Greenwood, a predominately black, 1921, prosperous community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was basically burned to the ground June 1st of that year by a white mob using a flimsy rumor excuse that a/another black had “done wrong” to a white lady.
Green wood is wood that has been recently cut and therefore has not had an opportunity to season by evaporation of the internal moisture. Green wood contains more moisture than seasoned wood, which has been dried through passage of time or by… Wikipedia
Like green wood, Tulsa’s 1921 black community of Greenwood wasn’t seasoned like it should have been–according to prejudiced, white supremacist racists (good white folks) of the South. Greenwood was black and extremely prosperous. Enough so, to be nicknamed The Black Wall Street. Didn’t these people know their place? “Uppity” blacks, being seasoned with Jim Crow laws had done its dirty white work in the past, but now was on shaky (competitive) ground, as the good white people of Tulsa saw it. Something had to be done, no matter legal or not–like yesterday! Hence, the June 1st, 1921, Greenwood massacre took place.
America is still in the process of seasoning its systemic racism 100 years removed. Blacks are God’s creation too. You can’t judge a book by its cover, and you shouldn’t judge any man’s character by the color of his skin covering.
As far as I’m concerned, accepting people of color is a God test to my accepting God’s free will to create the magnificence of variety.
Anyone who has ever built a fire knows not to use green wood because its moisture content makes it difficult to light and burn. The same may be said about Tulsa’s Greenwood community. White Tulsa citizens burned a significant amount of it down, but Greenwood’s black character embers lingered long enough to bring it back decades later. Just being basically silent about the massacre of 300 black residents for some 100 years to date doesn’t make it any less of an atrocity. Now, President Biden is bringing the massacre to the forefront of America’s thought. And rightly so.
Reparations may be forthcoming. Hopefully so. Time will tell. They (whoever?) say, “Money can’t buy love.” And neither can it buy back the lives of 300 blacks. But just maybe, compensation and acknowledgement for black lives and businesses lost in that 1921 massacre may go a long way to healing for the families left behind. Amen?
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