![\"Professor](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2017-African-American-History-33-1-2.jpg\")
Before the film, Eaton explained that the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was thriving at the start of the 1920s. Its Black residents were professional and upwardly mobile; entrepreneurship was common. They reinvested their wealth into the community, which Booker T. Washington christened \u201cBlack Wall Street.\u201d The city was segregated, but there was no history of racial violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That changed between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when a white mob killed hundreds of Black residents and destroyed over 35 residential and commercial blocks as well as more than 1,200 businesses, devastating the thriving business hub and impacting generations of Black Tulsans. The massacre exposed the reality that the wealthy, self-sufficient Black Americans posed a threat to the white population, particularly the poor, Eaton said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The connection between the Tulsa massacre and Juneteenth is important, Eaton added, as its legacy contains a larger message about America. The North Tulsa community, past and present, is \u201ca microcosm of the larger Black experience in America.\u201d The massacre and its aftermath, she said, involve aspects of race relations, Black migration, Black upward mobility, Black military service, the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacy, reparations, and generational trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBlood on Black Wall Street\u201d features interviews with community leaders, activists, and descendants of survivors, as well as recorded first-person accounts of the massacre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is not Black history; this is American history,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThis is history that we need to all know, learn, and understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a moment of national reconciliation around racial violence, which for too long has gone unacknowledged by the majority of people,\u201d Power-Greene said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the screening, Eaton discussed the grassroots efforts within the Tulsa community to rebuild and bring investments back into the Greenwood District. Businessowners, even those who had insurance, were forced to file lawsuits that lasted into the 1930s, and most claims were denied. The fight has continued into 2021, especially regarding the need for reparations, she added. \u201cThe bottom line is that something has always needed to happen, and definitely needs to happen now. I don\u2019t see how the city of Tulsa can move forward\u201d without reckoning with the massacre\u2019s lingering aftermath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Power-Greene noted that Tulsa\u2019s \u201curban renewal\u201d initiatives of the 1950s to 1970s included constructing a highway that divided the Greenwood District and forced many of its Black residents to move to less desirable parts of the city. More recently, regularly increasing rent costs have resulted in business closures, such as a salon owned by a descendent of a massacre survivor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to wrap our heads around \u2018urban renewal,\u2019\u201d he said. Decisions, which are made under the guise of \u201chelping\u201d a community, have an intentional impact on certain residents and neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eaton agreed, noting that many so-called urban renewal initiatives are in fact forms of systemic racism. For example, the same kind of highway that cuts through the Greenwood District can be found in any number of major cities. \u201cThose are calculated and pervasive,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we can\u2019t think about what it means to salvage communities without thinking about the means by which they were destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Tulsa massacre was widely reported on at the time, it largely disappeared from the national consciousness over the succeeding decades. Even children and grandchildren of survivors often weren\u2019t aware of the events, which were largely preserved in oral histories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBlood on Black Wall Street\u201d features the son of a massacre survivor who is dedicated to retelling this dark chapter in Tulsa\u2019s history. Eaton said she was struck by the documentary\u2019s emphasis on handing over the information to the next generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo the work,\u201d Eaton stressed. \u201cIt\u2019s not hard \u2014 the information is there. We won\u2019t move forward if we\u2019re not having those conversations, even if they\u2019re uncomfortable. These histories aren\u2019t even that long ago, and they\u2019re relevant to where we are now and where we will be in the future. I\u2019m very encouraged by the current generation, my students, who are pushing and asking questions that move us past awareness and recognition into action.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Power-Greene urged people to \u201cmove away from the idea that someday, everybody will suddenly agree. The idea that, as a nation, we will embrace Critical Race Theory, or reject Critical Race Theory, or embrace or reject Juneteenth as a holiday \u2014 it won\u2019t happen.\u201d He also urged caution against expending too much energy disagreeing with people who are not interested in learning and understanding. \u201cI\u2019m much more interested in people who join conversations like this and want to listen and learn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBring your knowledge with you to where you are,\u201d he added. \u201cKeep thinking about it, and keep engaging.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tulsa community provides a microcosm of the Black experience in America<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13781,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"#525250","story_headerImg":13781,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[223],"displayed_author":[258],"featured":[],"topic":[181,335,171],"class_list":["post-13780","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clark-community","displayed_author-melissa-lynch-95-mspc-15","topic-history","topic-race-and-ethnicity","topic-social-justice"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Kalenda](\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/kalenda-eaton-speaker-clark-university-2.jpg\")