KGOU Readers Club; Tulsa Race Massacre Episode 4 Part 3

And back again for our last segment with Dr. Carlos Cahill, here on KGOU, the KGOU Readers Club. And where we just left off, that's where the book changes. If you look through the photos from the dates from the massacre itself, these could be photos from post-war Germany. I think you even mentioned that in the book. You see hollowed out burned buildings, figures of people mostly far away. But then when we get into the rest of the book, the internment section, and then the sections about the Red Cross and the rebuilding, is when you really see the people up close, I suppose. And these are stirring images of, I guess, one of the most stirring for me in the book was the black man with his arms raised, presumably had his property destroyed. And now he's being marched to a camp with his hands up.

And these are also, I guess these are the photos really that, as you talked about, a lot of white people took to commemorate this action that they had run the black people out of Tulsa, but now it takes a different meaning, a century later. And I do want to, one of the things we haven't really addressed too much, and you do a good job in your book of talking about it, is the Red Cross. I think that certainly no one would blame any black person in Tulsa the day after the massacre for distrusting white people. But there are some white people in the story that do have some redeeming qualities, and a lot of them were associated with the Red Cross, right? Can you tell us just a little bit about their role following the massacre, it's something we just haven't touched on too much yet? So the deadliest attack on a black community occurred in less than 24 hours, and during

that time, every significant structure building in the community was either destroyed or so purely damaged, and when I say every I mean homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, libraries, all destroyed in a matter of hours. And that only was the entire community laid waste to as many as, if not more, 300 black people died as a result of the violence based on American Red Cross estimates. Everyone in the community was impacted by this history. Everyone in the community was rendered homeless because of the violence, because every significant structure including grocery stores were destroyed, burned, looted.

There is a dearth of food and the dearth of resources for black people to support black people in the recovery from the violence. And so without the American Red Cross, there would have been much more death that occurred because the city was simply unwilling, as well as unprepared, to provide the necessary support for survivors who were all made refugees. And so because of their dire, just the dire straits that they found themselves, and because of the American Red Cross, they really taking ownership and leadership of the response, they have been remembered fondly by black survivors. And so because this is a book about victims of survivors and descendants trying to elevate

and tell the story from their vantage point, it was really important for me, given that focus to include the American Red Cross because they were viewed so universally positively by the community. I couldn't tell the story without, and I couldn't show the ways in which not just individuals who were killed were harmed, but there were hundreds of individuals that were injured as a result. And we tend not to talk about the individuals that were injured, the women who were pregnant, who lost their children because of the trauma that they suffered as a result of the massacre. So if we really were to truly understand the depths and the horrific nature of this incident, it would be unspeakable for many because the violence and the destruction goes way beyond

just the destruction of a 35-block area, goes way beyond 300 individuals, which is a huge number, everyone in this community was impacted. And so the American Red Cross was that one entity that was mostly run by whites. There were some support staff that were black, but mostly run by whites. And so you were right to say that survivors were leery of trusting whites following this, but in many ways they had very little choice because the resources that they needed, the school, the clothing, the medicine, even just facilities were destroyed. And so had the Red Cross, American Red Cross, Tulsa Base Red Cross provided that support

in their greatest time of need, I don't know if the community would have been able to survive this. And start, I mean, that's one of the shocking things about it. The rebuilding of Greenwood, the Renaissance period afterwards started that day, it started that later that day with people coming back to their property and setting up temporary shelters and it has continued since. We've only got about five minutes left with you here and I do want to, that's one of the, I think, more amazing things about the book, you see these photos all throughout from before the massacre during and then afterwards as people are being marched to the camps. And then the last sort of thing you're left with is before the epilogue is the survivor stories. You can, something that happened a hundred years ago, I guess it can be difficult to maybe humanize for especially young people today, but you do get to hear from survivors

of the race massacre and you get to see their faces, you get to kind of look them in the eye as you, as you read what they have to say, I have to say that was, that was pretty jarring for me to whom do we owe those photos and that testimony. Yeah. Yeah. So that, those photographs and that testimony was collected, taken by the Greenwood Cultural Center, who became a partner in the creation of this book and actually the Greenwood Cultural Center, you know, because of their support of the project and because of my love for them and what they've taught me about this history, we, OU Press and I decided to create a book series in honor of Greenwood as well as the work that the Greenwood Cultural Center has done for the last two decades to educate the world about this history. And so I was able to get, I knew about the photographs and the oral history accounts connected

to them because of my frequent visits to the Greenwood Cultural Center and, you know, my desire to really, to really write a book that would bring to life the stories of victims of survivors and descendants. And so having access to those photographs, getting access to those photographs, pairing it with their own accounts at the very end of the book was kind of a reinforcement of what other parts of the book had already done. But you again, you would be learning it directly from a descendant and hearing their story, their individualized story and seeing, you know, their faces, the smiles is what for me is most powerful because I've often asked myself, if I had lost the loved one as a result of this massacre, if I had lost everything as a result of the massacre and that had not

been able to rebuild, or even if I was able to rebuild, but not to the extent that I hadn't wanted to or needed to, I don't know if I would be smiling, but in every one of those photographs, survivors are smiling. And that hope, that resilience, even that faith because survivors did not know if another attack on the community would have happened again, but they rebuilt anyway. And so for me, ending the book with them, smiling is a testament to their resilience, to their faith, to their courage. And so for me, and I think I say this in the acknowledgments that, you know, the inclusion of those photographs turned a good book into, I think, a great book because, you know, those photographs, you know, a collection of those photographs to my knowledge don't

exist beyond what the cultural center has. And so, and those, all of those images in the book, you can see them if you go to the Dream of Cultural Center, but they were graces enough to allow me to publish them for the first time, you know, in a book manuscript. So they are a big reason why this book got done and got done the way that it did. Well, it is certainly worth picking up for anyone who's studying the Tulsa Race Massacre here. This brings it to life for you. It's the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, a photographic history. And this has been Dr. Carla's Kay Hill. Thank you for your time this afternoon. And we'll hopefully talk to you soon. I have about 50 other questions, so maybe I'll follow up with you. Yes. It was good. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Dr. Hill. You're listening to KGOU, your NPR source.