Prometheus 6

Y'all know about Tulsa, right?

… or, why affirmative action is based on race, not economic class.

From the Village Voice
A Reparations Suit for a 1921 Race Riot
A Long Wait for Justice
by Adrian Brune
April 30 - May 6, 2003

… When asked what he would do with money from a reparations lawsuit filed last month on his behalf by Johnnie Cochran and Charles Ogletree Jr., Clark says he would write a book based on what he calls his "good, long life," in which he served as a butler for the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Stepin Fetchit.

Given his good health, even at 100 he might get his chance despite the length of the legal process. The complaint filed by Ogletree and Cochran in federal court in the Northern District of Oklahoma basically alleges that in 2001, the Oklahoma State Legislature, through the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot, admitted city and county officials failed to take actions to calm or contain the riot and, in some cases, became participants in the violence, which took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921. These officials, according to the complaint, even deputized and armed many whites who were part of a mob that killed 300 African Americans, looted, and burned down the black-owned Greenwood area, leaving 3,000 people homeless. There are now fewer than 100 known survivors.

… At the time, Clark was 19 and living with his grandparents. When the trouble broke out he was asked to drive a hearse and pick up the dead. A friend who was helping him was shot and injured.

"I used to be an angry young man, full of hate for what happened to me on that day," says Clark, who lost his home and his beloved dog on June 1, 1921. "That anger stayed with me for many years, but I have forgiven those people. I do think I am entitled to something for what I went through, though."

… Between the late 19th century and World War I, tens of thousands of former slaves left the South for better lives in the industrial economies of northern cities. A nationwide recession gripped the country just before WW I and blacks and immigrants competed for jobs. As the newspapers of the times attest, many blacks bore the brunt of the poverty and the blame for the tight job market.

While lynchings and massacres became the weapons used against African Americans, one element makes what happened to them fall into the arena of a holocaust?the participation of militias and law officers sanctioned by state and city governments. Starting in the 1890s, these riots suppressed rising black political power and destroyed whole communities.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/30/2003 04:14:06 PM |