TULSA RACE MASSACRE

TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Subject : International Relations

Context : US President Joe Biden will next week visit the city of Tulsa in Oklahoma state, in honour of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, known among the worst incidents of racial strife in American history.

Concept :

• In 1921, from the evening of May 31 until the afternoon of June 1, a violent mob of Tulsa’s White residents attacked a prosperous Black neighbourhood, killing hundreds and leaving the locality in ashes.
• The massacre took place in Greenwood, a thriving Black-dominated neighbourhood that had sprung up at the start of the 20th century on the northern side of Tulsa, separated by a railroad track from the city’s White-dominated part on the south.
• Known as the “Black Wall Street”, Greenwood was a favoured destination for African Americans from the Southern US states– where laws actively upheld racism and disempowered Black people– to come and seek upward mobility.
• The visit by a US president on the occasion is being read as a signal to acknowledge the race massacre, whose history has long been suppressed and left out of national memory.