00:00This year marked the 100th anniversary of one of the worst instances of racial violence in U.S. history, the Tulsa Massacre.
00:08We took a trip to Oklahoma and sat down with Maistra's head of partnerships, Jordan Vaughn,
00:13to hear his thoughts on the cancellation of the Tulsa Remember and Rise events days before commemoration.
00:20Was it sad to hear that that keynote event was canceled? Of course.
00:24But Tulsa, Greenwood, this weekend is not about celebrity or fame.
00:32It's about commemorating our history.
00:35And I think that what we tried to do this weekend, Maistra, as an agency, was focus on the future, right?
00:43What does progress look like? What does forward movement look like?
00:47What does it look like when we bring together folks who quite literally move industries along,
00:52people who tell those stories on behalf of folks that look like you and I?
00:57We believe that in order for us to move forward as a community, that we have to focus on solutions, not problems.
01:04And that was a problem.
01:06And the solution that we came up with was to bring folks together with the intention of focusing on the Black towns.
01:12As Senator Matthews spoke to us this evening, there are 13 original all-Black towns that in so many ways represent what Tulsa can grow into.
01:21The U.S. Civil Rights Trail currently does not come through the state of Oklahoma.
01:26That is insane.
01:28The fact that Greenwood as a community is not recognized on that U.S. Civil Rights Trail is insane.
01:34And so part of what we tried to accomplish this weekend was focusing on solutions to those problems.
01:39And we did that.
01:39We heard from Senator Matthews about the plans to invest in these Black towns and the mayors that run them, right?
01:45Because we want to create this synergy amongst them because we all know that when you fold those fingers together, you get a mighty fist.
01:52For decades throughout this 100-year-old sin and shame, white America did all it could to erase the story from school lesson plans, including those in Oklahoma.
02:02You know, it's interesting because I remember the first time I heard about Tulsa, I almost thought it was an urban myth, right?
02:08I remember seeing a newspaper clipping and it was an aerial view of the town of Greenwood.
02:14And they alluded to it as Black Wall Street, the place that cultivated America's foremost doctors and lawyers and businessmen, mercantiles.
02:25I thought it was fallacy.
02:27I didn't know if I should believe it or not, right?
02:30Because too often the government perpetuates Black history as a myth because they don't publish it.
02:36It's not taught.
02:37Our school systems don't make it recognized and required reading.
02:42And so as a result, too often when we hear about our own history, the only way we can prove it's truth or not is if it comes from the mouths of those whom we trust most, our parents, right?
02:53And so it's then we rely on our parents having that education.
02:57And then that calls into question the gaps in education that too often fail Black people.
03:02And so when I first learned about Tulsa, I didn't know whether or not to believe it was true.
03:07But thankfully, I have parents who are college educated and who understood the story of it.
03:12And again, through our ties to places like Eatonville, Florida, in Montgomery, Alabama, we're able to distinguish the fact that not only was it true, but that it was a story that needed to be told again and again and again.
03:25The financial toll of the massacre is evident in the $1.8 million in property loss claims, $27 million in today's dollars.
03:34That's why reparations is a major key.
03:37I think that when we talk about reparations, all that we're asking for is true equity.
03:42And that means closing the gap that too oftentimes is not only not acknowledged, but folks try to divert attention.
03:50Here we are a hundred years later and Black people are still struggling to find financial footing.
03:57We are trying to gain access to the land that is rightfully ours.
04:01We're trying to tell stories that belong to us.
04:03And too often people tell us that those stories are not worthy of being told, that they are based in fallacy.
04:10And so to me, reparations is also this identification of the fact that there is a truth, a commonly held truth that we all have to acknowledge.
04:21And it is not until we get to that point that reparations can be had.
04:25Because quite frankly, what good is all the money?
04:28What good is all the land if we're not telling the story about what actually happened and allowing that sort of thing to repeat itself?
04:34That's right.
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