"Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer," on Nat Geo, Further Exposes Painful Truths

Dawn Porter39s film premiering Friday June 18 on National Geographicamp160and Hulu explains what happened in Tulsa Oklahoma over Memorial Day weekend 1921 Until specials and documentaries popped up to commemorate the century mark of the killings and pillaging this shameful part of history had been largely unknownEven Porter educated at excellent institutions Bronx High School of Science Swarthmore College Georgetown Law told MediaVillage that she only learned about the Tulsa massacre about seven years ago while working on four short films for the Smithsonian39s African American MuseumquotThe first time you see this it takes your breath awayquot she said quotYou cannot tell this story enough But what I wanted to add to this collection of films and events was to push us back in time was to see what came before There were more than 20 massacres in this concentrated time periodquotPorter John Lewis Good Trouble Bobby Kennedy for President connects the dots of history The film reminds viewers how many Blacks had flourished during Reconstruction By the summer of 1919 while some Blacks thrived some whites felt threatened Greenwood a neighborhood in Tulsa known as Black Wall Street bustled with professionals and businesses Jealously poisoned with bredinthebone racism among whites resulted in these acts of terrorismThe film not only reveals what happened a century ago but explains the direct line of hatefueled crimes from Greenwood to police killing Blacks in America todayquotTulsa did not happen in a vacuumquot DeNeen Brown a Washington Post reporter at the center of this film explains on camera quotThere is a direct connective thread from East St Louis through DC and Omaha Nebraska and Elaine Arkansas all the way to Tulsa The patterns of the white mob attacking Black people is the same in each of these communities Many of the factors are the same economic envy the fallacy of white supremacy the accusations that a white woman was accosted by Black men There are patterns in each of these massacres The patterns set the stage of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921quotBrown39s extensive reporting on the subject is evident As a Black journalist she explains that her mission is quotto tell the stories of people who might not be represented in the newspaperquotFew episodes better exemplify the selective accounting of history than what happened in this neighborhood of Tulsa Oklahoma from May 31 through June 1 1921 Filmmaker Porter weaves together oral histories with elderly survivors maps illustrating how race massacres spread across the country and how today descendants of these massacres continue to fight for reparationsDespite a common misconception Blacks did not simply surrender Notice the first two words of the title amp8211 Rise Again The documentary stresses that Blacks rose up and fought backquotYou had the soldiers who took up arms in DC and in Tulsa men also gathering to fight back and get Dick Rowland out of jailquot Porter said of the man used as the excuse to start the massacre quotAnd you have the story of Black resistance That is important to highlight People did not allow themselves to be slaughteredquotThe calumny that sparked outrage was the white damsel in distress scenario Rowland who shined shoes in a Tulsa office building got into the elevator one day The elevator didn39t line up evenly with the floor and Rowland stumbled when he entered and brushed into the white female elevator operator One accepted story had her running screaming terrified He was arrested and taken into custodyPhotos show whites scaling the building where Rowland was jailed Armed with guns ignorance and unbridled fury they were determined to get what they wanted in this case a perverted sense of justice and to hell with the law They are hauntingly similar to the January 6 insurrectionIn the images before the massacre beautifully dressed Black professionals in wellappointed homes pose for the camera happy thriving The after photos reveal a razed charred moonscape of buildings Thousands of people were rounded up and interned Hundreds were dead The onslaught also came from above as turpentine bombs were thrown from planesquotAll of us were in the house when we saw coming up the walk four men with torches in their handsquot survivor George Monroe relays quotThe torches were burning When my mother saw them coming she said 39You get under the bed39 While I was under the bed one of the guys coming past the bed stepped on my finger and I was about to scream My sister put her hand over my mouth so I couldn39t be heard They set our house on fire And went right straight to the curtains and set the curtains on fire and I remember thatquotNow that we know Monroe39s and many others39 histories we must never forget them And Porter39s aim is that we learn these truthsquotFor a while when President Obama was elected there was this idea that we were multiracial and all of that history was in the pastquot Porter said quotAnd I think that is categorically untrue The root of racism the root of this behavior police targeting Black people this kind of falsely charging Black people with minuscule crimes and criminalizing Black life has these ugly roots And if you don39t know your history you are doomed to repeat itquotRise Again Tulsa and the Red Summeramp160 will premiere Friday June 18 at 9 pm on Nat Geo It will alsoamp160be available on HuluClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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"Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer," on Nat Geo, Further Exposes Painful Truths

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"Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer," on Nat Geo, Further Exposes Painful Truths

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