They mighta found mass graves from the Tulsa race riots

[Catdaddyhorn 3461]

There were plenty examples of multiracial governing and harmonious relations between white and black people, however, much like today,  there were a number of other entities who preferred to play on those differences and gain power by playing on those differences as a result. 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Catdaddyhorn

[RDCanecutter 26772]

On 12/21/2019 at 3:18 PM, TwiceHorn said:

I have given a lot of thought to WHY the black experience in America has been so uniquely awful.  It raises the specter of a malevolant form of American exceptionalism.  I tend to doubt American exceptionalism in both positive and negative senses.  I don't think we're markedly better than most other societies, but nor are we markedly worse.

The answer, I believe, is that nowhere on earth were more African Americans in closer proximity  to caucasians or non-African-Americans than in the good ol USA.  And. compounding it, the proximity was between slaves, and then former slaves, and regular white folks who were their captors.

On New Years Day 1863, millions of blacks went from subjugated slaves to, legally at least, free persons.  Yet not a single other thing about their situation changed.  Even after the War, when the legality of their freedom gained more "teeth," not a damn thing changed:  they were stuck right spang in the middle of people who kept them in irons and treated them as subhuman.

That, folks, is a toxic brew, wherever it occurs, in America, Siberia, Mongolia, Madagascar, or Tierra Del Fuego.

In contrast, when African slaves were freed by other nations, they resided almost entirely in colonies and were, in fact, the majority wherever they were.  That situation is far more tractable than what happened here.

It was not really feasible, and raises its own issues, but it would have been far preferable to somehow extricate the former slaves from their proximity to their former masters.  Given human nature, that is just a bad combination.

Good points, a couple of things:

In the parts of the US South where the plantations were thickest, the freed slaves were obviously the majority. In Dallas County Al (Selma) where I grew up, it was about 75% slaves in the 1860 census, and counties to the east and west, probably about the same. Lots of them would have lived on the former plantations with very few whites around-- the big houses were mostly in town. At that same time more sparsely populated majority white counties were right next door to the north where the hills started. (Not sure why I would have gone to those places as a white outsider without an invitation, much less as a freed slave.)

There were many positive things accomplished in Selma by the former slaves post-war. Ironically, or who knows, as part of wheeling and dealing, there was a time when all the Blacks "voted", or at least were "counted," for the two Democrat US senators from Selma, former Confederate generals and probable klansmen Morgan and Pettus. (Dunno about Pettus, but Morgan at least pushed through the Autobahns, I mean, Panama Canal.) The Hillbillies were Republican and hated the flatlanders, but Morgan and Pettus used alleged Black votes to stay in. (See why I felt at home in Mexico?)

In Mexico and down through South America, if you read old travel tales, there are individual Black people everywhere, doing all sorts of things. Not talking about the sugar cane islands, just everywhere. Far as I know, there was no Jim Crow legislation, and the Spanish seemed to see them as Christian allies vs pagan indios. A lot of the men were soldiers. Anyway, turn on the blender and let mix for a few centuries, you'll see sort-of Black people every now and then in Mexico,  but nothing like the social stratification you read about in old books.

That is one thing the telenovelas get right-- when they do a costume drama set in the far past, they try to flesh out their (usually strikingly European-looking) cast with people who look purely African or American Indian.

Edited July 26, 2020 by RDCanecutter
I like stories.

[RDCanecutter 26772]

^^^tldr, I think the main reason freed slaves had a terrible time in the US is that the Confederates lost the military war 1861-1865, won the culture war from maybe 1870-something until a hundred years later, while expanding the area of their sympathizers, and sort of held on here and there while doing a slow retreat punctuated with slashing attacks since.

[ChiTownDoc 21312]

22 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

It wasn’t just their former masters; it was also the poor white people they suddenly found themselves in direct competition with for jobs and land. If the govt had actually given them their 40 acres and a mule we would be in a much better place now.
 

The sad truth is that although the south seceded to perpetuate slavery, the US fought secession not to end slavery but to preserve the Union. There were slave states that did not secede, and after secession and prior to fort Sumter Congress was ready to amend the constitution to keep slavery in perpetuity in the states it was legal in 1860. Lincoln was even ready to allow them back in the union with slavery right up to the point of the emancipation proclamation (which only freed slaves in the confederacy). They were failed by the government from the moment they were freed, and their descendants still bear that burden.

Our country’s history isn’t clean.  Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be proud.  But recognizing the truth will keep us out of the same shit in the future - theoretically.  This chapter might be the most embarrassing yet.  When you see how far the world has come and what we are doing in today’s day and age.  
 

The Romans would blush.

 

 

[bolverk 30091]

Mass Grave Unearthed in Tulsa During Search for Massacre Victims
An excavation found 11 coffins in Oaklawn Cemetery, but painstaking work will be required to identify whether the remains are from Black victims of the 1921 race massacre.

By Ben Fenwick
Oct. 21, 2020

OKLAHOMA CITY — A forensic team in Tulsa, Okla., said on Wednesday that it had unearthed 11 coffins while searching for victims from the 1921 massacre in which hundreds of Black residents were killed.

The mass grave was discovered in an area of the city’s Oaklawn Cemetery where records and research suggested that as many as 18 victims would be found. Painstaking work will be required to identify whether the remains are from victims of the massacre.

The remains will not be moved until they can be exhumed properly to avoid deterioration, said Kary Stackelbeck, a state archaeologist. She said the discovery “constitutes a mass grave.”

“We have a high degree of confidence that this is one of the locations we were looking for,” she said. “But we have to remain cautious because we have not done anything to expose the human remains beyond those that have been encountered.”

The site of the dig, which began on Monday, was determined based on cemetery records dating from 1921 and from state truth commission findings in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A nearby dig in the cemetery in July did not uncover any graves.

For Brenda Alford, who heads the citizens’ oversight committee for the effort, and whose grandparents survived the massacre, the recent finding is encouraging.

“I’m very appreciative of all the hard work that is going into finding our truth, to again bring some sense of justice and healing to our community,” she said.

Ms. Stackelbeck said machinery removed the upper layers of an area in the cemetery that had originally been surveyed with ground-penetrating radar. The excavation revealed 10 coffins buried in the same pit and an 11th nearby.

The 1921 massacre began after white people tried to lynch a young Black man over allegations that he had attacked a young white woman who was an elevator operator at a drugstore. The man was cleared, but when a group of white men converged with a group of Black men at a police station, shots were fired and a fight broke out.

Within hours, white rioters attacked the Greenwood District, an affluent area of Tulsa once called “Black Wall Street.” From May 31 to June 1, 1921, the mob, law enforcement and the National Guard attacked Black residents and burned their homes and businesses.

When the carnage was over, the unofficial count of the victims ranged as high as 300. Officials forbade funerals and buried the victims hastily without death certificates or other records.

Although many residents vowed to rebuild, the district was never as prosperous as it had been. In later years, much of it was buried beneath an overpass. Still, a lingering question remained: What happened to all the victims?

Mayor G.T. Bynum has said that the excavation was a matter of conscience and reconciliation for the city and that it should do everything it can to find the victims.

“Today is a significant moment in the history of our city in trying to do right by the victims of this event,” Mr. Bynum said at a news conference on Wednesday.