The 160th anniversary of Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence is just days away. On August 21, 1863, at 5 a.m, a heavily armed group of 300 to 400 Missouri guerrillas led by Captain William Clark Quantrill stormed three adjacent downtown Lawrence streets in a rampage of murder, looting, and arson.

When the raiders left about 9 a.m., 150 to 200 men and boys had been murdered, 125 structures burned; only two buildings in the business district were left standing. The damage estimate was $2 million.

Robert “Robbie” Speer was among the victims. He had spent the previous night in his father’s newspaper office where he would occasionally sleep on hot summer nights. The office was torched, with Speer’s body never recovered. He was murdered on the morning of his 18th birthday, according to Tim Rues, curatator of Constitution Hall in Lecompton, Kansas.

In my 36 years living in Lawrence, I became well aware of the atrocity, known here as “The Lawrence Massacre.” It remains the most infamous action of the entire span of an 11-year border conflict from 1854 to 1865. There could be no military action by Kansas Jayhawkers or the Union regular army against Missouri non-combatants that could compare to Quantrill’s senseless massacre. Of this, I was certain. Until recently….

According to many historians, Quantrill attacked Lawrence with a kill list. High on that list was James Lane. He was the most reviled abolitionist among all Kansas Jayhawkers, at the time a U.S. Senator and former commander of the Lane Brigade.

But “Lawrence wasn’t sacked because of Lane,” insists military historian Bryce Benedict, author of Jayhawkers: The Civil War Brigade of James Henry Lane, a detailed account of Lane’s unit. “It was sacked as punishment for the very idea that slavery should have no existence in this country. What the Lane Brigade did that was probably most offensive to the guerrillas was having freed hundreds of slaves, many of whom made their way to Lawrence.”

According to available census data, there were 5,500 enslaved people in Missouri’s three county area of Jackson, Bates, and Cass counties in 1860. But the numbers of enslaved people who either freed themselves or were liberated by Kansas Jayhawkers or federal troops wasn’t what most angered Missouri’s pro-slavers. Slavery was legal in Missouri and their enslaved property was illegally taken from them. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if the slaves moved to a free state. “Who was arresting these Kansas lawbreakers?” they were asking.

There are other perspectives. Missouri historian Tom Rafiner believes Quantrill’s Raid was an act of retribution. “Lane’s Kansas Brigade were all radical abolitionists whose agenda extended far beyond the normal dictates of military policy…A number of Missouri towns and villages were completely destroyed before August 1863: West Point, Butler, Parkersville, Morristown, Papinsville, Mt. Pleasant, Sibley and Dayton.”

Rafiner is author of Cinders and Silence, a 2013 account of the conflict on the border. “The accumulating destruction of Missouri communities, tied to the thieving and burning of family homes between 1861 and August 1863 led to a feeling expressed by one of Quantrill’s men ‘that we could stand no more.’’’

On a short trip over the border to visit the Bushwhacker Museum in Nevada, I was reminded that Missouri never joined the Confederacy. Yet, at the dawn of the Civil War in April 1861, over 140,000 Missourians joined one side or another. The pro-slavery men could join the Confederate States Army, the Missouri State Guard, or guerrilla groups, called “Bushwhackers,” like Quantrill’s Raiders. Anti-slavery Missourians enlisted in Union army, affiliated Jayhawker units, or local Union Militia like the Cass County Home Guard. It was nearly impossible to live on the border and remain neutral. Theft, arson, and assassinations were commonplace. “Western Missouri was unlike any other Civil War theatre of operations,” Rafiner writes.

Then, I learned about General Order № 11, an edict that few who are not Civil War historians are familiar with. Just four days after Quantrill’s raiders vanished into the forests and ravines of rural western Missouri, Union Brigadier-General Thomas Ewing ordered the following: “All persons living in Jackson, Cass, and Bates Counties, Missouri…are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen days from the date hereof.” The formal order included residents of the northern section of Vernon County but excluded residents who could prove their Union loyalty, living within one mile of the city limits of several communities in these counties.

It was not an organized evacuation. “The refugees, mostly women, children and the aged, left burning homes and entered a living hell,” writes Rafiner. Twenty-five thousand Americans were driven from their land of 2,200 square miles in the middle of summer, most of their usable wagons and horses had already been confiscated.

Historian Albert Castel, wrote “in considering the harsh treatment of civilians in American history, the order ranks second only to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.”

A correspondent for the Olathe Mirror wrote, “scarcely anything marks the ‘ancient habitations’ of man except for the long and blackened chimneys of former buildings.” In quick order the area became known as “The Burnt District.”

Missouri artist and Union officer at the time, George Caleb Bingham, tagged Ewing’s edict “a crime against humanity.” A replica of his painting “Order №11 ” is hanging in Kirk Hall in the Kansas City Central Library.

What happened to the enslaved population of the Burnt District? Rafiner is now searching through the scarce records of the 5,500 enslaved people in the Burnt District, hoping to eventually tell their stories.

Meanwhile, is it necessary, or even possible, to make moral judgments over which action, Quantrill’s Raid or General Order № 11, was more evil? At the close of any Civil War who determines which side suffered more?

On April 26, 2009, the Burnt District Monument was dedicated west of Harrisonville, Missouri. Carol Bohl, then executive director of the Cass County Historical Society said, “When we come to this place, let us listen with respect to the stories of both Missourian and Kansan. Bushwhacker and Jayhawker. Union and Confederate.”

On August 21, Lawrence will mourn the victims of Quantrill’s Massacre, murdered on its streets. Four days later, the people of Jackson, Cass, Bates, and Vernon counties will memorialize the victims of a questionable Federal Order and that legacy 160 years later.

I can’t speak for the descendants of the the enslaved Blacks of Missouri, or victims on either side of the border. But I am determined to make space for all perspectives. To forgive, but never to forget. With an apology for long-neglecting stories from the other side of the border.

Maybe you missed it last year. In 2021 Juneteenth, or June 19th, was officially recognized as a federal holiday. The date marks a historic event that has been celebrated by African Americans since 1865.

On June 19th, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger, headquartered in Galveston, Texas, issued General Order №3. “In accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free…This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.

Two months earlier, on April 9th, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his troops to Lieutenant. General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, effectively ending the Civil War. Galveston was a port city that received news from the east coast and spread information northward. So many enslaved people in Texas already knew the Civil War had ended, but they were afraid of celebrating prematurely.

In her book On Juneteenth, Annette Gordon-Reed writes “the idea that the society that oppressed them might be transformed into one based on equality influenced Black Texans in much the same way that the Declaration of Independence influenced Blacks in the early American Republic.”

Lawrence resident Janine Colter remembers observing Juneteenth as a child. “The main dish would be smoked and grilled meats, fresh fruit, pies, cakes. Juneteenth for me meant food, gathering, laughing, dancing, and having a good time. Soul stirring happiness.”

In 2003, Colter decided to share these traditions with the community. She established the Lawrence, Kansas Juneteenth Celebration organization and moved the observance to Burcham Park.

Colter has always seen the Juneteenth program in Lawrence as an experience for everyone. “There’s so much history here with Kansas being a free state,” she observes. “Why not share our African American history as well? The more you meet people and learn some of their culture the more understanding people will have of each other.”

The Juneteenth observance highlights both the contributions and struggles of African Americans in Lawrence. “There’s no reason to fear it. It is our truth. This is what happened. It’s not a negative thing as far as sharing it.”

The four day event begins on Thursday, July 16 at noon. Lawrence Juneteenth and the League of Women Voters will host a Zoom event on the history of voting rights, “Juneteenth, Independence and the Nation: Then and Now.”

On Friday evening, The Community Gospel Choir will perform under the direction of Randy Spears, a past director of the MLK choir. The performance begins at 7 pm at the Victory Bible Church, 1942 Massachusetts Street.

On Saturday, the Juneteenth events begin with an 11 a.m. parade on Massachusetts Street. “Being able to walk down historic Massachusetts means everything for this event,” says Colter.

The gathering begins at noon in South Park. A sound stage for music and speakers, oral histories, a kid’s corner with Black History games, plenty of BBQ, fish, local artisans, and all kids eat for free. “We have the past, present and future to engage our younger kids and older people and those in between,” says Colter

The weekend festivities conclude with a walking tour of the Maple Grove Cemetery in North Lawrence beginning at 3pm. Tombstones date back from the late 1800’s.

Like many Americans, Lois Orth-Lopes didn’t learn about Juneteenth until a few years ago. She didn’t hesitate to take action, becoming one of the five white members of the Lawrence, Kansas Juneteenth Celebration. She jumped in “to gain a better understanding of the event and how it impacts us today,” she says. “To become more comfortable in a more diverse community, you can’t just sit on the sidelines.”

This is Colter’s 19th year leading the Juneteenth organization. There’s little chance she’ll retire to the sidelines anytime soon. She’s guided by the vision of that first Juneteenth celebration in Galveston, Texas.

“When Texas, the last state [to free the slaves] received this information, I can imagine the release, I can see the celebration. I feel that spirit saying, ‘no one owns me anymore.’ I absolutely love it.”I would make this clearer

You likely know about the Tulsa Race Massacre by now. The Centennial Commemoration in spring 2021 was either an introduction to or an opportunity for a deeper dive into the deadliest instance of racially-motivated mob violence in United States history.

The observance helped Americans process the larger historical context of the violence. White mob violence took root in dozens of cities and towns all over the U.S. in the late 1910s and 1920s. We learned horrible details of the violence in Tulsa — of the murder, looting, and arson that decimated 35 square blocks of the Greenwood District in North Tulsa. An estimated 300 residents were killed; at least 1200 homes were torched.

The story of the Race Massacre wasn’t finished when the violence ended.

In fact, the ground has yet to settle. Less than two years ago, the city began excavating mass graves in the downtown Tulsa Cemetery in search of the bodies of massacre victims . In 2019, Oklahoma history classes were required to teach about the violence in Greenwood, and its previous status as a center of Black wealth. A lawsuit, on behalf of the three living survivors of the Massacre, has survived a motion to dismiss and moves forward in seeking wide ranging compensatory damages for the survivors and their descendants.

No matter how much exposure we have to the horrific history of the United States, learning about the past and its consequences can be overwhelming. The Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, joined by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and others, raised funds for a structure that intends to educate the public about the Greenwood story. Dedicated in June, 2021, this 11,000 square foot structure sits in the heart of the Greenwood neighborhood. It is designed to move visitors through the 120+ years of what was once known as The Black Wall Street within the broader context of American racial conflict.

Given the current debate over teaching race-inclusive history in schools, Greenwood Rising offers parents a unique teaching opportunity designed for middle and high school-age children. State-of-the art digital technology weaves personal narratives through the use of thousands of images and sounds. When combined with physical artifacts, the guest can bear witness to the tragedies and triumphs of residents of this community.

Regardless of how much you know walking in, you won’t feel the same as you leave.

When you enter the facility, you are welcomed by the voice of the late poet Maya Angelou. The entry hall is bright, her voice powerful. She reads her poem, “Still I Rise,” with on-screen images from the Greenwood community and its members, past and present. It sets the stage for learning about Greenwood’s resilience and strength.

From here, the guided tour begins. On a floor-to-ceiling viewing screen you witness an animated time lapse history of a block of Greenwood Avenue, from its early settlement with primitive structures to a strolling group of Black residents in their Sunday best. A Model-T Ford passes a Greenwood barber shop. It’s a valuable lesson in entrepreneurship, and community building.

Then you enter what’s likely the only holographic Black barbershop in the world. Barber shops and hair salons have historically been safe spaces for Black people to talk. Here, three barbers, representing three generations of African American men in the 1920’s, speak proudly about their neighborhood’s success, built largely because rigid segregation made Black residents unwelcome elsewhere. Yet, the young barber expresses worry that White Tulsa will not continue to tolerate a successful Black community on the other side of the railroad tracks. That fear is realized soon enough.

The two most difficult exhibits in the center follow. A content warning and “emotional exit” is available before entering these spaces. The “Systems of Anti-Blackness in America” vividly tells the story of our racist past. It is ugly to see and even harder to comprehend. Shackles that were used on enslaved people, archival photos of Black men hung from a bridge with White spectators posing for the camera, and a Klan hood and robe, are three of a multitude of items that bring chattel slavery and domestic race terrorism to life.

The depiction of the Massacre itself is told from the survivors point of view. According to museum’s website, “ a projector displays images of environmental motion graphics [that] immerse visitors in the destruction and violence of the night, while they listen to the recorded memories of survivors.”

The next exhibit, “Changing Fortunes,” highlights the resilience and fortitude of the neighborhood. The residents re-built after the Massacre, despite the massive destruction. Here in this room are stories and photos celebrating a renowned and even larger vibrant African-American community.

But a slow decline began in the 1950’s and 60’s.

As Tulsa desegregated, residents and businesses left the neighborhood. Then came urban removal, back then officially labeled urban renewal. It was common in many large urban neighborhoods to eliminate blocks of Black housing, business, and public places to make space to accommodate superhighways, creating new barriers between Black and White neighborhoods.

Today, Greenwood Rising is yet again catalyzed by the 100th anniversary commemoration event, and the opening of the history center. But Phil Armstrong, the center’s interim director, says the vision reaches beyond the Greenwood story. “The vision for Greenwood Rising, is to educate, to inform, and then to allow for reconciliation, and for people to take this journey together.” To help realize that vision, before departing Greenwood Rising you are invited to make “a personal and actionable commitment toward racial reconciliation.”

Despite this positive mission and good intentions, there is no consensus within the Greenwood community about Greenwood Rising.

Tulsa World reporter Kevin Canfield (Sept. 9, 2021) quotes several sources: “For City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper who represents most of Greenwood, the history center is more window dressing that does nothing to address the injustices and economic hardships that resulted from the events of May 31-June 1, 1921. ‘You have been neglecting Greenwood and this part of the community all these years — for decades. Now we are rushing in to do all these things because the eyes of the world are going to be on Tulsa, and particularly Greenwood,’ ” says Hall-Harper.

But Oklahoma “State Senator Kevin Mathews argues, “over 50 north Tulsa community members and supporters met to strategically plan and create a vision for the centennial four years ago. The overwhelming consensus was that the whole Greenwood story needs to be told in an experiential way — that is the first priority.’”

Mathews refers to the need to tell the “whole Greenwood story.” Left unspoken is that people need to hear and see this story.

Stories create empathy.

I made two trips to Tulsa to understand the Massacre, but I couldn’t integrate and internalize the entire sweep of Greenwood’s story, both epic and intimate, until I toured Greenwood Rising. Exiting the building onto Greenwood Avenue, on the street where Black residents were murdered and their homes and businesses burned, I understood that this story isn’t finished.

Greenwood Rising was ranked seventh in a nationwide vote for USA Today’s Best New Attractions of 2021. Timed entry tickets are required so call ahead to reserve tickets.

This question was posed by Oklahoma Senator James Lankford to the U.S. Senate, on May 25th, 2016. Lankford was anticipating this year’s Centennial anniversary of this senseless massacre, which decimated Greenwood, the African-American district of Tulsa. “And in five years the entire country will pause and will look at Oklahoma and will ask a very good question: ‘What’s changed…what have we learned in 100 years?’”

It’s a provocative question to ask both our leaders and ourselves, particularly when some Americans are only now wrapping their heads around the brutal and indiscriminate slaughter of an entire community, once known as The Black Wall Street.

For the record, the Tulsa Race Massacre wasn’t just one of the worst, but in fact was “the deadliest outbreak of white terrorist violence against a black community in American history.” That’s Professor Karlos Hill categorizing the violence, in his foreword to Randy Krehbiel’s 2019 journalism history, Tulsa 1921; Reporting a Massacre. Krehbiel is a veteran reporter for the Tulsa World. I recommend his book to anyone wanting a deep dive into the Massacre, starting in the 1800s with the first white settlements of the territory.

Maybe you’ve seen the premiere episode of the HBO sci-fi series Watchman. The horrific, but mostly accurate, opening depicts events of the Tulsa Race Massacre. “It’s estimated that more than three hundred, mostly blacks, died. The white mob looted and then set ablaze practically every home and business in the Greenwood District. In less than 24 hours, the thirty-five square blocks that was Greenwood… lay in ruin.” Krehbiel writes that on the morning of June 1, six airplanes circled overhead. “Authorities say the planes were used strictly for reconnaissance, but others say the crafts attacked with guns and bombs.” White citizens deliberately fire-bombing fellow citizens on the other side of the tracks? Despite my B.A.in Amercian Studies, this never appeared in a textbook.

I first learned about the Massacre on a brief visit to Tulsa 9 years ago. I’m neither a journalist, nor a historian. I’m a retired, 69-year old, white man from Lawrence, Kansas who then wanted to understand just how the Tulsa Race Massacre happened and why it was buried for so long. So I drove back to Tulsa in January, 2020.

The first thing I learned … there’s no substitute for a personal visit to the Greenwood District. The neighborhood is proud of its past success, survival, and refuses to be defined by the Massacre. That’s the sentiment of the vast majority of people I spoke to, including historians, curators, business leaders, even people on the street I talked to during Tulsa’s MLK day parade.

Secondly…I found the city of Tulsa welcoming, culturally vibrant, and rich with Americana everywhere I looked and listened: the Tulsa Sound in Cain’s Ballroom among other clubs, U.S. Route 66 landmarks, parks, world-class art, and a center honoring folk legend Woody Guthrie. In fact, it was unsettling to walk the streets of Greenwood, where hundreds of Black people were murdered a century ago, while admiring Tulsa’s Art Deco skyline in the distance.

So if you’ll be visiting Tulsa and Greenwood anytime soon knowing some history and context is helpful.

Oklahoma’s roots lie in the deep south. After the Civil War, the Oklahoma Territory was advertised as a safe haven for Black people wanting to escape the Jim Crow south. Here, Black families could remain intact, establish communities and, they expected, fullfill their American dream, according to Michelle Adcock Place, Executive Director of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum.

“For wealthy southern whites, you had second, third, and fouth sons who were not in-line to inherit the family plantations. They migrated into Oklahoma as risk-takers hoping to prove something to their families back home.”

Oklahoma became a state in 1907. The first law, Senate Bill One, was Jim Crow throughout, stipulating that every coach whether rail, car, or trolley, had to provide separate coaches or compartments for white and “negro” passengers.

Tulsa was once known as “The Oil Capital of the World.” Oil strikes just west of the city in 1901 and 1905 helped populate the town with both investors and laborers. Wealth and work paved the way for the city’s stunning architecture, culture, parks, and museums. Fast money from the wells also fueled a huge wave of civic pride, patriotism and xenophobia. A caste system, and the need for scapegoats, was directed at Native Americans, Blacks and union members. Vigilante groups administered whippings to whites for violating “moral” codes or simply for associating with Black people, Mexicans, Indigenous People or Jews.

Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street” wasn’t an isolated instance of African American neighborhood success. “Black people had been doing that forever,” says Vanessa AdamsHarris, Outreach Coordinator for the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation in Tulsa. “Who do you think ran the plantations?” In fact, moving into the 1900s there were many towns with a thriving African-American culture and successful businesses: the Hayti Community in Durham, North Carolina; Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia; The Fourth Avenue District in Birmingham, Alabama; and even Boley, Oklahoma, for a short time the largest predominantly black town in the United States.

Originally named by Booker T. Washington as “the Negro Wall Street,” the economic strength of the Greenwood commercial district was the result of the Oklahoma’s extreme Jim Crow laws, prohibiting African-Americans from making purchases in predominatly white areas. Black citizens had no choice but to buy and sell locally. “Greenwood was alive with an enterprising spirit of commerce remarkable given black American’s limited access to capital and markets,” writes Krehbiel.

But from the wealthy, white side of the tracks, Krehbiel notes that “Greenwood looked like a sordid nest of sin and disease.” In early May 1921, just weeks before the Massacre, a federal narcotics officer declared Tulsa overrun with narcotic peddlers. Other reports claimed, “gambling, bootlegging and prostitution were very much in evidence” and “there were low brothels where low whites mixed with low blacks.”

The Tulsa Race Massacre was not an isolated case. In 1919, more than two dozen major race-based disturbances, labeled “race riots,” flared across America during the “Red Summer.” According to Oklahoma historian Hannibal Johnson, “the physical intimidation of racial oppression in the United States at that time is almost unfathomable today.”

Race riots? In the past, some have referred to the Tulsa Massacre and others like it as a “race riots.” Adams Harris wonders why.

“Isn’t a riot supposed to mean an uprising against a political power structure? So how are people in an oppressed condition of segregation… how are they the power system you are uprising against? It’s code. The word riot, coupled with race, is a manifestation of white’s violence against brown and Black people, under a system created by whites to uphold whiteness.”

And here’s the deeper imprint, writes journalist Arthur Garrison in the Daily Call. “Race riots,” like those in Tulsa and the Rosewood [Florida] massacre of 1923, “not only took black lives and wiped whole black neighborhoods off the face of the earth, they ended black economic wealth that could be passed to subsequent generations.”

The Massacre began with a rumor. A Black shoeshiner, Dick Rowland, boarded an elevator operated by a white woman, Sarah Page, in a downtown office building. For unknown reasons the elevator stopped suddenly. Sarah screamed. Rowland fled, but was eventually arrested and jailed on assault charges. Fearing a mob lynching, a group of armed Greenwood citizens confronted of group of armed white Tulsans at the Tulsa jail. Shots were fired. White and Black men were killed. The next morning 3,000 all white, mostly men, invaded the Greenwood District.

The violence that followed is well documented, but what became of Rowland and Page is not. Page declined to prosecute. Four months later, the charges against Rowland were dropped. Rowland reportedly moved to Kansas City soon after his release.

Greenwood was re-built after the massacre. “In spite of building code restrictions that were put in place…the Greenwood community actually came back better than it had been,” said Place.

“By the end of 1921, Greenwood residents had rebuilt more than 800 structures in the neighborhood. By June 1922, virtually all of the area’s homes had been replaced. And in 1925, the National Negro Business League held its annual conference in Tulsa, indicating that Black Wall Street’s stature as an economic force had been restored,” writes journalist Victor Luckerson. Adams Harris insists the rebuilding of the Greenwood district is what allowed the city of Tulsa to survive.

“You can’t be known as the city that killed its Black people. The fear of this happening again might have been what caused the city’s collective amnesia.”

The story of the Tulsa Race Massacre is ongoing. If Senator James Lankford wonders “what’s changed in the past 100 years,” he could consider some progress. In February, 2020, the Oklahoma Department of Education added the Tulsa Race Massacre to its required curriculum for students from elementary through high school. Previously, some Oklahoma schools included the history of the Massacre, while others left it out.

In June 2021, a research team begins exhumation of what is believed to be the remains of people killed in the Massacre. Eyewitness accounts tell of Black bodies carted out of Greenwood in the days after the Massacre. Last fall, researchers found twelve badly decomposed coffins in a trench in Oaklawn Cemetery’s Black paupers’ field. It’s reported that an area large enough to contain 30 sets of remains will be excavated this summer.

On May 19, 2021 two of the last known survivors of the Massacre testified before a U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee discussing the Massacre’s legacy and the possiblity of compensation or reparations for survivors and dependents.

Viola Fletcher, 107, now living in neighboring Bartlesville, told lawmakers, she “can still smell the smoke” and “hear the screams” from the night her family fled Tulsa and the white mob. “I have lived through the massacre every day…I will never forget.”

Tulsan Leslie Randle, age 106, testified virtually. “By the Grace of God, I am still here. I have survived to tell this story. I believe I am still here to share it with you. Please give me, my family and my community some justice.”

Another survivor was Mary E. Jones Parrish, who died in 1972 at age 80. She wrote and self-published her memoir, Events of the Massacre, documenting her escape from the white mob and her eventual return to Tulsa. Her great grand-daughter, Anneliese M. Bruner has republished the memoir under the title “The Nation Must Awake.”

In an NPR interview, Bruner spoke to reporter Debbie Elliot about the very long-term impact of the Massacre.

“There are people whose psyche is still affected generationally; trauma after trauma after trauma just continues to build on itself. And none of it gets resolved if you’re in a system that sometimes has the unequal application of law and/or opportunity.”

“Bruner sees a toxic line from Tulsa to violence against Black people today, and says the same questions apply,” reported Elliot.

“Who’s going to be held accountable?” Bruner asks. “Are reparations going to be made? Is there going to be any official admission of responsibility?”

So the queston posed by Senator James Lankford at the beginning of this piece should be modified. “What hasn’t changed in the past 100 years. What work remains to be done?”

I was rounded up on the final day of the “most influential large scale political action of the 1960’s,” according to activist/journalist L.A. Kauffman. But, she notes, it occurred in 1971 (still part of the 60’s in my opinion) and you’ve likely never heard of them…the MayDay Protests, in Washington, D.C., from May 3–5, 1971.

In 1969, I enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., a polite Catholic boy from rural upstate New York. I held a very few core beliefs and had little ambition to expand them. Two months later, I joined my first D.C. protest march. So by May, 1971, I had adopted a set of beliefs built around the anti-war movement. But exactly what effort had I made to get there?

Even if you don’t know, or care, about the Vietnam War protests of your parent’s (or grandparent’s) generation, the MayDay action is a compelling story, as told by Washington Post investigative editor, Lawrence Roberts. His 2020 book Mayday 1971: a White House at War, a Revolt in the Streets, and the Untold Story of America’s Biggest Mass Arrest includes personal recollections from many sides of the action: D.C. police, White House officials and lawyers, public defenders, protest leaders, followers, even tourists, all caught up in the chaos. Next, consider the behind-the-scenes maneuvers by Richard Nixon and his Justice Department acting tough, with few restraints, while still appearing legal. The links, similarities and contrasts to the recent January 6 insurrection and the BLM protests in summer, 2020 are stunning.

Now, some background. By 1971 it was evident those relatively peaceful 1960’s marches and rallies were ineffective. So activist Rennie Davis (you might know him as one of the defendants in the trial of the Chicago Seven) plus two other war resisters devised a strategy for a spring anti-war offensive.

Their call to action, “if the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government,” wasn’t original. According to Kauffman, author of Direct Action: Protest and Reinvention of American Radicalism, “Davis took the idea of nonviolently blockading the federal government from a bold but ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equity (CORE) to paralyze New York City traffic on the opening day of the 1964 World’s Fair.”

Day One. Monday, May 3: To halt or delay Federal workers into the city, as many as 25,000 protesters (estimates vary) converged, in waves, on key bridges and traffic circles; 20 of them in the city. With no central direction, they nonetheless McGyvered barriers — burning garbage cans, cars, large rocks, broken glass, even themselves — then moved. Hit and run. “Nobody felt that because we would be non-violent that we could not also be militant and creative,” said one organizer.

The strategy seemed to work, at first. However, a combined force of Metro police, National Guard and, not without internal debate, Federal troops, had been pressed into service. Making large sweeps of arrests, chasing down protesters, or anyone who may have looked like one, using tear gas, and discarding the protocol of field arrest forms, law enforcement managed to arrest about 7,000 individuals. Many were taken to a makeshift outdoor detention camp across from Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. An 8-foot tall cyclone fence enclosed them. Buckets and trash cans were all that were available for toilets.

Meanwhile, I was nearly arrested, but broke through a police line as our small group of 20 approached Key Bridge. I saw police chasing fleeing protesters back to the Georgetown campus, and lobbing tear gas bombs onto the lawn just in front of the administration building. By late morning, I went to the sidelines, confused about what had just happened. It was years before I understood the complete story of those thousands of arrests.

Day Two. Tuesday, May 4: A peaceful sit-in was held at the U.S.Justice Department. 2,000 people were arrested.

Day Three. Wednesday, May 5: An afternoon sit-in took place on the east front steps of the United States Capitol. Though invited by newly elected representatives Ron Dellums and Bella Abzug, 1,146 people were arrested.

Including me. I didn’t recall, but according to author Roberts, Rep. Bella Abzug was speaking out against the war when the police began their arrests. Later, there were questions if law enforcement issued the required legal warning first. The only reported instance of police mistreatment was of a cop swinging a billy club into Rep. Dellums’ ribs. Dellums was one of the very few African-Americans present that afternoon. Reportedly, he tried to push through police lines as they began to grab protesters. I stayed seated while the police lifted me off the steps. I offered no resistance.

There was no consistency in the charges against us. Protests near the Capitol had been illegal for a century, but the Vietnam Vets Against the War held a rally on-site a just few days earlier. So James Powell, head of the Capitol police force, checked with several superiors. Initially the charges were unlawful entry, though no protester tried to enter the Capitol. Later arrest charges changed to unlawful assembly, in violation of a law banning speech with “intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of Congress.”

We were bussed to the Washington Coliseum, an indoor sports arena built in 1941, sometime during the late afternoon. I’ve only maintained random snippets of memories from the next 24 hours. Never having been arrested before, I was intimidated, but not afraid. We were almost exclusively white, and mostly male, though I had no awareness of those privileges back then. National Guard troops were seated in the stadium seats surrounding us on the coliseum floor. A protester lit a joint in front of them. It was cold, but not like the makeshift outdoor pens. Crowded, but not as jamed as the precinct jails where many other Capitol protesters ended up. I don’t recall being fed. But the African-American community donated food. One neighborhood activist was quoted saying,“we gave them food so they could put their bodies on the line and disrupt the government.” Anything that “can upset the oppressive machinery of the government will help black people.”

Day Four. Thursday, May 6: That evening we were bussed to a courthouse. In groups of a dozen we were brought before a Judge, with Congressman Ron Dellums again present. I was told we were released in his recognizance, meaning he would guarantee we would return to the courtroom if charges were to be filed. I later read that two public defenders handling dozens of Coliseum cases for 48 straight hours went before one of two judges who continually dismissed all charges. Personally, I was too tired to pay much attention to anything going on around me. Exams awaited when I returned to campus. Soon after, I transferred from Georgetown a small private college, Union College, in upstate New York.

On November 11, 1971, the American Civil Liberties Union filed several lawsuits. An individual action on behalf of Rep. Dellums and a class action, on behalf of the 1,146 people arrested on the Capitol steps.

The charges in the case, Dellums v. Powell, were exhaustive. The Capitol police were charged with unconstitutional arrests, imprisonment and prosecution. They bungled the entire process and little of it was by accident. The suit asked for monetary damages and ordered a recall and destruction of all traces of the criminal charges.

I knew of this lawsuit. I’d signed papers, not expecting any result or consequence. Then, listening to NPR one morning in January, 1975, I learned that the United States Court of Appeals for D.C. decided for the plaintiffs, awarding a total of $12 million, to be dispensed on a sliding scale according to the length of incarceration. At the time, I was an unemployed college graduate, with a degree in American Studies, in the middle of a recession. In 1977 the total was reduced on appeal. Eventually, I was awarded $1200. I gave back half to the ACLU; the remainder, I used to pay bills.

Case closed, I thought. It might have been a small victory for free speech, but, in my bigger picture of the anti-war movement, the MayDay Protests changed next to nothing. I read little over the years to contradict that sentiment. Until reading Lawrence Roberts’s MayDay 1971. I also dove into L.A. Kauffman’s analysis of left wing protest history.

Kauffman argues that “scruffy and forgotten protest helped speed US withdrawal from Vietnam,” and “changed the course of activist history.” Direct-action protests, she says “help to highlight when the government is clearly more concerned with maintaining control than with maintaining public sympathy, and cites examples like the Seattle WTO blockades, Occupy encampments and the Michael Brown/Ferguson, MO. protests.

The court decisions, writes Lawrence, “would sweep away limits on how citizens can demonstrate their dissent in Washington, D.C. and chill the chance that future mass arrests could be made anywhere in America. They would create the standard by which judges can delete criminal records that were improperly created. For the first time, a federal court had acknowledged that individuals had an implied cause of action against federal officials for violations of their First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly. One judge erased the 1882 law that effectively prevented demonstrations on the Capitol grounds, making possible large protests like the Million Man March in 1995.”

And this one was unexpected… Dellums v. Powell would be one of the precedents cited for the legislation that awarded $20,000 payments to Japanese-American survivors of the WWII internment camps.

In spring, 1971, for likely the first time in my life, I stood up for something. Just by sitting on the steps of the United States Capitol.

On May 5, 1971, nearly 2,000 people were arrested for an anti-war demonstration at the U.S. Capital. No one had broken through police lines, stormed the building, attacked Capitol police with bats poles, shields, or bear spray. None of us trashed congressional offices, rummaged through documents, defaced government property or murdered a Capitol police officer. An action with that kind of violence isn’t a civil protest. The MayDay Protests were something different. All 12,000 citizens arrested over three days have made it easier for their fellow citizens who followed us to occupy that same space for similar ends. That right should be respected, and never walked over.

If found, please return to the American People

We recently observed the 79th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. So the 9/ll attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the aborted strike on an unconfirmed target in Washington D.C. was actually the second time in modern history an enemy has attacked our homeland. Both strikes led to war.

I

But not since the Civil War has the United States been invaded. Until COVID19. We now have a foreign agent in our midst, killing 284-thousand and climbing rapidly. There are 15 million cases spread, and spreading faster, across all 50 states. This war’s destruction isn’t like any other. Unprecedented unemployment numbers, failing businesses, schools from K through colleges closed or disrupted, and our emergency and public health care system at breaking points; most of this is unseen, but none of it can ignored. Except by our commander-in-chief and half of Congress, acting like the Coronavirus disease is in the rear view mirror.

II

Early on, President Donald Trump seemed eager to define the pandemic as a war.

Wednesday, March 18, 2020 During a White House press briefing, Trump responding to a reporter’s question affirming his status as a wartime president.

“I’m looking at it that way… I view it as, in a sense, a wartime president.” Continuing with that imagery, Trump identified the enemy and the challenge. “It’s the invisible enemy. That’s always the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy…Every generation of Americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation. And now it’s our time. We must sacrifice together because we are all in this together and we’ll come through together.” (Politico, March 18, 2020)

Trump was spot on. We were, still are, at war and he recognized it, at least briefly. I was comforted. He was taking the virus seriously. Surely the full weight and power of the federal government would follow, I told myself. To track the devolution of this effort, here’s a throughline of White House messaging.

Friday, March 13, 2020: “President Trump declared a National Emergency in response to the Coronavirus … freeing up more than $42 billion in resources for states and localities. The emergency declaration will give healthcare providers on the front lines of this pandemic the flexibility they need to respond. President Trump continues to cut through every piece of unnecessary Washington red tape that may hinder response efforts, and he is continuing to make every Federal resource available to those who need it.” (White House transcript)

Monday, March 16, 2020 “This afternoon, we’re announcing new guidelines for every American to follow over the next 15 days as we combat the virus. Each and every one of us has a critical role to play in stopping the spread and transmission of the virus…If everyone makes this change or these critical changes and sacrifices now, we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus. And we’re going to have a big celebration all together. With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner and turn it quickly.” (White House transcript)

Friday, April 10, 2020 Mr. Trump declared that, in his role as something akin to a “wartime president,” it would be his decision about whether to reopen the country. “That’s my metrics,” he told reporters. “I would say without question it’s the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make.” (The New York Times, July 19)

Monday, April 13, 2020 “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total and that’s the way it’s got to be,” Trump said. (The New York Times, July 19)

The next day, Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci presented Mr. Trump with a plan for issuing guidelines to start reopening the country at the end of the month. Developed largely by Dr. Birx and held closely by her until being presented to the president — most task force members did not see them beforehand — the guidelines laid out broad, voluntary standards for states considering how fast to come out of the lockdown In political terms, the document’s message was that responsibility for dealing with the pandemic was shifting from Mr. Trump to the states. (The New York Times, July 19)

Thursday, April 16, 2020 When President Trump publicly announced the guidelines, he made the message to the governors explicit. “You’re going to call your own shots,” he said. (The New York Times, July 19)

Thursday, April 23, 2020: In perhaps the most consequential task force briefing …Trump suggested — without evidence — treating the body outside or even inside with ultraviolet light or “injection” of disinfectant might kill the coronavirus. “So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn’t been checked because of the testing,” Trump said. “And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting.”

The president then turned to White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx and asked, “Deborah, have you ever heard of the heat and the light?” Birx responded “Relative to certain viruses, yes. But relative to this virus? Not as a treatment. I mean, certainly fever — is a good thing when you have a fever. It helps your body respond. But not as — I have not seen heat or light,” she said, appearing to squirm in her seat … Less than a week later, the public briefings went on a two-month hiatus. Some have called this interaction between Trump and Dr. Birx “Bleachgate.” Trump later said he was being “sarcastic.” (ABC News, July 21, 2020)

There may be several events marking Trump’s walkaway from his wartime Presidential responsibility. In the July 30 issue of Vanity Fair, Katherine Eban describes one of them, just four days after “Bleachgate.”

Monday, April 27, 2020 Trump stepped to a podium in the Rose Garden, flanked by members of his coronavirus task force and leaders of America’s big commercial testing laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, and finally announced a testing plan. It bore almost no resemblance to the one that had been forged in late March, and shifted the problem of diagnostic testing almost entirely to individual states.

Under the plan released that day, the federal government would act as a facilitator to help increase needed supplies and rapidly approve new versions of diagnostic-testing kits. But the bulk of the effort to operate testing sites and find available labs fell to the states.“I had this naive optimism: This is too important to be caught in a partisan filter of how we view truth and the world,” said Rick Klausner, a Rockefeller Foundation adviser and former director of the National Cancer Institute. “But the federal government has decided to abrogate responsibility, and basically throw 50 states onto their own.” (Vanity Fair, July 30, 2020)

In case you missed this in 8th grade civics, states cannot wage war.

III

The four planes slamming into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and into farmland in Somerset County, PA on 9/11 were the catalyst for our years-long War on Terror. Anyone remember what happened to that war? Forgotten before it was finished? Lost in the shuffle?

It shouldn’t be a big surprise that we no longer recognize a war, or it’s conclusion, even when the total death toll of the pandemic in the United States is equivalent to one 9/11 (nearly 3,000 deaths) every day for more than three months. Maybe we fail to see “this means war” because there’s no identifiable enemy, like an Osama bin Laden. Or as a strictly defensive war, we can only strike back at cautious Demoratic governors. Or we aggressively refuse to wear masks to just to make an offensive statement.

In only one of those four hijackings did the victims know their fate in time to take action. Four Al Qaeda hijackers took control of Flight 93 (Newark to San Francisco) and announced to the passengers “there was bomb on board.” By that time, two other hijacked planes had struck the World Trade Center. Several Flight 93 passengers made calls informing family members and officials on the ground of their plane’s hijacking and heard about the Trade Center strike. After a brief discussion, a vote was taken and the passengers decided to fight back.

Passenger Thomas Burnett Jr., told his wife over the phone, “I know we’re all going to die. There’s three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey.” Passenger Todd Beamer was heard on an open line saying, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.” Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained from the galley that she was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words to him were: “Everyone’s running to first class. I’ve got to go. Bye.”

According to the cockpit voice recorder the passengers began their assault at 9:57 A.M. By 10:03 the terrorists intentionally crashed Flight 93 into the ground, about 20 minutes flying time outside of Washington D.C.. All 44 people on board died, including the 4 hijackers.

That’s how the United Flight 93 passengers decided to save the lives of strangers on the ground. In the current “War on COVID,” we aren’t expected to sacrifice ourselves in a plane crash to protect the innocent people around us. We can only fight this war by protecting one another, as Trump said, “to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation.” Trump and his allies quickly forgot that pledge. But we know, after recently adding one million new cases in eight days, what that entails.

An open letter to Donald J. Trump

Mr. Trump:

“Nobody knows the system better than me. Which is why I alone can fix it.” Do you recall these words? They are yours, spoken while accepting the Republican nomination for president, exactly four years ago, July 21, 2016.

You spoke a lot of crazy s##t during that campaign. For me, this statement stuck. I wondered if you could possibly be that self-absorbed, so blind to your limitations, or oblivious to the underlying reason for your success. That would be your father. And his money.

Fixing, no matter what system you referred to, involves identifying your goals, getting into the weeds, finding your way through and thanking everyone else for clearing the path. Obama didn’t personally fix the 2008 financial crisis. He never took credit for any success his administration had in working through this disaster. After 9/ll, for all our military might, George W. Bush didn’t come close to eliminating terrorists or stabilizing the volatile Middle East.

So who could imagine a national calamity so immediate, pervasive and existential that any one leader could take control of, and fix, by him or herself? “Not gonna happen,” is how you describe something very unlikely. But I was wrong.

The opportunity to curve the pandemic then straighten the impact presented itself a few months ago, teed up like one of your Donald Trump Presidential Seal golf balls, on a Trump branded golf course.

The fix, of course, was to nationalize the public health system sufficiently to manufacture and distribute the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to the hospitals, the testing equipment and infrastructure to public health departments, and the health care professionals to locations where they were most needed. Then bring in the smartest people to operationalize all this for the near and long term. Finally, establish and adhere to your target goals for new infections before gradually opening up the economy.

Hillary would have aced this fix, being so organized. And female. But as the New York Times laid out in their Sunday, July 19 front page cover story, you didn’t make much effort.

In mid-April, “even as a chorus of state officials and health experts warned that the pandemic was far from under control, Mr. Trump went in a matter of days, from proclaiming that he alone had the authority to decide when the economy would reopen to pushing that responsibility onto the states. The government issued reopening guidelines, but almost immediately, Mr. Trump began criticizing Democratic governors who did not ‘liberate’ their states...On April 16, when Mr. Trump announced the guidelines publicly he made the message to the governors explicit. ‘You’re going to call your own shots,’ he said.”

I’ve never understood how you can unapologetically admire strongmen like Korea’s Kim Jung Un, or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan; yet learn nothing from them about being an authoritarian. Adapting that role could have made a big difference in your numbers. Polling data, infection rates, Dow Jones averages or COVD deaths. Your choice.

The Times piece continues,“the approach he embraced was not just a misjudgement. Instead it was a deliberate strategy that he would stick to as evidence mounted that, in the absence of strong leadership from the White House, the virus would continue to infect and kill large numbers of Americans.”

“Strong leadership from the White House,” appears to have been the missing link. You can bet that won’t be missing in the Biden presidency. Democrats practically invented the concept of a strong national response.

Then comes the matter of the masks. There’s general agreement that masks, and social distancing are key to stopping the spread. Yet you still refuse to wear one, much less make a definitive public statement in support. Republican mayor Francis X. Suarez, of Miami, expressed frustrations with your dismissive approach to mask wearing. “People follow leaders.” Then he added, “People follow the people who are supposed to be leaders.” Just so you know, this past Sunday, Miami-Dade county added 12,479 new cases of coronavirus infections.

But if you need to feel exceptional, Donald, consider this: you, and only you, could have persuaded millions of MAGA voters to do something they feel the government has no business ordering them to do.

But this effort required a forceful, yet reassuring, voice. A leader speaking straight to the American people, without glancing sideways at stock prices and poll numbers. Working closely with Democrats would have been a plus. In effect, we needed a father figure.

Obviously not your strong suit. As your niece Mary Trump has pointed out in her new book Too Much and Never Enough, your father, Fred Trump Sr., was “an abusive patriarch who taught his “favorite” son to behave like a “killer” and see everything through a “prism of money.”

It was your father, Ms. Trump writes, who drilled the concept of “toxic positivity.” into your head. Everyone who has watched your news conference delivery of your predictions for the pandemic knows exactly what this means.

One additional theme from Ms.Trump’s book needs to be highlighted. She writes of your family’s reactions to illness and death, which was to minimize, deny or ignore. By many accounts, for example, you were at a movie when your older brother Fred Jr. died, in the hospital, with no family member present, from an alcohol- induced heart attack.

In your personal behavior toward the virus you choose denial, as if refusing to wear a mask proves your invincibility. You rarely appear to observe a 6-foot social distance, but because you are tested daily, maskless Trump is effectively telling his voters that no virus can touch the Donald.

Well, Mr. Trump, you might survive the pandemic after all. But COVID 19 is killing your presidency, will shred your legacy, maybe even write your epitaph. So if anyone asks, here’s my entry:

Donald J. Trump valued numbers... but never gave a s##t for any other number than #1.

Sincerely,

Frank Barthell

We’ve All Heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

But what have we learned?

This question was posed by Oklahoma Senator James Lankford on the U.S. Senate floor on May 25th, 2016. Lankford was anticipating the 2021 Centennial anniversary of this senseless massacre, where Greenwood, the African-American district of Tulsa, was decimated. “And in five years the entire country will pause and will look at Oklahoma and will ask a very good question: ‘What has changed in 100 years?’”

For the record, the Tulsa Race Massacre wasn’t one of the worst, but in fact “the deadliest outbreak of white terrorist violence against a black community in American history.” That’s Professor Karlos Hill categorizing the violence in his foreword to Randy Krehbiel’s 2019 journalism history, Tulsa 1921; Reporting a Massacre. Krehbiel is a veteran reporter for the Tulsa World. I recommend his book to anyone wanting a deep dive into the causes, catalysts, and conclusions of this unspeakable trauma.

Maybe you’ve seen the premiere episode of the HBO science fiction series Watchman. The horrific, but mostly accurate, opening depicts the Massacre. “It’s estimated that more than three hundred, mostly blacks, died. The white mob looted and then set ablaze practically every home and business in the Greenwood District. In less than 24 hours, the thirty-five square blocks that was Greenwood… lay in ruin.” In his chronology, Krehbiel writes that on the morning of June 1, six airplanes circle overhead. “Authorities say the planes were used striclty for reconnaissance, but others say the craft attacked with guns and bombs.”

I first heard about the Massacre on a brief trip to Tulsa 8 years ago. Late last year, I thought it was time for a closer look. I’m neither a journalist, nor a historian. I’m a retired, 68-year old, white man from neighboring Lawrence, Kansas who wanted to learn about, certainly, and try to understand how the Tulsa Race Massacre could ever happen.

The first thing I learned … there’s no substitute for a personal visit to the neighborhood and the city. This included face-to-face conversations with historians, curators, business leaders, even random people I interviewed last January during Tulsa’s MLK day parade.

The second lesson…Tulsa is not defined by the Massacre itself. It’s diverse, welcoming, culturally vibrant, and rich with Americana everywhere you look and listen: the Tulsa Sound in Cain’s Ballroom, Oral Roberts University, U.S. Route 66, and a museum/library/cultural center dedicated to folk legend Woody Guthrie all come immediately to mind. But if you’re planning to visit Tulsa, and the Greenwood neighborhood (still in existence), some history and context will be helpful. Here’s what I found most useful, and often suprising.

Oklahoma’s roots lie in the deep south. After the Civil War, the Oklahoma Territoty was advertised as a safe haven for blacks wanting to escape the Jim Crow south. Here black families could stay together for the first time in their American history, establish communities and, they thought, follow their American dream, according to Michelle Adcock Place, Executive Director of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum. “For wealthy southern whites, you had second, third, and fouth sons who were not in-line to inherit the family plantations. They migrated into Oklahoma as risk-takers hoping to prove something to their families back home.” Then came the oil. Two huge strikes near Tulsa, in 1901 and 1905.

The city isn’t that old. It wasn’t until 1907 that Oklahoma achieved statehood. Tulsa’s census that year counted 6,611 whites, 638 Negroes and 46 Indians. The oil strikes just west of the city helped populate the town with both investors and laborers. Once known as “The Oil Capital of the World,” wealth and work paved the way for the city’s stunning architecture, culture, parks and museums. Quick wealth also fueled a huge wave of civic pride, patriotism and xenophobia. Natural enemies emerged in union organizers, Native Americans, and former black slaves. Vigilante groups administered whippings to whites for just associating with African Americans, Mexicans, Indians or Jews, or violating other “moral” codes.

Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street” wasn’t an isolated instance of African-American neighborhood success. “Black people had been doing that forever,” says Vanessa Adams-Harris, Outreach Coordinator for the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation in Tulsa. “Who do you think ran the plantations?” In fact, moving into the 1900’s there were many towns with a thriving African-American culture and successful businesses. The Hayti Community in Durham, North Carolina; Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia; The Fourth Avenue District in Birmingham, Alabama; and even Boley, Oklahoma, for a short time the largest predominantly black town in the United States.

Originally named by Booker T. Washington as “the Negro Wall Street,” the economic strength of the Greenwood commercial district came from the commitment NOT to trade with white business,” according to Krehbiel. Yet there were no banks or financial institutions. Krehbiel writes that “Black Main Street of America” might have been a more accurate description. “Greenwood was alive with an enterprising spirit of commerce remarkable given black American’s limited access to capital and markets.”

From the wealthy white side of the tracks, “Greenwood looked like a sordid nest of sin and disease.” In early May, 1921, just weeks before the Massacre, a federal narcotics officer declared Tulsa overrun with narcotic peddlers. Other reports claimed, “gambling, bootlegging and prostitution were very much in evidence.” And “there were low brothels where low whites mixed with low blacks.”

Neither was the Tulsa Race Massacre an isolated case. In 1919, more than two dozen major race-based disturbances, labeled “race riots,” flared across America.” 1919 has been called The Red Summer. According to Oklahoma historian Hannibal Johnson, “the physical intimidation of racial oppression in the United States at that time is almost unfathomable today.”

Race riots? Some TV journalists have referred to the Tulsa Massacre, and others like it, as a race riots.

“Wait a minute,” cautions Adams-Harris. “Isn’t a riot supposed to mean an uprising against a political power structure? So how are people in an oppressed condition of segregation… how are they the power system you are uprising against?” It’s code, she says. The word riot, coupled with race, “is a manifestation of white’s violence against brown and black people, under a system created by whites to uphold whiteness.”

And here’s the deeper imprint, writes journalist Arthur Garrison in the Daily Call. “Race riots,” like those in Tulsa and the Rosewood (Florida) massacre of 1923, “not only took black lives and wiped whole black neighborhoods off the face of the earth, they ended black economic wealth that could be passed to subsequent generations.”

The Massacre begins with a rumor. A black shoeshine, Dick Rowland, boards an elevator operated by a white woman, Sarah Page, in a downtown office building. Sarah is heard screaming. Rowland flees, but is eventually found and jailed on assault charges. A group of Greenwood citizens gathers at the Tulsa jail. They fear a lynching. A confrontation ensues. Shots are fired. Apparently, no one is injured. But street fighting that begins in white downtown Tulsa spreads to Greenwood early the following morning with the literal invasion of 3,000 whites. Charges against Rowland are dropped four months later. But rumors persist to this day. Some claim Rowland and Page were romantically involved but there’s no record of whatever happened to either of them.

Greenwood re-built after the massacre. “In spite of building code restrictions that were put in place…the Greenwood community actually came back better than it had been,” says Place.

“By the end of 1921, Greenwood residents had rebuilt more than 800 structures in the neighborhood. By June 1922, virtually all of the area’s homes had been replaced. And by 1925, the National Negro Business League was holding its annual conference in Tulsa, indicating that Black Wall Street’s stature as an economic force had been restored,” writes journalist Victor Luckerson. Adams-Harris insists the rebuilding of the Greenwood district allowed the city of Tulsa to survive.

“Black people went back to work for the very people who destroyed their town. You can’t be known as the city that killed it’s black people. There’s some level of humanity there.” But at a price, she adds. “The fear of this happening again might have been what caused the city’s collective amnesia.”

The story is unfinished. Some early hope was quickly smashed. In January, 1926 the Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision to deny Greenwood property owners a path to recover damages. Some changes are being made. This past February the Oklahoma Department of Education added the Massacre to its required curriculum for students from elementary through high school. In the past, some schools taught it, others didn’t.

Some hope remains. Eye witness accounts tell of black bodies being carted out of Greenwood on the days after the Massacre. There are reports of bodies dumped in the Arkansas river, in coal pits or elsewhere. Thirteen were reported buried at Oaklawn Cemetery. In the fall, 2018, Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum announced the city would re-open the search for group burial sites in that cemetery with new evidence to suggest at least two sites might exist. The city has agreed to “limited excavations” for confirmation. But that effort is on-hold because of COVID-19 restrictions.

“We don’t know who left, never to return. We know some who perished, but we have no idea who left and who was dumped in a mass grave. The point is not that we find ultimate answers to ancestory, but that we pursue the eyewitness accounts and honor the oral tradition that exists in our community,” says Place.

Seeking more stories in preparation for the 2021 Centennial. As part of the runup to the Centennial, the Tulsa Race Massacre Commission is seeking “the seldom-shared oral histories of white families whose ancestors participated in and/or observed the devastation of Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood Districts ..Multiple perspectives and insights ultimately help us evaluate and understand what transpired and why.”

These perspectives and memories, passed down one or two generations, would include the stories of whites who participated in the mob violence, as well as those who fed, clothed or housed Greenwood residents during or immediately after the Massacre.

“There might be thousands of white people who have never felt comfortable sharing these family stories,” says Adams-Harris. To date, she says, not one of them has come forward to share and be publicly identified.

“We can say all we want to about those white people being racist. But what if they were scared? What if the dirty family secret is your father was a man who worked for the mayor with no choice but to participate? If it’s fear, opposed to being racist, we would then have to look at this differently.”

What if we hear those stories from those white people on the other side of the tracks? The aggressors and the protectors. Will the wounds from the worst race massacre in US history be healed? Vanessa Adams-Harris from the Reconciliation Center suggests using a wider lens before answering this question. “This is not a story about white people against black people. It’s a story of legal segregation. This was also the condition that whites were under.”

This made sense. After all, didn’t Tulsa’s wealth and work history suggest that working class whites shared some aspirations with Greenwood African-Americans, like that portion of the American Dream of working hard to give your children a better life?

Here, during this interview, on my final morning in Tulsa, the light bulb switched on. I had felt compelled to be physically in the city, not just remotely reading about it. I had walked through the Oaklawn Cemetary where the remains of many of the 300 victims of the Massacre may rest. I was there to remember them.

I was also there to honor Tulsa. Because it was the entire city that intially survived, has since thrived, and now is confronting the legacies of “the deadliest outbreak of white terrorist violence against a black community in American history.”

As the original manuscript reveals, Woody Guthrie wrote the populist American anthem This Land is Your Land 80 years ago, February 23rd, in a flop house in midtown Manhattan. It was another four years before he recorded, a full decade until it was published, then finally popularized in the mid-1950’s by fellow traveler Pete Seeger and his group The Weavers.

In the decades since, dozens of artists, from Peter, Paul and Mary, and the Kingston Trio to Bing Crosby and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir have recorded the song. Bruce Springsteen called it “the greatest song every written about our home.” In January 2009, Seeger and Springsteen performed This Land is Your Land at Barack Obama’s pre-inauguration concert.

But the inspiration for the song’s title wasn’t Guthrie’s experiences in California migrant camps. The credit belongs to singer Kate Smith and producer Irving Berlin for their hit God Bless America, released in 1938 then number three on the pop charts the following year. The 1940 presidential campaigns of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his Republican opponent Wendell Willkie used it as their official campaign songs.

Guthrie heard the song often. Pete Seeger speculated on Guthrie’s cross-country trek to New York in the winter of 1940, “Woody was hitchhiking through Pennsylvania in the freezing cold. But if he had a nickel he’d go into a roadside dinner, get on a cup of coffee, and the juke box was playing God Bless America.”

Guthrie hated that song, says Deana McCloud, executive director of the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “When Woody hears this song he’s thinking, ‘where are my people?’ ”

Those people, his people, appear in the closing stanza of his original manuscript, on display at the Guthrie Center:

One bright sunny morning, in the shadow of the steeple/ By the Relief Office, I saw my people/As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering/If God blessed America for me.

Guthrie’s original title, God Blessed America, was a sarcastic rebuttal to the Berlin/Smith prayer to the Almighty. “There could be no unearthly solutions to earthly problems,” wrote Will Kaufman in his musical biography Woody Guthrie, American Radical.

Thankfully for our American songbook, Guthrie wasn’t satisfied. The sarcasm was dropped, replaced in each stanza by affirming This Land was Made for You and Me.

If the “Relief Office” reference is unfamiliar, it’s because that stanza wasn’t usually taught to young children in sing-alongs. And there’s another verse also overlooked:

Was a big high wall there, that tried to stop me/ A sign was painted, said private property/But on the back side, it didn’t say nothing/This land was made for you and me.”

Neither verse was included in the 1945 publication Ten of Woody Guthrie’s Songs. So, McCloud recalls, “we didn’t learn those verses growing up.”

Why? The rabid anti-Communist climate of the time was a contributing factor. “It got to the point there for a few years where it was difficult to tell where folk music ended and Communism began,” quipped country singer Tex Ritter.

Still, Guthrie’s anthem has more than once been a suggested replacement for the United States National Anthem. Pete Seeger, who made a point for decades of including all of the song’s verses in his performances, rejected that idea. “The best thing that could happen to the song would be for it to end up with hundreds of different versions being sung by millions of people who do understand the basic message,” he said.

It happened. Wikipedia lists versions from nine different countries. Even Lisa Simpson adapts the lyrics singing, This log is my log, this log is your log in a year 2000 Simpson’s episode about a giant runaway redwood tree.

The fact that Woody wrote ANY song after that winter of 1940 was a near miracle, according to author Ed Cray in his biography Ramblin’ Man. On his hitchhiking trek to New York City, Guthrie nearly froze to death along U.S. 22 in Pennsylvania. He was found in a snowbank by a passing forest ranger who drove Guthrie to his parents’ house for the evening. Guthrie later said, “I had really given up all hopes of ever seeing any human beings alive on this planet anymore.”

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie died on October 3, 1967. He was afflicted with Huntington’s Disease, and weighed less than 100 pounds at his death. He had lost his voice two year’s earlier. But he still speaks, even today:

Nobody living, can ever stop me/ As I go walking, that freedom highway/Nobody living, can ever make me turn back /This land was made for you and me.

To mark the 80th anniversary of This Land is Your Land, the Woody Guthrie Center will host a benefit concert on Sunday, Feb. 23 at the Town Hall in New York City, near the Hanover House, where Guthrie wrote the song.

“I know these boys,” says clinical psychologist John Robertson. “I know their use of exploitation and manipulation as strategies to gain and exert power and control, how they avoid responsibility for that behavior, their objectification of others, particularly women, as being other than, therefore less than. So, I don’t know Harvey Weinstein personally, but I know his type.”

Robertson’s experience is based on a decade of clinical work with more than 1100 professional men, doctors and lawyers mostly. They were all referred to a specialized treatment clinic in Lawrence, Kansas, due to their mistreatment of patients or clients, colleagues or staff. Often, they’re ordered into therapy by their professional licensing boards.

In case you’re wondering, there are women authoritarians. At the end of his tenure, females were only 10% of the referred professionals in the clinic. Robertson believes, “authoritarian traits are more aligned with traditionally socialized masculinity expectations.”

Robertson says authoritarian is not a diagnostic category, but these men share certain traits at a significant level: narcissism, defensiveness, obsessiveness, and histrionics (high drama). Give them authority and watch out for what happens. “There’s not a problem with the existence of power inherently. Societies function with decision makers. But authoritarians pursue the exercise of power as a rush, simply for the experience of exercising it to control others, rather than in constructive ways.”

It’s rare in social science research to state absolutes. But based on his practice, he says “every one of these men, without exception, had terribly disruptive childhood relations with their fathers. Sometimes, the father died early, or was chronically ill, alcoholic, drug dependent, abusive, or would disappear for months or years at a time. There are a dozen ways fathers can harm their sons.”

What happens, then, down the road? “The sons carry an awareness what it feels to be vulnerable. In order to combat that, they develop a set of strategies to make sure no one is going to do that to them again. So, they need to be in positions where they can control the behavior of others. The end point is always justified, so they can say, ‘I’m going to be safe.’”

From Robertson’s experience “male abusers of women typically have this internal sense of self-doubt that only they know about. No one who knows them can imagine that they really feel vulnerable inside. But they do.” Yet, because of their lack of empathy, they have no regard for the impact their abuse is having on others.

If you’re hoping for an optimistic prognosis from this piece, here are three reasons to be disappointed:

1. Treatment for the authoritarian male is difficult and lengthy. Dr. Robertson says it often took months of daily group and individual therapy with these men to engender any meaningful self-awareness.
2. The largest factor in a successful therapeutic outcome is whether the men’s professional lives were on the line. “They knew if we didn’t say they could go back to work, they were finished. That’s a very powerful motivation for professionals.” But as #MeToo has shown, too many supervisors ignore warning signs of abuse, so there are rarely consequences for that behavior.
3. Despite #MeToo, or maybe because of conservative blowback, Robertson says the problem is getting worse. “That’s because you’ve got a president with at least 22 accusations of sexual assault against him, yet nothing has happened to him.”

I do see a positive. But first, a full disclosure. Dr. John Robertson is a personal friend. About a year ago, he introduced me to his hypothesis of Donald Trump as Exhibit A for the authoritarian male. I’ve been chewing on this ever since, to identify the link between Trump and the abusive men that we interact with daily, and what can we do to stop them.

John’s the psychologist. But I respectfully disagree with his take on the downward spiral of the treatment of women and other marginalized groups. I believe we can now call out these men (and women) when they say something denigrating about a person of color, direct anger at women or LGBTQ people, or belittle random subordinates. We can’t continue giving abusive men a pass under the mistaken belief they alone are responsible for the success of the team, the company or the country. Nor should we offer them the excuse that they’re not accountable for their actions because of stress, overwork, or enemies out to sabotage their efforts.

To my male readers, I offer this challenge. It’s easier for an authoritarian to dismiss a claim, or blow back on an accusation, from a woman. Men, particularly white men, specifically white men in positions of power or stature, need to be stepping up and calling out. Let’s use our white male privilege for good. For change.