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Jonathan Silvers: And no one knew at that time you know who was a conduit for the pandemic wasn't.

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Jonathan Silvers: So a lot of people, including Hannibal and others took a risk to take part in spell.

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Jonathan Silvers: Once we got to Tulsa though it was fairly it was fairly straightforward, because this hidden history was only happening to people like me, it was common knowledge among tulsa's black or I should say African American Community.

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Jonathan Silvers: Early on, when I began film, I had a conversation with the actress alfre woodard loose from Tulsa she told me about her.

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Jonathan Silvers: And what how she learned about this is history, she said she was a student in high school and one of her classmates asked about racism in Tulsa and her teacher close the door probably locked it to the shades turn off the lights and told the assembled class about the 1921 massacre.

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Jonathan Silvers: It was to her revelation, obviously, but it also revealed something about how suppressed, this was.

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Jonathan Silvers: Thankfully, in 2020 when the principal photography really commenced, there was no suppression people were happy to talk freely about what their ancestors had experienced, more importantly, what they were experiencing in the present day.

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Judy Woodruff: don't many questions, I want to ask each one of you, but i'm mindful that that we have only an hour so hafiz diner I want to come to you about.

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Judy Woodruff: What do we know about the Jewish community in Tulsa at that time.

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Hasia Diner: Okay, so um, thank you for inviting me era and.

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Hasia Diner: So it was a Community it was by 1921 it was still a relatively young community, the first Jews arrive at the turn of the 20th century.

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Hasia Diner: And like their peers in other new communities around the United States, they come in, because of economic opportunities, it was primarily a Community made up of shopkeepers, and also a not insignificant number who were drawn there by the oil business and some of them did fabulously well.

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Hasia Diner: They were able to put quotes around this word make it in that they were white Okay, and they lived like white people in Tulsa.

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Hasia Diner: They had access to civic rights there's actually a Jewish man in Oklahoma, who is a state treasurer and 1913 so they were able to kind of despite being primarily immigrants from the Latvia and Lithuania, they were able to move up.

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Hasia Diner: Which doesn't mean that there wasn't a place there weren't places that were they were restricted it doesn't mean that there wasn't some level of antipathy.

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Hasia Diner: But dumb they were essentially left free to create synagogues to create communal institutions.

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Hasia Diner: They and and to do well in the Tulsa economy and move pretty comfortably i'd say i'd say very comfortably in.

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Hasia Diner: public space and clearly the point at which this massacre takes place takes place in the shadow of the rise of the clan or the second clan and.

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Hasia Diner: Some Jews did get threatening letters from the clan and the clan, as we know that second clan of the post World War one era was it was it did not discriminate against.

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Hasia Diner: black.

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Hasia Diner: Residents or black people, but it was equally anti Semitic and it was anti Catholic and.

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Hasia Diner: So Jews were put on edge by the high level of clan activity in in Oklahoma as well as in the country as a whole but there's no evidence that the arrival of the clan and it's thriving.

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Hasia Diner: in any way put a lid on Jewish economic mobility or on Jews access to participation in civic life.

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Judy Woodruff: And how Sam what was the reaction, you said it mean if we use 1921 of the demarcation what was the reaction that we know of in the Jewish community after this.

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Hasia Diner: Okay, so it's a great question, because on the one hand, I want to, I want to distinguish between two levels or possibly even three, and so there is some evidence that individual Jews.

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Hasia Diner: Did raw rise to the occasion and find their servants okay or their employee employees of their stores and provide them with some shelters, so they acted as good rescuers now they means individual here and individual there and I don't think we have any numbers to say Jews of.

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Hasia Diner: Tulsa responded that way, but on the other hand, there is absolutely no paper trail of rabbis in Tulsa there were several by Van giving sermons decrying this Okay, we have no evidence of.

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Hasia Diner: The Jewish communal institutions taking a public stand in Tulsa itself and in a way, standing up and being up standards to this frenzied.

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Hasia Diner: mob and I don't think we have to be condemned dettori of them because Who among us would be willing to give him the descriptions that we just saw in jonathan's film and they were harrowing.

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Hasia Diner: would stand up against that and more likely we could imagine people like most of the Jews of Tulsa going into retreating into their homes locking the doors and hoping that this would would would pass on interestingly there's at least.

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Jonathan Silvers: You sound like an apologist I don't understand how anyone with any decency, especially the Jewish community could retreat when when when this monstrosity is taking place and i'm not.

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Jonathan Silvers: Saying this, with, with all due respect, but.

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Jonathan Silvers: There were very good people in Tulsa hosted by and did nothing.

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Hasia Diner: And they might as well you know, again I it's I mean I don't think i'm.

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Hasia Diner: meaning to be an apologist but rather to say that in moments of this kind of communal madness this frenzy of violence, the airplanes flying above the mobs with torches.

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Hasia Diner: I think one is hard pressed to imagine, I try to put myself in that position would I risk my life.

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Hasia Diner: I don't know I mean i'd like to think I would, and so I think I want to put myself a bit in the shoes of people who were armed to were.

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Hasia Diner: Unable innocence had no clout to to do anything now again I i'm not I also say that there's no one speaking up, I mean there are no rabbis who get up and make fiery sermons or.

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Hasia Diner: who say I cannot do business in the future with these people, who I know we're murderers, so I think in the context, even at the holiday this Holocaust Memorial site.

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Hasia Diner: The scholarship in the Holocaust talks about bystanders the grub you know, a kind of probably that middle know people, people who are not the perpetrators, but by they're not speaking up become bystanders and.

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Hasia Diner: I think we as individuals can make our judgments, but as a story, and we think most people most times or bystanders and they say I hope this.

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Hasia Diner: Is me by.

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Jonathan Silvers: The drought, but you asked me earlier about how difficult it was to make this film.

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Jonathan Silvers: The last summer made misspelt a moral imperative for me because it's very easy to see racial terrorism as a continual not just from 100 years ago, probably from before in his country and I was never prouder in my lifetime then seeing the kids Asian white black.

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Jonathan Silvers: Joining hands and protesting, the murder of a black man in the streets of minneapolis and and That to me is the dignity that is missing from the Tulsa massacre of 1921.

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I absolutely.

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Jonathan Silvers: Animal on this, but.

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Judy Woodruff: I don't I want to, I want to bring Hannibal back into this because I mean we we look at throughout history human history, there are examples of human beings doing terrible things.

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Judy Woodruff: To each other and, in some instances, the bystanders have stood up and tried to stop it, but in many others, they haven't you know for for a whole list of reasons.

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Judy Woodruff: Animal what over time what kept this story alive, I mean it's it looked at lives lived in the memories of those who had family who passed those stories on, but what allowed it to live.

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Hannibal Johnson: Well, the story is ultimately not about the massacre, so this the story is really about the indomitable human spirit.

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Hannibal Johnson: And when you think of it that way you think of a broader conception of the narrative, then you understand why has this through line to the present we live the legacy of what happened in that that era, those people who had incredible vision had.

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Hannibal Johnson: perseverance faith hope resilience, those are those are character traits that were transmitted in successive generations, even though.

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Hannibal Johnson: The wealth transfer interestingly was disrupted in 1921 because we have people here debbie stratford oh that'd be a girly people who were were millionaires if we could convert their their earnings to present value.

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Hannibal Johnson: That wealth was not trance that did not transfer across generations, we talked about all regularly the wealth gap that tend to one wealth gap black wealth is typically one 10th of that of white well.

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Hannibal Johnson: Some of the some of these events in our history, these racialized events and racial traumas are part of the explanation of the wealth gap in a distant the causing psychic trauma.

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Judy Woodruff: Yes, and as i'm listening to you i'm thinking it's not only the the story of the human spirit, it is the story of those who did have the courage from moment to moment to write about this to speak about this and.

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Judy Woodruff: Policy, I do want to come back to you because I know from what you were sharing with Ari and me and the others ahead of time was there were some in I guess to get ish press the Jewish press around the country that did write about what was going on in Tulsa.

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Hasia Diner: Right so there's an interesting disjunction because, again we have a kind of silence come out of Tulsa.

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Jonathan Silvers: that's not true that's not true i'm sorry that's not true, this.

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Judy Woodruff: Let me.

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Jonathan Silvers: i'm sorry I apologize.

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Judy Woodruff: If I could, if I could just let hockey or maker pointing and Jonathan i'll come back to you for for comment okay mafia.

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Hasia Diner: i'm talking about a Jewish silence that the Jewish population of Tulsa.

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Hasia Diner: had no words to share, about what they witnessed, and one can say they continued to live comfortably in that place Okay, and what memories, they may have carried with them does not get recorded in their publications and in the again the kind of repertoire of words that come.

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Hasia Diner: out of it.

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Hasia Diner: But on the other hand, from a national perspective, the American Jewish magazines and newspapers in English as well as in Yiddish we're incredibly.

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Hasia Diner: passionate and articulate in pinpointing this event, and indeed I got a PhD in American history, and I even took a graduate course with john hope Franklin at the University of Chicago we know his father was one of the people who.

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Hasia Diner: I was so severely.

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Hasia Diner: was so affected by that and was there, and unless my memory does not serve me well, Professor Franklin never talked about it in class the class.

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Hasia Diner: On what was then called neatly his negro history from reconstruction into the MID 20th century and it didn't come up in class.

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Hasia Diner: And I found out about the Tulsa massacre, because I wrote my dissertation and a book on the way in which American Jews in those early decades of the 20th century responded to the issue of race in America.

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Hasia Diner: And there was in the American israelite coming out of Cincinnati out of the Yiddish press across the spectrum in terms of ideology which linked the Tulsa Tulsa massacre, as well as the race riot The excuse me, the massacres in you St Louis and elaine and.

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Hasia Diner: So many of those other places to the both their own experiences in in Europe before coming to America and which was still going on there, as well as to what they saw as the great.

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Hasia Diner: American betrayal is America had an ideology ahead documents about freedom and these massacres in specific and the general treatment of blacks were a violation of that.

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Judy Woodruff: I, and I would be curious to know how other faiths responded, whether it was the same thing pretty much silence in pulpits of every denomination across the board and tell us, I see Hannibal nodding.

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Hannibal Johnson: So there are some there are some there are some exceptions that we said we said excellent elevate one.

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Hannibal Johnson: One is first Presbyterian church still a viable large congregation downtown, the other is holy family cathedral, both those congregations were active particularly post massacre and providing essential relief food, shelter clothing.

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Judy Woodruff: and white.

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Hannibal Johnson: These reason why these are white Church and the Minister at first Presbyterian church.

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Hannibal Johnson: Dr Charles car was.

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Hannibal Johnson: was even more active he actually sought to intervene with respect to the mob before the mob attacked the greenwood Community post massacre, he quite literally drew up a petition to Congress for reparations for the greenwood district so, so we need to know that right.

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Judy Woodruff: Jonathan I want to come back to you because you were taking issue with what he was saying about not enough there weren't there weren't enough Jewish voices speaking out and Tulsa.

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Jonathan Silvers: I don't know about the Jewish voices, but I know that this made headlines from coast to coast and and many, many journals and newspapers deployed it.

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Jonathan Silvers: The facts were always somewhat variable but, but the issue was known coast to coast and this idea that you know the Jewish press was was this you know, a voice of reason or deploring it, I think.

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Jonathan Silvers: gives it a type of exceptionalism which.

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Jonathan Silvers: Is undeserved.

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Jonathan Silvers: Work there were many, many journals and journalists and.

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Jonathan Silvers: boy people were deploying it from pulpits across the country so.

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Hasia Diner: I didn't say that only Jews spoke out in there.

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Jonathan Silvers: To suggest it.

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Jonathan Silvers: But, but this wasn't suppressed at the time of the event and the silence that that fell over Tulsa or over the master I should say, seems to me to have happened in the aftermath Hannibal says in the film very specifically that that the.

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Jonathan Silvers: city fathers of the civic leaders did everything they can to move on and pretend that this did not happen i'm paraphrasing badly.

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Jonathan Silvers: But but but to me the actual reporting at the time was fairly accurate and was also, I think.

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Jonathan Silvers: Pretty condemnatory of this happening.

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Judy Woodruff: And I guess, my question is if that's the case, why didn't that survive, I mean, how did that get snuffed out.

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here.

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Hannibal Johnson: So there are a number of dynamics that cause what some people call it conspiracy of silence, we gotta remember 1921 tells us on the upward trajectory becoming the self described oil capital of the world, so the city fathers really wanted Tulsa to be marketed as a cosmopolitan.

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Hannibal Johnson: city, so what happened in 21 is a pardon the pun black mark on on the city and so so best to just not talk about it.

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Hannibal Johnson: That was shame somebody mentioned the word shame there certainly was shame in sectors of the white Community over what the white Community had allowed to happen in Tulsa.

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Hannibal Johnson: There was post traumatic stress disorder and fear in the black Community survivors would say 20 years ago, you know what we didn't talk about this really in our family because.

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Hannibal Johnson: We didn't want to burden our kids with this heavy load, we thought it might be debilitating for them, so we just avoided it.

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Hannibal Johnson: So it's it's almost it's almost psychological dynamics that are at play that cause this conspiracy of silence.

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Judy Woodruff: And it's so important that we talk about this, because it of course has connections to the Jewish experience.

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Judy Woodruff: In Europe and other you know elements of the human experience over time, but hosea What about that, I mean what do we learn from this.

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Judy Woodruff: series of events and we keep when we want to again, we want to remind everybody we're not just talking about what happened on two days in 1921 it was what was happening over a period of time that just and this just happened to be a particularly horrible moment.

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Hasia Diner: Well, I think we learn home and perhaps it's some hardly a new lesson that in this country okay race matters, and that the history of this nation was shaped for centuries before and essentially is before 1921 and continues to this very day, in which the optics of.

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Hasia Diner: skin pigmentation is the rate divide between the right to be in your home and lock the door or the liability of being your home and having somebody set it on fire and having no recourse and.

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Hasia Diner: The now I don't think Americans are necessarily unique I think most most societies have their moments, where they have brutalized and.

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Hasia Diner: treated others with a kind of lack of humanity but for us as Americans race matters and for those people who show up who are defined as being on the correct side of the race line.

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Hasia Diner: They might be occasionally scared they might feel anxiety now and then, but they have access to the institutions of the society to protect them.

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Hasia Diner: Okay, and for those people on the wrong side and wrong obviously not as a judgment, but in terms of the hierarchy.

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Hasia Diner: Okay, it doesn't matter if they were comfortable shopkeepers or lawyers or ministers, they were black and that was enough to deprive them of their rights and.

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Hasia Diner: How this country will move to some kind of reconciliation and move beyond that I i'm a historian, so I can't make any predictions for the future, but we sure have to.

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Judy Woodruff: Jonathan before we take the questions from from our audience Do you still have questions about that time and what happened in the aftermath.

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Jonathan Silvers: I have questions about complacency I don't know how you can continue to not just suppress history but oh press of people.

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Jonathan Silvers: The standard of living in North Tulsa is a direct function today of what happened 100 years ago and one of the.

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Jonathan Silvers: principles in the film, as a young activist and organizer named Greg Robinson, and he said to me very early on in my production.

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Jonathan Silvers: That where would black tulsa's be if they had 100 years of economic success behind them.

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Jonathan Silvers: And it hit me in the solar plexus because at every juncture American i'm sorry white Americans have taken What opportunity and success and ambition that black Americans have earned.

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Jonathan Silvers: and destroyed it and I don't mean to be provocative, but I, I think that it is a literal truth and until we recognize that.

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Jonathan Silvers: will never get to a place that the, that is, you know that shining city on the hill I don't mean to be facetious like that, but I think that we need to understand that there have been strategic efforts to dispossess and deprive black Americans of what they should rightfully.

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Judy Woodruff: We are getting some really wonderful questions coming in and are your monitoring this do you want to direct me to which question because i'm saying the chat room and i'm seeing questions.

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Judy Woodruff: And I can just plunge right in.

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Judy Woodruff: here.

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Ari Goldstein: You feel I just messaged you but feel free to take any that you are.

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Ari Goldstein: So moved by.

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Judy Woodruff: Great um let's see i'm just going to take a here's a here's one and i'm going to direct us to handle.

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Judy Woodruff: If you could narrow this down to one statement for all of us to move forward what would it be what would be your message for how we, the lesson we've learned from this week in a way we've been taught we've all been talking about that, but what would you how would you rate it.

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Hannibal Johnson: It is imperative.

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Hannibal Johnson: That we recognize our shared humanity.

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Hannibal Johnson: that's my statement it's as simple as that it's universal it's what what what needs to happen.

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Hannibal Johnson: And it's lawful lofty and aspirational is that we recognize and value and value they the dignity and worth of every other human being around us.

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Hannibal Johnson: If we had done that 1921 that would not have been a massacre, if that had happened in the 1940s and died in the Holocaust, if that if we were doing it now, that would not be a George floyd.

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Judy Woodruff: there's another question does it does either one of you has to your Jonathan want to want to comment.

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Hasia Diner: It was said so beautifully what sides are is irrelevant, we need to recognize it we're just all people with the same aspirations and that's it.

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Judy Woodruff: there's a question from one of our one of our audience, why is the event now called a massacre, rather than a riot are there other words that could be more appropriate Jonathan, what do you think.

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Jonathan Silvers: I can only share what I was told, but if you call something a riot insurance companies can claim a Ryan exception and not pay.

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Jonathan Silvers: what's do on a policy Hannibal is that is that accurate.

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Hannibal Johnson: i'll try to make i'll try to be quick, but I have this is a really complex question, it seems very simple, so the transition from riot to massacre occurred because people in the Community want wanted to sort of take back the naming rights for the event, so my thing is critical thinking.

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Hannibal Johnson: Ask the five essential questions, we need to ask when we talk about nomenclature, who gave the event its name.

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Hannibal Johnson: what's the consequence of the name and you talked about the right exclusion that's a consequence, who was absent from the table when the event was named.

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Hannibal Johnson: What are some other things that we might call this event, and there are many and then, finally, if the event happened today what would you call it.

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Hannibal Johnson: So we could call this riot has some application as as massacre as as pogrom as ethnic cleansing as as Holocaust has the genocide, as does slaughter, as does.

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Hannibal Johnson: All assault there, there are a number of terms that have some bearing on what happened, what I want people to do is think critically about the naming go through those that litany of questions and then make your own decision.

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Hannibal Johnson: i'm not put off by any particular term as long as you go through the process of thinking about why you chose that term.

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Jonathan Silvers: is right though legal definition which provide an exemption.

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Hannibal Johnson: riot is a term that was used an insurance policies and what's called forced Missouri clauses, so if the damage was occasioned by riot or civil unrest, the insurance policy typically would not pay proceeds and so that's why labeling it a riot in part was really important at the time.

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Judy Woodruff: A number of questions continue to come in hockey of one of them is was remind everybody was greenwood rebuilt, how long did it take.

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Judy Woodruff: And also separately, what happened to the reparation proposal, one of you address that I think it was Hannibal but what about the just the greenwood story what happened to it as a place.

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Hannibal Johnson: Yes, it was rebuilt peaked in the in the early to mid 1940s.

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Judy Woodruff: And reparations what happened to that.

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Hannibal Johnson: There were not certainly not not cast reparations paid to survivors or descendants, there are a number of efforts that I would say fall broadly under the umbrella of reparations which means to make amends and repair the damage my priority has been curriculum reform, interestingly.

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Judy Woodruff: there's a man named phil goldfarb writing to hockey said I wrote a story in the upcoming may 1 Tulsa Jewish review.

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Judy Woodruff: Final Jews and the Tulsa race massacre i've included 10 stories of Jews helping blacks during this time names such as darrow livingston and he goes on Boston which reminds me of Daniel Boston the former librarian of Congress.

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Judy Woodruff: The light Daniel Bourse and it had an effect even outside of Tulsa punk a city and still water due to the KKK there are several questions here about the KKK and their role.

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Judy Woodruff: Hannibal is there anything more you'd like to say about that, I mean you talked about the second.

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Hannibal Johnson: Just just very briefly the KKK had a huge presence in Oklahoma with the route of the decade of the 1920s, including in Tulsa.

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Hannibal Johnson: A number of prominent tell sons were affiliated with the client the records from some of the client from the client from some of the years in the 1920s or House at the University of Tulsa it's a veritable who's who list cross sectional Tulsa society.

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Hannibal Johnson: Being in the clan was a badge of honor at the time, and that that seems strange now perhaps but but but it wasn't anything to be ashamed of at the time the white community.

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Judy Woodruff: here's a question from Greg licked it looks like lichter name is partly cut off it wasn't until I watched the series watchman that I and possibly most white Americans even heard of the tech tech the Tulsa race massacre, it is the case that.

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Judy Woodruff: You know, again we're reminding it so few people knew knew about this.

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Judy Woodruff: And I come back to hockey to what you said about.

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Judy Woodruff: Your Professor john hope Franklin Father not bringing it up if i'm in the coursework.

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Hasia Diner: And you know, ironically, he one of the other faculty members in our history department was was Daniel weston and I have tried, since our he asked me to participate in this.

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Hasia Diner: Gathering i've been sort of trying to imagine if john hope Franklin and Daniel worst in ever in the Faculty lounge with the Nice furniture in the thick rugs ever brought this up with each other, now.

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Judy Woodruff: Well Mister Mister goldfarb wrote that the messages are flying up as i'm looking at this chat he says Samuel Boston attorney and friend of BC Franklin was the father of Daniel Boston so.

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Hasia Diner: Right yeah and he was the lawyer for the Tulsa times so he was in a way of the lawyer for one of the newspapers that did a want to stir off.

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Hasia Diner: And fan the flames of hysteria i'm sorry tell us it for viewing to fan the flames of hysteria among the white readers.

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Hasia Diner: And so, how many people picked up that newspaper and read this and you know, decided to go out and join the mob who knows so there's a really interesting little kind of historic connection.

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here.

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Jonathan Silvers: The watchman issue.

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Judy Woodruff: yeah go ahead.

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Jonathan Silvers: Well, I I i'm kind of conflicted here, because as much as I deplore the cartoon ization of American culture if it if it's an entry point for people to learn more.

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Jonathan Silvers: yeah I.

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Jonathan Silvers: think that it's it's useful.

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Jonathan Silvers: But useful insofar as it gets them into the truth about the the actual.

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Judy Woodruff: It raised their curiosity it's heard that from a number of people there's a there's another just a postscript on Daniel borscht and his son john is coming to Tulsa for the 100th anniversary.

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Judy Woodruff: Coming up.

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Judy Woodruff: let's see Oh, and this is for you Hannibal after May after May, June of banking 21 did the black Community continue to live.

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Judy Woodruff: In that area, did they go somewhere else, some of this some of this is referenced in the documentary and now, but, if so, what steps were taken to protect them from from another terrible thing like this well.

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Hannibal Johnson: You know, one of the reasons for the relative silencing, including in the black community is fear, so there were no steps to.

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Hannibal Johnson: protect them from this from a recurrence of this kind of racial violence that was the order of the day in the United States, not just in Tulsa.

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Hannibal Johnson: The Community was rebuilt most black people did stay, but they stayed in part to send a message about about resilience and about their ability to persevere, even through these these hardships where would they go where would they if they left where would they go.

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Jonathan Silvers: Where they part of the great migration, though I think one of the problems that the.

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Jonathan Silvers: forensic scientists have now is that so many of the errors descendants have scattered throughout the country and it's going to be almost impossible to gather DNA to identify remains.

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Hannibal Johnson: So right but I thought the questions really immediate post 1921 I mean those those people pretty much stayed.

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Hannibal Johnson: Those people were still living and injured pretty much stayed now since then and lo these many years it's been 100 years so descendants are everywhere.

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Hannibal Johnson: One of the descendants that most people didn't know about was the famous musician in Paris, he died like a year year or two ago so they're everywhere.

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Judy Woodruff: I confess that my American history is so poor I did not realize that.

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Judy Woodruff: Some of the native Americans owned enslaved people, I learned that from watching this documentary well.

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Hannibal Johnson: You know you can't be expected to note if it's not your textbooks that's how we get our information go to particularly public schools and then.

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Hannibal Johnson: If the information is not made readily available to the masses through textbooks and through public education, then the fact that you don't know it is it shouldn't be surprising Danny why.

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Judy Woodruff: Well, our time is just about up, I just want to finally come back to you, Jonathan because it's your.

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Judy Woodruff: documentary your film that we want to encourage everyone to see, and of course we want everyone to continue to to reflect on what we've been talking about and to read more into it, to talk about it with people you know but Jonathan what message would you send us away with.

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Jonathan Silvers: That we're not the country we think we are we're not the people we think we are, and the sooner we learn that the better will be.

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Judy Woodruff: And hot here, what about you.

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Hasia Diner: um I think that for many of us, we never thought it was that and we hoped it would become it, but it was always something that not necessarily specific so this massacre, which again I learned only when I started doing my dissertation.

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Hasia Diner: But we knew this horrible history of slavery and Jim crow depending on where you were in the American world, it was with us and we knew it and it was what can we do.

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Hasia Diner: I began my instead of involvement with this as a high school student going to demonstrations and going out there with my you know black my core button black with a white equal sign on it and mocked by my peers in high school.

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Hasia Diner: It was net and we, we should have people should have never thought it was already a finished product if he quality, but the road to it was always long and burdens and bumpy.

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Judy Woodruff: And Ari i'm going to turn it back over to you with thanks again to Hannibal for your work and, of course, to Jonathan and a half yeah Thank you very much, sorry.

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Ari Goldstein: I don't want to add too many more words on this terrific exclamation point you guys have left us with I do want to express our deepest thanks on behalf of everyone at the museum for.

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Ari Goldstein: each of you, Jonathan animal and hauser for sharing your insight and Judy for walking us through this history and helping us reflect on it, I think this is a really important discussion.

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Ari Goldstein: We will we have recorded it and we'll share recording with everyone who registered tomorrow.

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Ari Goldstein: Along with links to hannibal's books duties book i'm sorry highs his book and other resources for exploration and we hope you will watch Tulsa the fire in the forgotten, which will premiere on PBS on may 31 at 9pm so without further ado, our deepest thanks and wish everyone, good evening.

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Judy Woodruff: Thank you so much it's such an honor to be part of this.

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Jonathan Silvers: Thank you all right.

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Judy Woodruff: bye everybody.

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bye.