6/1/2021

My dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

Are you ready for your visit to Tulsa? I’ve never been there. The only time I’ve been in OK was when my grandparents took my siblings & me on a road trip to TX. The landscape did not leave an impression beyond oil rigs & cattle.

How do we commemorate a horrific event like a massacre? What do we even call it? I have seen it described as “citizens gone amok”, which makes it sound like it was random & spontaneous. Kind of like Jan 6. But when you pay attention to the details it is much more insidious. In the case of Tulsa in 1921, it’s the 6 Jenny planes flying overhead that make it clear it was organized. We don’t know if they were dropping things from the planes or just adding to the mayhem, but they were on orders from prominent city officials, so the attack was planned & sanctioned by the government. The Forward called it a “pogrom.” That seems more appropriate.

Since it was an assault on innocent citizens which has not yet been repaired, we have a lot of work to do. Survivors Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis, his sister, Viola Fletcher & Lessie Benningfield Randle are asking for justice & recognition so I am grateful that you will be in Tulsa today & will meet them. Unfortunately, many feel like the commemoration has been turned into a tourist attraction, where White folks are profiting from the harm they caused.

I encourage you to spend some time at the Vernon AME Church Wall of Racial Healing. It’s right by I244 which when built in the 1970’s managed to ruin a thriving Greenwood. Not only did the road bisect the rebuilt neighborhood, the heavy trucks shake the church ruining its stained glass windows. Perhaps you will feel compelled to campaign for repairs to the church, if not reparations for all of the harm done in Tulsa.

Tulsa, 1921, is being repeated in Myanmar in 2021. The ethnic minorities are arming themselves & it’s hard to imagine how it will all end. It will someday pass & I hope it does sooner rather than later.

PBWY