A Tulsa Twosome

A Tulsa Twosome

I think we can agree that the Nazi Germany portrayed in Maus
showed the terrible cruelty humans are capable of. Today we're
sticking to the theme, only bringing it closer to home. Tulsa,
Oklahoma to be exact. May 31, 1921 one of its districts, Greenwood,
also known as the Black Wall Street, was a thriving community of
homes, businesses, churches, schools--even a library. June 1, 1921 it
was smoke and ashes. The ruthlessness with which white citizens
killed innocent Black women, men, and children; looted homes and
stores; and burned them--even churches and library--is sickeningly
reminiscent of Kristalnacht.

Brandy Colbert's Black Birds In The Sky: The Story And Legacy Of
The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is targeted toward a YA audience. I
think it should also be considered a must read for most of our
nation's adult adults. The tragic event was very effectively covered
up and denied until relatively recently. And, as Colbert points out
in her afterward, the early 1920's were eerily similar to the times
we're living through now.
Colbert covers not only the events and the aftermath, but an
extensive historical back story. One of the questions she was driven
to answer was how could it have happened? She traces not only
Oklahoma's shameful history of dealings with Blacks and indigenous
peoples, but United States history from Reconstruction on. There are
candid looks at lynchings and earlier race riots. She also looks into
her other question: how was it covered up and denied for so long?
One reason is America's "Sure we made a few mistakes in the
past, but we're doing just fine" narrative that erases all the history
that contradicts it. This indoctrination starts with impressionable
children being immersed in whitewashed, whitecentric curriculums in
school.
And being denied banned books that would expose them to
inconvenient truths and contradictions of the dominant narrative. We
gotta fight for our kids' right to read them.
Each chapter starts poignantly with a black and white picture
accompanied by a survivor's narrative.
How about, "Mother remembers running down the street, six months
pregnant with me, dodging bullets that were dropping all around her.
She said that it was a miracle that she escaped alive and that I was
later allowed to come into this world."
This fine book belongs in all school and public libraries. And
we adults owe it to ourselves and the country we need to be changing
to read and ponder on it.

Jewell Parker Rhodes' Magic City is an older book (1997).
Although it's a work of adult fiction which paints a speculative
picture of the incident that was the catalyst behind the massacre, it
also gives some of the bitter backstory that allowed a spark to become
an inferno. And across more than two decades Colbert and Rhodes are
asking similar questions.
Rhodes learned of the massacre in 1983 through an article in
Parade Magazine.
"...How and why did blacks move to Oklahoma? Why did whites
have enough tolerance to allow the black community to establish
itself, but not enough tolerance to allow its success? How is it that
I'd never heard of the Tulsa Riot? Why was this history suppressed?..."
Joe is the black sheep member of a Greenwood elite family.
"...Property and wealth. Joe, the youngest son. Born a bit too
brown for his mother's taste; too lazy for his father's. But always,
in Greenwood, he was the banker's son."
With his older brother killed in the Great War and his sisters
women, the family expects Joe to carry on the family business. He has
no interest in doing so. He's a great fan of the escape artist
Houdini and plans to follow in his elusive footsteps. He works as a
shoeshine to earn the money to bankroll his first escape--from the
neighborhood he both loves and feels stifled in.
"Ma lay flat on the kitchen floor, hair fanning, arms grasping
her flattened belly, whispering to Mary. Whispering, 'Hush. Don't
scream. Don't blame Pa or the baby. It's God's will..."
Just turned seven, Mary was the only one there when her mother
gave birth to her baby brother and then bled to death. After that
she'd been in a masculine world. When she began menstruating her
father enlightened with gems including "You're body's meant for a
husband's use." and "Whores like doing it. Good women don't."
Much older now, Mary does heavy farm work and the domestic
chores related to caring for her father, her brother who returned from
the Great War missing a leg, and Dell, a farm hand her father recently
took on...and not just for his agricultural skills.
"'...Your Pa and me, we've already agreed.'
'What'd you agree.'
'You and me, Mary. Our kids will inherit the farm.'"
Dell rapes Mary, sure that her father will force her to marry
him right away. In fact as she's on her way out the door, heading to
her job as an elevator operater, her father, having learned that she's
"given" Dell "a husband's privileges," orders her not to come home
until she's ready to wed.
As you've probably guessed, Joe is Black. Mary is white. Joe
picks that day to take the elevator rather than the stairs to get to
the only bathroom Blacks are allowed to use which is located on the
fourteenth floor.
Men in the lobby are horrified and angered by the spectacle of a
Black man getting on the elevator. As it rises a woman's scream is
heard. By the time it returns to the ground floor the crowd is in
full vengeance mode.
I think this fine book would be great for book clubs. The human
drama gives it popular appeal while the back story makes it very
enlightening.

There are now a lot of good books out about the massacre. We've
gone a long way toward answering the questions Colbert and Rhodes have
posed. Maybe it's time to add another to the list. What are we
(whites) doing and covering up now that will horrify our descendents a
few generations from now?

It is my sad duty to announce the recent death of reknowned author,
artist, and educator Ashley Bryan at the age of 98. Born in Harlem
and growing up in challenging times, he was fully supported by his
parents in his career ambitions. One of the details of his life I
love the most is his use of his mother's embroidery and dressmaking
scissors in his collage making. He had a very illustrious career that
didn't stop after his official retirement. You can find all his
achievements on Google. What I want to talk about is his humanity.
He saw the dignity and worth in every person he encountered. When I
had the great good fortune to meet him at a book festival in Bangor he
was quite famous and I was a mother of three doing freelance book
reviewing. But while we talked he gave me the impression that I was
the most fascinating and promising person he could have been talking
to. Also he never lost the joy and curiosity most people feel they
have to give up as part of adulting. He created beautiful, unique
puppets out of found objects washed up on the beach.
He once said, wake up every morning and find the child in you.
If more people lived by those wise words we'd be in a much better place.
Ashley, you make me hope that what happens next is reincarnation.
This poor old world still needs your precious spirit.
Jules Hathaway





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