Alternate Reality Tulsa

[patric]

Nixon was president for five terms, police hide behind masks, cell phones are illegal and Don Johnson gets to be Chief.

HBO's new show 'Watchmen' is set in Tulsa and debuts Sunday, Oct. 20: Here is what we know
https://www.tulsaworld.com/entertainment/television/hbo-s-new-show-watchmen-is-set-in-tulsa-and/collection_3e58bec0-720a-58bf-9c0f-fd02c31fb084.html

[rebound]

Pretty pumped about this.  Hope it lives up to expectations.

[patric]

Pretty pumped about this.  Hope it lives up to expectations.

Tulsa, Oklahoma (CNN)When the police shooting of unarmed father Terence Crutcher happened on September 16, 2016, in Tulsa, the city's reaction was furious -- but peaceful.
There were prayer vigils at black churches and, within a week, first-degree manslaughter charges filed against the officer who shot him.
But the incident also shed fresh light on a dark moment in American history that has largely been forgotten -- or was never learned.
Almost a century ago, the very streets where protestors marched in September, chanting against the police killings of unarmed black men in America, hundreds of African-Americans died in just one terrible day.

It is known as the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. But that is not how the granddaughter of one of the survivors sees it.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/21/us/tulsa-race-riot-black-wall-street-watchmen-trnd/index.html


How HBO's 'Watchmen' Recreated the Harrowing 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
https://decider.com/2019/10/20/watchmen-premiere-tulsa-1921-massacre-race-riots/

[patric]

"The Watchmen" has come and gone, but now there are questions, and interest in the history.
I was taught about the Race ( ... ) in a Tulsa public school in the '70's so im skeptical about how big a secret it was for how long.


Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, the most destructive act of racial violence in the U.S., was whitewashed from history
New York Daily News |

They called it "Black Wall Street," and in the years after World War I, this section of Tulsa, Okla., was recognized nationally as the richest African-American neighborhood in North America.

With a thriving business district and a residential area filled with influential black leaders, the Greenwood District was an inspiring model of America's promise. It was here that Count Basie first encountered big-band jazz.

It was also Ground Zero of the deadliest and most destructive act of racial violence in U.S. history.

Ninety-nine years after the Tulsa Race Riot, amid mass graves of the victims and wounds that have remained fresh through four generations, presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg gave what his campaign billed as a definitive speech on race relations in America.

"During and after the [Black Wall Street Massacre], there were more than 6,000 arrests — of black residents," Bloomberg said Sunday. "Not one white person ever went to jail. It was one of the deadliest and ugliest attacks in American history — but like most Americans, I had never heard of it."

Bloomberg, and much of America, had never heard of the Tulsa Riots because they had been whitewashed from history.

On May 30, 1921, Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old shoe shiner, was accused of trying to sexually assault a white Tulsa elevator operator named Sarah Page after she screamed and he ran, according to Greenwood's Cultural Center, where Bloomberg delivered his speech.

When an angry white mob went to the courthouse to demand that the sheriff hand over Rowland, the sheriff refused. A group of about 25 armed black men — including many World War I veterans — then went to the courthouse to offer help guarding Rowland.

By the time the National Guard arrived and declared martial law shortly before the next day, the riot had effectively ended. Within hours, all charges against Rowland were dropped. Cops concluded that he might have bumped into the woman or stepped on her foot.

What followed was a deliberate effort to cover up the carnage.

The Tulsa Tribune removed the front-page story from its bound volumes, and scholars later discovered that police and state militia archives about the riot were missing as well. As a result, until recently the Tulsa Race Massacre was rarely mentioned in history books, taught in schools or even discussed.

In 1996, an official state government commission was created to investigate the Tulsa Race Riot, including numerous victims buried in unmarked graves.

In 2001, the Race Riot Commission concluded that between 100 and 300 people were killed and more than 8,000 people were made homeless over those 18 hours in 1921.

According to the State Department of Education, the riot has been a required topic in Oklahoma history classes since 2000, and U.S. history classes since 2004. The incident has been included in Oklahoma history books since 2009.

[rebound]

"The Watchmen" has come and gone, but now there are questions, and interest in the history.
I was taught about the Race ( ... ) in a Tulsa public school in the '70's so im skeptical about how big a secret it was for how long.

I Graduated HS in 1982 in SW OK, and I never hear about it then.  I may have heard about it in at OSU, but really didn't understand the magnitude of it until I moved to Tulsa in '88, and that was basically via local word of mouth.