Toward “One Tulsa” (an excerpt)

Abstract

Toward “One Tulsa” (an excerpt) by Hannibal B. Johnson A few short years ago, the touchstone phrases of what is widely considered to be the modern civil rights crusade—“Black lives matter.” “I can’t breathe.” “Say my name.”— did not resonate. In 2021 America, these phrases define the mission of advocates, activists, and allies aiming to expand social justice, transform law enforcement, and eradicate structural systemic racism. Tulsa’s historical racial trauma stands not in isolation, but as part of a long arc of oppression that has bedeviled Black Americans since our enslaved African ancestors arrived in the English colonies at Point Comfort, Virginia, in 1619. We can imagine those individuals—precious cargo on cramped slave ships—crying out in vain: “Black lives matter.” “I can’t breathe.” “Say my name.” Tulsa, 1921, is an arbitrary midpoint on the arc of oppression, somewhere between slavery and Freedom Summer. That long-ago fiery demise of Tulsa’s Black community revealed much about the trajectory of race relations in America. Connect the dots. The volatile ingredients that set Tulsa alight—white supremacy, ignorance, and fear—endure and threaten to ignite a national conflagration. Our cultural competence, individually and collectively, and our capacity to diffuse the landmines that mark our history around race will be our most reliable firewall . Diversity and the related concepts of equity and inclusion rest on the fundamental proposition that our shared humanity matters more than that which might otherwise separate and divide us. Editorial note: The full text of Johnson’s essay appears in the spring 2021 issue of Oklahoma Humanities. Visit www.okhumanities.org to read it. A Tulsa native and graduate of Harvard Law School, Hannibal B. Johnson is an attorney, author, and consultant. His latest book is Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples with Its Historical Racial Trauma (2020). He will deliver one of the plenary talks for “Reflecting on the Past, Facing the Future,” OU’s symposium devoted to the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, on April 8–9. reason to be there. I realize now they only wanted to look. Something in me possessed me to look, too. No one in the car ever wanted to talk about the slope. I brought up Fiddler’s brother a couple of times, but the conversation went nowhere. After a few years, I pushed the idea of the photo existing out of my mind, moved across the country for college. No proof existed. But part of me knew, crossing under the overpass, slung low in the back seat, that the kids we passed on those drives—the legs, and necks, and hands that I caught pieces of—didn’t have relatives because of mine. Laurel’s street was still except for the swift rain beating down steadily against the Chrysler’s rooftop. Her house was a fixer-upper with a sagging porch. But her block was lined with beautiful single-family homes, more dignified than the housing where we grew up. I felt a sickness return to my stomach. For the first time that day, I thought of the work I was missing. And Ma. Sitting in my car, with the rain striking down, I started thinking. My grandfather in his work pants, crushed with dirt. His smile hollow and endless. His sea-green eyes, something like mine. I saw him every time I went to sleep. Sometimes I imagined the men behind him with their shovels and heard them whistling in the photo. Other times I saw my fingers smudging the prints. Since the funeral, my dreams were propelling me on this street and, with any luck, in a room with the only person I knew of who wanted to hear this story. And there I was. Parked and staring at Laurel’s entrance. With proof on the seat next to me. I could see myself, thirty-fiveyear -old me, opening the car door, getting soaked dashing toward her porch. Running up her rickety steps, made worse by the rain. Steps that I could plunge through at any moment. But let’s say I arrive on her doorstep in one piece. My knuckles rapping on the peeling wood. The sound of...