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One hundred years ago today, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a Black teenage shoe shiner named Dick Rowland stepped onto an elevator being operated by a 17-year-old White girl. Wild allegations about what happened on that elevator between the two teens would lead to one of the most notorious massacres in American history. Rowland was arrested the next morning, and the Tulsa Tribune printed an incendiary article claiming that the young man had attempted to “assault” the girl. A white mob descended on the courthouse, demanding that Rowland be turned over to them. Armed Black men showed up to defend Rowland and prevent him from being lynched. Gunfire soon erupted. It would lead to what would become known as the Tulsa Massacre, as White people began to shoot Black people on sight.
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This was an education. I'm not American, and so my knowledge of the domestic US history is sketchy, so Black Wallstreet was more of an abstracted time in history. But as one descendant said "Reading about it is one thing, but when you hear it, and you hear it from a member of your family, that is something else" This was that "something else" for me, mixing some personal accounts, stories from descendants, some (horrific) stills from the event and some related video clips from around the time It touched on some other events like Elaine, Rosewood, the "Red Summer", the behaviour of the Insurance companies... "Can you imagine having your home or business destroyed and the people who did it never held to account?" And then we hear one of the descendants talk about the lack of multigenerational wealth bought it all into a modern context It was, quite frankly, traumatic seeing the Tulsa massacre details, and the subsequent way the community was treated. all in modern history, and still affecting today. And left me wondering how some of those people talking have got to where they are with such a background, knowing that their descendants are in a mass grave after basically being mudered by their neighbours, That those families went from wealthy to homeless, and that people didn't talk of this for decades. Imagine what those people could have done if their parents and grandparents hadn't been beaten down in the past... Oh, and as a documentary, it was reasonably well made...but that is really irrelevant compared to the story told Watch it, but be aware that there are some horrific images and a terrible story in this