Tulsa Race Riot of 1921: Coming to terms with America’s terror attack on Black America
08/05/2002 11:45 AM EDT
By RolandS. Martin
BlackAmericaWeb.com
rolandm@blackamericaweb.com
Tim Madigan would be the first to tell you that when it comes to issues involving race in America, he was clueless for more than half of his 44 years on this earth.
A self-described white male from a “white bread, upper-Midwest, middle class working” family, Madigan says he grew up never having seen a black person until much later in life, adding that the multitude of racial issues confronting African Americans have been “completely irrelevant” through his childhood and young adulthood.
“And as a result,” he said, “(I am) someone who is wholly ignorant of the history of African Americans in this country.”
But all of that began to change about two years ago when an editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he is a features writer, asked Madigan to write a story on the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. The devastating attack on the town’s black community by a mob of whites gained national attention when the state of Oklahoma officially began to examine what took place on that deadly night where nearly 300 blacks were killed, and the famous “Black Wall Street” of Tulsa was burned down and destroyed.
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"What happened in Tulsa would have done Nazi Germany proud...We’re talking about white mobs blowing the locks off the homes of old black people, and as they knelt in prayer putting guns to the back of their heads and shooting them. We’re talking about a gang of whites driving up to a house with three young children, going in and shooting them. We’re really talking about the most evil human conduct imaginable. Not in the Balkans, not in Nazi Germany, not in Somalia, but Tulsa, Oklahoma. "
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It was in doing the research for that story that Madigan began to learn about the atrocities committed by white Americans since the Civil War against their fellow Americans, albeit of a darker hue. That story eventually led him to delve deeper and publish a book on the subject, The Burning: Massacre, Destruction and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.
Yet he also said the experience, which he called a “life changing” one, led him to re-examine his own personal views of race.
“I had often wondered as things would happen through the course of time such as the O.J. Simpson verdict or things where black people and white people seemed to see things so differently and that there seemed to be this huge cultural chasm between us,” he said. “Before it was more of a curiosity for me because it really didn’t seem to be terribly relevant to my life. But now I’ve learned that what happened in Tulsa was not some terrible historic accident but it was, if anything, a metaphor for what happened to blacks in this century after the Civil War ended.
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"We are guilty of the same sort of evil against our own people as Osama bin Laden was and his band who flew those airplanes."
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“And I was just stunned and appalled and somewhat awestruck to learn some of these things; to learn how the Birth of a Nation motion picture gave rise to the new KKK, and how it wasn’t just a Southern phenomenon. How this movie that relied upon the most vile of racist stereotypes and celebrated the first KKK – and played in New York City for 27 weeks alone – was celebrated in Chicago and across the North, and how President Harding was a member of the KKK,; and how in the 1920s, odds are that you were a member of the Klan if you were in public office, and on and on and on; Jim Crow and lynchings reported in papers like box scores; and this sort of treatment often endorsed at the highest levels of white society. It was absolutely astounding to me.”
Madigan says not only did the book allow him to question the inherent racism that seems to be at the core of America, he also had to turn the mirror on himself and ask the difficult question, “Where would I have been in Tulsa in 1921?”
“Where would my grandfather have been? And I can’t say with any certainty that A, I would not have been part of the mob; B, that I would have done anything forceful to try and prevent that from turning into what it eventually resulted in.
“So, I think I say in the book that I can’t look at a black person the same way again. And that is not an overstatement. And my hope is with this book that more people like me will learn a little bit about the history; a little bit about why this chasm exists; and can somehow contribute to true healing in this country. I don’t think you can heal from things that you don’t know about. I think the first step to healing is knowledge and I hope that this book contributes to this knowledge somehow.”
He later said, “I have no problem admitting that I was or am a racist. I think we all are. It’s just a matter of degree. And I can say for a fact that I am less of a racist now than I was three years ago when I wrote this book because I think I understand black people much better; because I understand their history, and this is why history is so important.”
At times solemn and other times angry, Madigan comes across as someone who was genuinely affected by the research and subsequent book. He speaks in a quiet yet measured voice. He doesn’t come off as an apologist for all of white America, but also one who isn’t an unabashed liberal, down with the cause of black America.
But he also isn’t afraid to take on America, namely white America, for its refusal to confront the history of Tulsa and its own violent attacks on its own citizens. That is especially the case with the first year anniversary of the deadly attacks on September 11 being just a little more than four months away.
Ever since last year Americans have lashed out at the attackers, asking how someone could commit such atrocities against innocent civilians. Echoing what Vernon Jordan and other African Americans have said about black Americans having to live with terrorism for years, Madigan says Tulsa should be viewed in the same way as September 11.
“After September 11 and even before, we Americans tended to congratulate ourselves on civility and sophistication, but what happened in Tulsa would have done Nazi Germany proud,” Madigan said. “It would have done anything in the Balkans proud. We’re talking about white mobs blowing the locks off the homes of old black people, and as they knelt in prayer putting guns to the back of their heads and shooting them. We’re talking about a gang of whites driving up to a house three young children, going in and shooting them. We’re really talking about the most evil human conduct imaginable. Not in the Balkans, not in Nazi Germany, not in Somalia, but Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“And after September 11 blacks and whites were absolutely appalled, equally, in some ways. But inevitably we tended to say as part of our own attempts to come to terms with that that we would never do something like that. But we have. We have done something like that; over and over again. Not just in Tulsa, but in cities and towns across the United States…we are guilty of the same sort of evil against our own people as Osama bin Laden was and his band who flew those airplanes.
“But again, it’s hard to look at that and it’s hard to acknowledge it. It’s hard to acknowledge our own potential for evil. But again, it’s my opinion that unless you do we are much more vulnerable or likely to engage in it.”
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“I have no problem admitting that I was or am a racist. I think we all are. It’s just a matter of degree. And I can say for a fact that I am less of a racist now than I was three years ago when I wrote this book because I think I understand black people much better; because I understand their history...”
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The Burning can be a tough read for anyone, especially for African Americans. Yet Madigan, in revealing and graphic detail, is able to put the reader in the houses of the individuals who were killed, as well as paint a vivid portrait of the pain and heartache Tulsa’s African Americans must have felt as they were tormented, tortured and killed.
“Reading about Tulsa can be very unpleasant,” he said. “And what I tried to do is make this story, from the narrative standpoint, a page turner; make it as compelling as possible and make it as human as possible so that as odious as some of this stuff is, the reader – white or black – can keep moving forward and read the whole story. But it’s not easy and there is a tremendous amount, especially among older white people…to say that’s in the past and why bring that up now and why do we need affirmative action. There is this whole kind of maelstrom of debate and feeling that goes on in this country, part of which stems from the fact that it is an ugly history. But the benefits are that, I think true healing can occur.”
Madigan admits that he doesn’t know in what form the healing can take place. It might be a study of reparations or it even could be an apology, but he says something must be done to address what he considers to be an oversight by white America.
“We put the cart before the horse,” he said. “The first thing needs to be an apology. For what? For this – XYZ. And then the amends part comes. Then comes affirmative action; then comes the holidays.
“It haunts me after working on this book how there is this piece missing. It’s like we’re going to try to do it, the very least we can to try to make this right without it getting too painful. So we are going to have the Voting Right Act; the Great Society; we’re going to have Martin Luther King holiday, but we’re not going to go back and look at what really happened. We’re not going to go back and look at why affirmative action is necessary. My belief, and maybe I’m wrong, but unless we do that, all this other stuff is window dressing.”
Roland S. Martin is editor of BlackAmericaWeb.com and news editor of Savoy Magazine. He is author of Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America.
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