by wildrose » Fri Jun 11, 2021 7:07 am
MojaveMike: There are two sides to every story and coverage of the Tulsa event is very one-sided. Here is an overly-simplified, but fair version of the story.
1) It all started as the result of what was perceived to have been an assault by a black man against a white, teenage female elevator operator. The black man was taken into custody, rumors circulated, and angry whites wanted to lynch the black suspect. This was back in 1921 and although lynchings were extremely rare, they were not unheard of.
2) There was a stand-off at the place where the black man was being held in custody. A mob of angry whites wanted to lynch the suspect, but they were held off by law enforcement. (Incidentally, one of the officers who arrested the black suspect was black.)
3) A mob of armed black men showed up at the facility where the suspect was being held. Shots were exchanged and as a result 10 white men and 2 black men were killed.
4) Rumors of a black uprising circulated and whites organized to retaliate for the deaths of the 10 white men. The retaliation was devastating with the total death count estimated to be somewhere between 150 and 300 total for both sides. There were also somewhere around 800 people injured. Property damage was almost exclusively in the black part of town. Again, this was 1921 and the town was fully segregated.
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Was this a gratuitous massacre? No, most definitely not. It was an event which quickly got out of hand as the result of bad decisions on both sides of the conflict. The framing of this event is generally one-sided with whites getting blamed for what happened. However, it's important to point out that in the initial "battle" more whites than blacks were killed and so it is unreasonable to expect the whites to just drop the exchange at that point. Their retaliation seems extreme, but it was understandable since once the retaliation began shots were fired back and forth on both sides and this continued until one side could no longer return fire.