Trump rally to be held in Tulsa, site of 1921 massacre

It’s all about location, location, location!

In this case, the location is the city chosen for President Trump’s first rally since early March: Tulsa, Okla. Originally scheduled for June 19, Trump’s campaign rally has been rescheduled for June 20.

Some may be familiar with the controversy over Trump’s choice, but many probably don’t understand why.

The first issue was the timing. June 19, also known as Juneteenth, Jubilee Day or Liberation Day, is the day we celebrate the end of slavery. The Dominion Post will have more coverage of Juneteenth on Friday.

Trump prudently chose a new day for his rally, but he chose to stay in Tulsa. So what’s the problem? In 1921, Tulsa was the site of a race massacre that killed up to 300 black people.

In the early 1900s, the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa was a thriving black community, often called Black Wall Street. Greenwood had restaurants, luxury shops like jewelry stores and furriers, hotels, nightclubs and offices. It even had its own school, post office, bank and hospital. Cut off from the rest of Tulsa by train tracks, Greenwood became a haven for black people — a city within the city — and a source of ire for whites.

The 1921 massacre was sparked on May 30, when a 19-year-old black male got on an elevator operated by a 17-year-old white female. There are a number of variations of what supposedly happened, but the male, Dick Rowland, was arrested for assault. A mob of white men surrounded the jailhouse and demanded Rowland be surrendered to them to be lynched. The sheriff refused. Twenty-five armed black men, many of them WWI veterans, arrived to guard the jailhouse. According to History.com, more people arrived until 75 black men faced off against 1,500 white men.

When violence broke out, the black men retreated to Greenwood, but the mob followed — many of them now deputized and attacking with the city’s blessing.

By wee hours of the morning June 1, Black Wall Street had been decimated. A manuscript from an eyewitness, lawyer Buck Colbert Franklin, describes private planes circling the neighborhood, dropping flaming turpentine balls. White looters ransacked businesses and homes.

Up to 300 black people were killed— gunned down by the mob. The National Guard, which had been deployed at the order of the governor, had arrested and detained 6,000 of Greenwood’s residents. Nearly all of the 10,000 people who had lived in the thriving community found themselves homeless. And after all that, no one was charged for the destruction, and the community had to rebuild itself, without help from the city, state or country.

What happened that night is often given the misnomer “race riot,” if it’s ever mentioned at all. But the decimation of Greenwood was no less than a massacre for which justice was never delivered. Given Trump’s aggressive rhetoric surrounding racial justice demonstrations across the U.S., holding a rally in a city where racial wounds never quite healed understandably angers people.

Current Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has offered to guide Trump through the Greenwood neighborhood. If Trump won’t change his rally’s location, we hope he’ll at least take the time to learn the city’s history.