By Dr. Gregory B. Fairchild, University of Virginia — The Conversation US — June 19, 2020
My grandfather, Robert Fairchild, lived through the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — one of the worst race riots in US history, in which more than 1,000 businesses and homes were burned to the ground and estimates put the death toll as high as 250. The riots began after a white mob attempted to lynch a teenager falsely accused of assaulting a white woman. Black residents came to his defense, and mob violence followed.
Remarkably, the Greenwood District — known as “Black Wall Street” — was rebuilt. During the 1930s, a thriving business district flourished with retail shops, entertainment venues and high-end services. Yet it took until 1996, at the 75th anniversary, for the city of Tulsa to finally acknowledge what had happened. My grandfather told The New York Times then: “A mistake has been made, and this is a way to really look at it, then look toward the future and try to make sure it never happens again.”
The history that society colludes to avoid publicly is necessarily remembered privately. From my grandfather’s memory of the riot’s devastation to my own work addressing low-income communities’ economic challenges, I have come to see that change requires harnessing economic, governmental and nonprofit solutions that recognize and speak openly about the significant residential, educational and workplace racial segregation that still exists in the United States today.