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By Patricia SmithThe Boston (iloheIn Boston’s John Eliot Square at 7:20 a.m. Thursday, a small band of j people gathered for a solemn, first-ever ceremony.A woman portraying Harriet Tubman and two period-garbed members of the Colored Ladies of the 54th Regiment, Massachusetts Glory Brigade, raised the American flag alongside a newly created Juneteenth flag, a banner adorned with sunbursts and flam ing candles “It’s our emancipation proclamation, our freedom day,” said Ben Haith. head of Boston’s National J uneteenth Cele-bration Foundation. “We can’t forget that time and space in American history that involved our ancestors. We can’t sweep it under the rug just because it might be embarrassing or uncomfortable for some of our younger folks. We keep celebrating our freedom, keep trying to help make ourselves whole.”On June 19,1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Union forces stormed into Texas and 200,000 slaves finally got the word that they were free. The date is an official Texas holiday now celebrated in more than 30 states. Thanks to a steadily growing band of believers, Massachusetts isnow one of them.“We got to keep reminding ourselves that the shackles are off,” said reveler Joseph Hurley. That’s what Juneteenth is all about. Staying strong when we’re being told over and over again ‘Guess what? You ain’t free yet. ”With that said, let’s insist that President Clinton forget about publicly apologizing, as well-meaning congressfolk put it. “to African-Americans whose ancestors suffered as slaved under theConstitution and laws of the United States until 1865.”I know how anxious Clinton is to get his mucho-heralded dialogue on race begun with a bang, but absolutely no one who lives in black skin should take such a trendy salvo seriously,Here’s just one reason why.Ever since the horrific blast at Oklahoma City claimed 168 American lives, it's been called the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil. How conveniently we seem to have forgotten June 1,1921, when angry white citizens of Tulsa, Okla.. manned planes and dropped nitroglycerin on a 36-block thriving black business district in north Tulsa known as Black Wallstreet.”A call for the lynching of a black man accused of assaulting a white elevator operator was just an excuse masking jealousy of the area’s affluence and self-sufficiency.In just 12 hours in Tulsa, more Americans were killed by their fellow citizens than at any time since the Civil War. Ku Klux Klan members, who’d been in cahoots with some city officials, proudly distributed postcards of the carnage all over the country.Six hundred businesses were lost. Fifteen hundred homes, gone. Twenty-one churches. Twenty-one restaurants. Thirty stores. Two movie theaters. A hospital, a bank. The post office. Libraries. Schools. Law offices. Six private airplanes. An entire bus system.The Tulsa Tribune estimated deaths at 250. However, Ron Wallace, a Tulsa native and author of the book Black Wallstreet: A Lost Dream,” spent three years poring through family records and interviewing survivors, Ku Klux Klan members and historians. He says more than 3,000 African-Americans died. Bodies were buried in massgraves, stuffed in the shaft of a coal mine, tossed into the river.“Just recently, an Oklahoma television anchor talking about the Tulsa riot death toll, said the word ‘thousands,’” said Wallace. “For 75 years, they’ve been saying ‘10 to 100.’ You cannot tell me that 10,000 people fought in the streets for 12 hours and only 10 people died.“We heard about what survivors ofthe Oklahoma City bombing went through. I talked to people 75 years after what happened in Tulsa, who were still afraid to tell their stories, afraid that the Klan would come back and get them. And the fear in their faces was real.”You won’t read about the Tulsa race riot in the history books. As tragic as it is, it’s a story you have to search for.How deftly slavery has shaped the ‘American soul. Because of its poison, still threaded through the blood and mindset of the servant and the served, whole chapters have been erased from our past.There are people who will feel a twist in their guts when they read about what happened in Tulsa, and people who will guffaw and turn the tale into a comic icebreaker tonight at a party. While we gather in tiny pockets to celebrate our freedom, many still celebrate our capture.Prez, don’t waste your time worryin’ ’bout sorry. This knife has long ago reached and sliced through bone — and no string of syllables can begin to heal that kind of cut.You can say “I’m sorry” a million times in that earnest Arkansas drawl of yours. But there are just too many people — black and white — who are too • deaf or too dead to hear you. •lt;
Newspaper Details
Altoona Mirror
Altoona, Pennsylvania, US
Mon, Jun 23, 1997
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
WI, USA 30 May 2022
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