Tulsa Race Riots
World Book Encyclopedia conspicuously fails to mention the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 in any of its entries; readers won't find it under "Oklahoma", "Tulsa", or "riots" ("Black Wall Street"). It did happen, though. For many victims, the Tulsa Race Riot is very much a reality still today. Their lives were forever changed on May 31, 1921. On this day, 19-year-old black man, Dick Rowland, was arrested and accused of trying to rape a white female elevator operator, Sarah Page, in Tulsa's Drexel Building. The local newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune, reporting on the story, inflamed area residents by declaring that Rowland had attacked Page and torn her clothes. On the back page, the Tribune carried an editorial with the headline, "To Lynch Negro Tonight", in which it talked about the fact that "mobs of Whites were forming in order to lynch the Negro" (Carrillo). White men soon began showing up outside the courthouse carrying guns and drinking liquor and demanding that Rowland be handed over. But local African American World War I veterans had weapons of their own, and they came to protect Rowland. After a single gun fired inadvertently, riot ensued. Thousands of Whites raided the 35-square block Greenwood distri
Though there was clearly a target group in both tragedies, the victims were, in many respects, random. " With interest, this $12,000 has grown to more than $10 million; perhaps this money could be used to repay victims. ct of Tulsa, looting and destroying over 1200 homes, 35 grocery stores, eight doctors' offices, and five hotels. And it was the reaction of a jealous white population to the extremely affluent "Black Wall Street", as it was called. Was it "terrorism", though? That is an issue of literary particularities and little else. For, the moral, ethical, and theoretical issues of the Tulsa Riot are in the past, and this major distinction between history and current events forms an insurmountable wall between the two incidents- a wall that could end up blocking the paths of both sets of victims in their pursuit for proper reparations. This claim is not barred by the statute of limitations because it falls under the heading "assertion of public rights. And further, regardless of one's answers to these questions and regardless of the very valid arguments those may make against compensation for Tulsa victims, to sweep the reparations issue under the rug simply because of the time that has passed would be sending a message to governments today that procrastination and avoidance can eliminate accountability for their mistakes. And that is, just how accountable should the present generation be for a previous generation's mistakes? And should we be accountable only to living survivors of the Riot or to descendents as well? The 60 living survivors are old enough now that they will hold on to monetary reparations for a only a few more years, if that even, and then pass them on to their descendents (Brophy). Sure, they were Americans (mostly) and Blacks (mostly), but when the Whites torched 35 blocks of Black Tulsa and when the Islamists bombed New York, they didn't care who they killed. But then, they may be able to "toll", or stop, the running of the statute by claiming that the city "fraudulently concealed the basis of a cause of action", or tried to unlawfully cover up their indiscretions. An argument, then, for categorizing Tulsa under the heading of "terrorism" follows easily from an inspection of the extensive similarities between the Tulsa Riot and the World Trade Center bombings. Terrorism cannot be measured by the number of lives it claims or the acres of property it destroys. They didn't have personal vendettas against their victims; they didn't even know their victims.
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Acceptance Essays
