An Actual Shonda: The Tulsa Riots

When I hear the word "pogrom" I think of the brutal and relentless campaigns of government sanctioned murder, theft and mayhem against the Jews in Europe.  In fact, Wiki defines the term much more broadly.

‎"A pogrom (Russian: погром) is a form of violent riot, a mob attack, either approved or condoned by government or military authorities, directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres." Sadly, this New York Times article about the 90th anniversary of the Tulsa Riots shows that pogroms are not foreign to U.S. soil.

 Tulsa, OK , 1921. A mob, fueled by the incendiary (and apparently baseless) accusation that a black man had raped a white woman, sought to lynch the suspect, who was being held at the local courthouse. When they found the courthouse guarded by black men protecting the accused, a scuffle ensued and the black men fled. What followed was nothing short of a pogrom. The police chief deputized hundreds of white men to besiege the black section of town. The rape charges were later dropped, but not before the damage was done. The NYT reports:

"About 40 blocks were destroyed, including 1,256 homes, many of which had been looted before they were set alight. The death toll, most likely never to be fully determined, was estimated in the state report at 100 to 300. Survivors were rounded up and interned by the National Guard. Many of the homeless spent the following year living in tents pitched in the ruins of the neighborhood. "

My first thought upon reading this was how much it sounded like accounts of Kristallnacht, the brutal, nationwide pogrom against Jews in 1938 Germany. Although the Tulsa pogrom was obviously on a smaller scale, it made me wonder just how many similar pogroms against blacks occurred in the U.S. I'm only familiar with the Rosewood massacre, in which the entire town of Rosewood, FL was destroyed in a purported "race riot" sparked by--you guessed it--phantom allegations of a black man raping a white woman.

How many of these pogroms occurred? What are the long-term repercussions of such a community-wide trauma? And in what ways are those repercussions playing out before our unsuspecting eyes to this day?

I was taught about Kristallnacht as part of my history curriculum in high school. While that is part of a much larger historical event (The Holocaust), it seems like a major oversight that I was not taught about similar events in U.S. history. The message is that it is important to remember oppression -- unless it strikes close to home, in which case, we should do our best to forget it. I reject that message. It is especially painful--and shameful-- to remember these events, in part because they happened so close to home. But it is that same proximity that makes them such valuable weapons in the fight against discrimination and intolerance. G-d knows, we could use the history lesson.