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Originally posted by Deuces
Exactly.
Like the finer looking police officers that arrest us.  |
You know what...
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Originally posted by ECNEICSNOC
I've lived in Oklahoma all my life and I've never heard of Sarah Rector. I'll have to check this book out.
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I learned quite a few things from her story I wasn't aware of like thousands of Blacks being enslaved in the US well beyond federal abolition in 1863 due to being held by slave holding Native American tribes on reservations in the southeast -- five tribes held African slaves and weren't subject to US law.
That was some interesting sidebar research along with her story. I was initially confused by her being referred to as a former slave when she was born decades after emancipation -- interesting stuff.
Anyway, speaking of Oklahoma...reminds me of another Black History topic that isn't the more common slavery rebellion/abolition/Civil Rights Movement related stuff:
Black Wall Street in Tulsa, OK (this one is more violent and isn't the sunny I Have a Dream/I escaped slavery stuff -- in addition to making a compelling pro-segregation case for that time period, so it doesn't make the curriculum of most schools), you're from OK so I'm pretty sure you know about this one, but for anyone else that hasn't heard/read, an interesting case to research:
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Black Wall Street, the name fittingly given to one of the most affluent all-Black communities in America, was bombed from the air and burned to the ground by mobs of envious Whites. In a period spanning fewer than 12 hours, a once thriving Black business district in northern Tulsa lay smoldering – a model community destroyed and a major African-American economic movement resoundingly defused.
The night’s carnage left some 3,000 African Americans dead and over 600 successful businesses lost. Among these were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half dozen private airplanes and even a bus system. As could have been expected, the impetus behind it all was the infamous Ku Klux Klan, working in consort with ranking city officials and many other sympathizers.
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The best description of Black Wall Street, or Little Africa as it was also known, would be to compare it to a mini Beverly Hills. It was the golden door of the Black community during the early 1900s, and it proved that African Americans could create a successful infrastructure. That’s what Black Wall Street was all about.
The dollar circulated 36 to 100 times, sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the community. Now a dollar leaves the Black community in 15 minutes. (think about this) As for resources, there were Ph.D.s residing in Little Africa, Black attorneys and doctors. One doctor was Dr. Berry, who owned the bus system. His average income was $500 a day, hefty pocket change in 1910.
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Things like this were common post turn of the 20th century -- this is probably the most extreme and egregious case. The best of the best of the community were often targeted, terrorized and killed -- the educated, the wealthy; pretty much an extension and continuation of practices during slavery (outlawing literacy among Black slaves, killing slaves found to be literate etc.) to ensure Black people were kept in check and held back to sub-human and later second class citizen status. Easily one of the biggest cases of domestic terrorism in our history with death toll numbers rivaling Sept 11th, yet you probably won't hear about it unless you read/research it on your own.
