Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome Home, everybody. You are tuned into this week's mini pod.
Speaker 2: I am Tiffany Cross of course here with Angela Uri
Speaker 2: and Andrew Gillham. Welcome home, everybody. Welcome home, all right,
Speaker 2: So I really wanted us to talk about what is
Speaker 2: happening in Tulsa, Oklahoma this week. You guys, remember a
Speaker 2: few years ago, everybody was paying attention to Tulsa, Oklahoma
Speaker 2: because it was the one hundred year anniversary in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one of the Tulsa Race massacre, and so you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: it shows out like Lovecraft Country and Watchman, and everyone
Speaker 2: was focused on this. And unfortunately, after that centennial went away,
Speaker 2: so too did a lot of the attention. However, what
Speaker 2: happened in Tulsa is still very much active. Let me
Speaker 2: first take you back in history to nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 2: There was a young man by the name of Dick
Speaker 2: Rowland who was an elevator operator in the white part
Speaker 2: of the community. He was on an elevator when a
Speaker 2: white woman, Sarah Page, got on this elevator with him.
Speaker 2: Sarah Page alleged, as so many people did at that
Speaker 2: time when it came to young black men. Sarah Page
Speaker 2: alleged that Dick Roland had acted improperly with her, and
Speaker 2: news spread throughout this white town, with each telling being
Speaker 2: more exaggerated. There's doubt that anything even happened on this elevator. However,
Speaker 2: when the white people heard about this, they had already
Speaker 2: felt away about the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which
Speaker 2: housed black businesses, black professionals. I believe the dollar passed
Speaker 2: through the neighborhood over thirty times before leaving the community.
Speaker 2: This was a self sufficient black community of what WB
Speaker 2: Dubois would call the talented tenth. When news spread, a
Speaker 2: white violent mob attacked the Greenwood District, destroying over twelve
Speaker 2: hundred homes, innumerable black businesses. We don't know if this
Speaker 2: could have been the next Hilton, so to speak, black
Speaker 2: owned Hilton. There were black doctors practices there and they attacked,
Speaker 2: killing hundreds of people. The exact number to this date
Speaker 2: is still not known because they have not excavated all
Speaker 2: the bodies. There's alleged participation from state elected officials, so
Speaker 2: this is very much state sanctioned violence. Now they were
Speaker 2: back in court this week before the Oklahoma Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to kick it to you, Angela, to
Speaker 2: tell us why they were in court.
Speaker 1: Yes, and before we do that, there was a moment
Speaker 1: in court by one of the justices that I think
Speaker 1: we should hear less about what is happening and why
Speaker 1: they were there, but the impact of them being there.
Speaker 3: When I went to high school, I knew about the
Speaker 3: trail of tears, I knew what Chief pleasant Porter wanted
Speaker 3: prohibition in the Constitution, but Greenwood was never mentioned. And
Speaker 3: so I think, regardless of what happens, that you're all
Speaker 3: to be commended for making sure that that will never
Speaker 3: happen again, and it will be in the history books.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you, Justice calling, I would just like
Speaker 4: to say two of I'd just like to say two
Speaker 4: other things real quickly. One, as we plan in our petition,
Speaker 4: over a third of the homes and businesses destroyed through
Speaker 4: the MASCAT will never rebuild, and many of those people
Speaker 4: we never heard from again. Eight thousand people were made
Speaker 4: homeless overnight. And I want to say one last thing.
Speaker 4: One hundred and seventeen years ago, the founders of the
Speaker 4: Great State of Oklahoma wrote these powerful words is a
Speaker 4: constitution of Article two, Section six quote. The courts of
Speaker 4: justice of this State shall be open to every person,
Speaker 4: and speedy and certain remedy afforded for every wrong and
Speaker 4: for every injury to person, property of reputation and right,
Speaker 4: and justice shall be a minister without sale, denial, delay
Speaker 4: of presidents. Yet these planets have been ready for almost
Speaker 4: one hundred and three years for our opportunity to be
Speaker 4: in court to prove what happened to them and their community.
Speaker 4: We're just simply asking that this court give us the
Speaker 4: opportunity to be remanded it back to the district court
Speaker 4: to prove our claims, and if we have an opportunity
Speaker 4: at another time or discuss it after patroal, we look
Speaker 4: forward to that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Shout out to our brother De Mario Solomon Simmons, who
Speaker 1: has been a champion of this truly since we were
Speaker 1: in law school. I was on in the National Black
Speaker 1: Law Students Association with him and this has been his battle.
Speaker 1: Reparations has been to Mario's battle. He is one of
Speaker 1: the people who helped to educate me about the fact
Speaker 1: that reparations is not just about what is old to
Speaker 1: black people from slavery, but it is what is old
Speaker 1: to black people at every single decades since. And this
Speaker 1: is a case in point. If Greenwood are the financial
Speaker 1: district where this happened in Tolsa was the only place
Speaker 1: that it took place, that would be one thing, But
Speaker 1: it's happened in multiple other states in multiple other time periods.
Speaker 1: White mob's destruction because of you know, Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: like goals, there's always people who seek to deal, kill
Speaker 1: and destroy. With this particular suit, all the attorneys were
Speaker 1: asking was for this case to actually have its just
Speaker 1: day in court. They appealed to the Supreme Court after
Speaker 1: the case was dismissed at the district court level. And
Speaker 1: the point is they're arguing that the statute of limitations
Speaker 1: has not run on this despite it being one hundred
Speaker 1: plus years old. The fact that it was a public
Speaker 1: nuisance that took place and has impacted people on a
Speaker 1: multi generational level, this should mean that they have their
Speaker 1: opportunity to pursue justice against the city of Tulsa and
Speaker 1: the state of Oklahoma. Of course, there's been broad pushback
Speaker 1: on this. I have the opportunity to be in Tulsa
Speaker 1: actually with U tiv During the centennial, I did a
Speaker 1: special with title where I got to interview the three
Speaker 1: remaining survivors. At that point. Of course, now we've lost
Speaker 1: Uncle Red, and I think the real issue here is
Speaker 1: how much longer you know, are they for these folks
Speaker 1: to die out, which it seems like is in fact
Speaker 1: the case. As you know, one survivor after another is
Speaker 1: no longer with us. You just wonder if they're not here,
Speaker 1: then there really isn't standing for the case. They were
Speaker 1: adversely impacted by what happened in Tulsa personally. Some of
Speaker 1: them had to flee their homes personally, so you wonder
Speaker 1: what all is at stake. So I appreciate the justice
Speaker 1: who talked about learning about the trail of Tears but
Speaker 1: not learning about this. I was stunned by the number
Speaker 1: of people in Tulsa who had not heard the story
Speaker 1: of Greenwood, even folks who are descendants of survivors.
Speaker 2: And I just want to say, Mother Fletcher is one
Speaker 2: hundred and nine, Mother Randall is one hundred and eleven.
Speaker 2: Uncle Red, who angela reference, was Mother Fletcher's younger brother.
Speaker 2: We lost him at one hundred and one years old.
Speaker 2: And if you ever met Uncle Red he one hundred
Speaker 2: and one where because he liked the party. He loved
Speaker 2: Roland Martin. He used always shout him out, but he
Speaker 2: was just a fun guy. And their descendants have been impacted.
Speaker 2: And even in Tulsa today, on the north side of Tulsa,
Speaker 2: where the Greenwood District is housed, you can still see
Speaker 2: the economic impact and you literally work alongside the descendants
Speaker 2: of people who our families are suspected of participating in that.
Speaker 2: I was down there for a special as well with
Speaker 2: MSNBC at the time, and I was able to interview
Speaker 2: the mayor, Mayor T. T. Bynum and his family. The
Speaker 2: Black Wall Street Times uncovered that his family had enslaved
Speaker 2: nearly I believe eighty people. And he is somebody who
Speaker 2: is stauntly against reparations. The audacity, the caucacity of it
Speaker 2: all is mind baffling, and I just want to say
Speaker 2: to your point, Angela, Tulsa was not an anomaly. It
Speaker 2: was the norm at the time. You can look at
Speaker 2: the red Summer of nineteen nineteen in city. I wrote
Speaker 2: about this extensively in my book in City after city
Speaker 2: after city, from Indiana to Charleston, South Carolina, to Cleveland, Ohio,
Speaker 2: to Gary, Indiana, and cities everywhere. At that time, we're
Speaker 2: under attack, constant attack of violent white mobs. And I've
Speaker 2: talked about this before. This is how law enforcements swole
Speaker 2: their ranks because they said there was so much violence
Speaker 2: against black people. They said, hey, if you guys are
Speaker 2: going to beat and murder black folks, you can do it,
Speaker 2: but you gotta wear a badge while you do it.
Speaker 2: So there's a long history in this country when it
Speaker 2: comes to racial violence, and people love to quote Chicago
Speaker 2: and talk about how Chicago can't govern themselves. It started
Speaker 2: the original destruction of Chicago was by a mob of
Speaker 2: violent white people, and it was followed by decades of
Speaker 2: unfair policies ever since.
Speaker 1: All Right, y'all, we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: But before we do, we all know it's important for
Speaker 1: our community to stay informed, particularly in an election year.
Speaker 1: So tell someone you know, to tell someone you know
Speaker 1: to make sure that they are listening to Native Lampod
Speaker 1: every week, including our mini pods. We look forward to
Speaker 1: hearing from you more after the break.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 5: I I envy you two on having had the experience
Speaker 5: of sitting there with these survivors. And you know, it
Speaker 5: is still remarkable to me when I hear of folks
Speaker 5: who have lived beyond the age of a hundred. But
Speaker 5: you almost think at at these ages that these women
Speaker 5: are here almost to see it through. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking, Andrew.
Speaker 5: And your friend, colleague, the lawyer to.
Speaker 2: Mario please follow tomorrow, attorney.
Speaker 5: To Mario Mario. The fact that he reached back to
Speaker 5: the constitution of their state. And I really, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm a I'm big on words, the written word, particularly
Speaker 5: those that are written you know, more historically, because there's
Speaker 5: so much power in them right when they are fully executed.
Speaker 5: That every person nott to have access to this court
Speaker 5: means something to me. It means something to us. And
Speaker 5: the fact that the lower court wants to summarily dismiss
Speaker 5: this not on his merit, not on the merit. They're
Speaker 5: not trying to demand, they're not trying to deny what happened,
Speaker 5: but rather they're finding technical reasons of the law standing,
Speaker 5: you know, even being partially you know, in an issue
Speaker 5: here statue of limitations of which Jamrio points out in
Speaker 5: his or arguments before the court in that state. In
Speaker 5: its constitution and it's effectuating. Statutes don't have a limitation
Speaker 5: of statutes when it comes to issues of light. So
Speaker 5: you can directly core late the blight in that community.
Speaker 5: When that community began to experience blight was after this massacre,
Speaker 5: and every point since then, the the the quality of
Speaker 5: life goes down, and prior to it, this was the
Speaker 5: Black Wall Street. The point of the the point of
Speaker 5: departure is extremely clear. At what point decline and blight,
Speaker 5: the issues upon which they are seeking a legal reprieve began,
Speaker 5: you know, the exact moment that this happened. Unfortunately, in
Speaker 5: the case of of of the massacre that that that
Speaker 5: took place there in Oklahoma and the Greenwood district, So
Speaker 5: the court doesn't have I think it realizes that if
Speaker 5: it has to hear the fullness of this argument on
Speaker 5: its merits, that there is no way that they can,
Speaker 5: as constitutional officers of that state turn a blind eye
Speaker 5: to what occurred. It is well documented, it is well recorded.
Speaker 5: We know what happened, we know what went down, right,
Speaker 5: and so Angela Tiff I think they can't go there
Speaker 5: because they're terrified of what this may signal. What does
Speaker 5: this signal if our communities rose Wood and Florida and
Speaker 5: elsewhere around the country, Chicago. What might it signal if
Speaker 5: we then open up a legal doorway for the communities
Speaker 5: who have been who are surviving and in some cases
Speaker 5: thriving prior to the point at which white mobs turned
Speaker 5: against them, burned them down, and massacred its residents. If
Speaker 5: they actually have to go back and make that wrong right,
Speaker 5: there's no way to ever make it right right. There's
Speaker 5: no real justice that can be gained in this case
Speaker 5: because because most of its survivors have gone on to glory,
Speaker 5: they're waiting for these final two so that they will
Speaker 5: have no individual left standing who will have literals standing
Speaker 5: in the court for the case to be heard. They
Speaker 5: don't want to open that door, y'all, because if they
Speaker 5: open it, that door then looks like it can be
Speaker 5: opened all across the country. I hate it for these
Speaker 5: two women, I hate it for their descendants, but mostly, y'all,
Speaker 5: I hate it for us because I think they are
Speaker 5: foreclosing a legal pathway because they don't want to have
Speaker 5: to reckon with the history here and what that history
Speaker 5: has wrought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the thing to me too, Like we
Speaker 1: have to be able to examine the many ways in
Speaker 1: which we've been harmed from since our arrival. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the many race riots that they call
Speaker 1: race riots, we call race massacres that have occurred since
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century. Detroit was hit three times eighteen six,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, nineteen sixty seven, Memphis eighteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: Atlanta nineteen oh six, East Saint Louis nineteen seventeen. Tiff
Speaker 1: already talked about Red Summer nineteen nineteen, Arkansas, Maryland, New York, DC.
Speaker 1: Two places in Maryland, Annapolis and Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago,
Speaker 1: and there were more at least twenty five. Right, Corbin, Kentucky, Rosewood.
Speaker 1: You just mentioned all of these places, and we have
Speaker 1: never been made whole from those situations, those violent attacks
Speaker 1: that caused death and mass destruction in our communities. We've
Speaker 1: been forced to rebuild. Yeah, of course, we've been forced
Speaker 1: to rebuild from being stripped from our original home. We've
Speaker 1: been forced to rebuild after being sharecroppers. We've been forced
Speaker 1: to rebuild after being redlined out of entire neighborhoods and
Speaker 1: racially restrictive covenants. And then once we were able to
Speaker 1: to survive. They burned our shit down to the ground.
Speaker 1: But we don't deserve but we didn't earn it. What
Speaker 1: are you talking about? That's what's maddening to me. Tip,
Speaker 1: Just this last point, what's maddening to me, and why
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about this, to throw this in
Speaker 1: y'all's faces to every conservative outlet that tried to make
Speaker 1: us look dumb when we addressed reparations last time, and
Speaker 1: the fact that we probably do deserve a tax credit.
Speaker 1: That's the least this country owes us as a tax
Speaker 1: credit and an apology.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: This isn't about like some hair brained scheme that we've
Speaker 1: come up with and we're ignorant negroes who don't know
Speaker 1: what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: That's not it.
Speaker 1: It actually is well researched, well documented, full of data.
Speaker 1: The economic harm, the social harm, the mental harm, the
Speaker 1: psychological harm, the ancestral trauma that exists is well documented.
Speaker 1: Give us what you owe, period period.
Speaker 2: So I actually never read I saw the headlines and
Speaker 2: the conservative media. I never read it because they're so ridiculous.
Speaker 2: It just didn't seem relevant. But yes, that we caused
Speaker 2: quite a star when we were talking about that. But
Speaker 2: I think I take your point Andrew about it being
Speaker 2: precedent setting legally, and I just when I was writing
Speaker 2: my book, I spent five months alone just on research
Speaker 2: for the summer of nineteen nineteen. Of course we looked
Speaker 2: at other acts of violent white aggression as well, but
Speaker 2: the emotional toll of just reading about this and taking
Speaker 2: it in one particular case of Elaine Arkansas. I won't
Speaker 2: tell the story here, but the story of Elane, Arkansas
Speaker 2: is bone chilling when you hear about how women and
Speaker 2: children were murdered just for trying to organize. So I
Speaker 2: want to bring this full circle because we are this
Speaker 2: summer will be the anniversary of August teenth. A lot
Speaker 2: of people know about Juneteenth, but August teenth was the
Speaker 2: day that the folks aboard the Harriet in Louisiana band
Speaker 2: together and defended the captain of that boat. And so
Speaker 2: we have August teenth. This would be the one year
Speaker 2: since that happened. This was the original Dick Rowland was
Speaker 2: a child and the man in that community said, not Slim,
Speaker 2: not today. We are going to stand on the front
Speaker 2: lines and we are going to defend our families. Our women,
Speaker 2: our children, our homes, with everything we have, and there
Speaker 2: is something beautiful about a community that we belong to
Speaker 2: coming together locking arms saying I wish you would they did.
Speaker 2: They paid with their lives and many paid with their livelihoods.
Speaker 2: It's not fair, but just seeing how tight knit of
Speaker 2: a community we are, we don't have the privilege to
Speaker 2: dislike each other, even if we kind of dislike that.
Speaker 2: We don't have the privilege when we get out here
Speaker 2: in the world. I gotta fight for you, you gotta
Speaker 2: fight for me. And that's just the way it is.
Speaker 2: And there's something beautiful I think about that.
Speaker 5: I agree with that, and I also I just I
Speaker 5: wish I wish people would for a moment contemplate what
Speaker 5: if the founders of Walmart had their stuff reveled, stomped out,
Speaker 5: taken from the cores light Amheuser Busch. So just similarly,
Speaker 5: who knows what was what could have been birth there
Speaker 5: all these all these businesses that we know as Fortune
Speaker 5: one hundred and five hundred corporations, you know, real bootstrap
Speaker 5: you know American uh uh industrial stories that we hear
Speaker 5: that we know about that is created not just a
Speaker 5: couple millionaires, but the founders, the founder's children, the founders
Speaker 5: children's children, the founders children's children's children, legacies, centuries of
Speaker 5: wealth that started on a storefront, So which which storefront?
Speaker 5: And in Oklahoma and the Greenwood District, which storefront got burned?
Speaker 5: That terrible naive many that could have been part of
Speaker 5: the one hundred of the part top fifty corporations in America.
Speaker 5: So just consider when you're thinking about folks begging and
Speaker 5: getting something they don't deserve, the fact that we just
Speaker 5: don't know what could have happened. We know what was happening,
Speaker 5: we know what got snuffed out, but we don't know
Speaker 5: what potential got killed, not just there but all over
Speaker 5: this country where we've seen these recorded events, and those
Speaker 5: recorded events had the benefit of stymying anybody else from
Speaker 5: dreaming and thinking about what we could have accomplished, because
Speaker 5: that same fate could have awaited them. So I just
Speaker 5: missed me with all of the jokes in the unearned
Speaker 5: and undeserved and all that kind of stuff that folks
Speaker 5: like to throw on these kinds of conversations because you
Speaker 5: don't know, because you ain never had your life disrupted
Speaker 5: in quite that way. Well, your businesses are on that
Speaker 5: top one hundred five hundred.
Speaker 2: I think we're about to turn this mini pod into
Speaker 2: a full pod. So I think we I hear, but
Speaker 2: I think y'all made such the great points, and I
Speaker 2: just want to close on quick CTA, and that's please
Speaker 2: follow the Mario Solomon Simmons. He's at attorney Tomorrio and everything.
Speaker 2: This brother is a modern day civil rights hero who
Speaker 2: has devoted his life to this cause and many other causes.
Speaker 2: This is his most promising uh one or most prevalent one,
Speaker 2: I should say. But he's on the front lines of
Speaker 2: a lot of other legal battles, including the freedmen in
Speaker 2: Oklahoma who are denied citizenship by some of the indigenous
Speaker 2: communities there. He's worth a follow. He's an inspiration. Tomorrio,
Speaker 2: we love you. You are never standing alone in this fight.
Speaker 2: Me Inngel Andrews send our love to you. All right,
Speaker 2: thank you guys for tuning in to our mini pod.
Speaker 2: We so appreciate you tuning in, so please be sure
Speaker 2: to rate and review the show and forget. Full episodes
Speaker 2: of Native Lampod drop every Thursday. Please tune in wherever
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Speaker 1: Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Reason Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
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