amna: Over the past few years,
as the country has been
reckoning with questions of
race, justice, and equality,
many state legislatures have
passed laws restricting how
American history, particularly
institutional racism and its
legacy today, can be taught in
public schools.
Tonight, Judy woodruff visits
her native Tulsa, Oklahoma, to
try to understand how that city,
amid its own reckoning, is
navigating this moment.
It's her latest installment of
America at a crossroads.
>> This is where the dreamland
theater was located.
And my great aunt Janie, when
she was 17 years old, she went
on a date.
Who would have known that during
this date, the massacre
happened?
Judy: Community activist Kristi
Williams is a descendant of
Janie Edwards, who was just a
teenager in Tulsa more than 100
years ago when she snuck out one
Saturday night for a date, and
found herself fleeing for her
life.
>> She remembered that there
were gunshots flying everywhere.
There was fire everywhere.
And she said they dropped bombs
and you could smell the fire and
the smoke from miles and miles
away.
Judy: The day before, a young
black man working as a shoe
shiner was arrested for
allegedly assaulting a white
woman on an elevator.
A confrontation at the
courthouse followed, and on the
morning of June 1, 1921, a mob
of white men chased a group of
black men into Greenwood, a
35-block district of black-owned
businesses and homes known as
black Wall Street, killing an
untold number of residents and
burning their community to the
ground.
Yet the stories of what happened
in Tulsa that weekend were for a
long time buried in fear,
intimidation, and shame.
>> They didn't want to repeat it
because they always feared that
if they talked about it around
the people who did it, who were
looting the homes and burning
the homes and killing people, so
you didn't want that to happen
again, so you kept quiet about
it.
Judy: For decades, other stories
about Tulsa have been told, a
place once known as the oil
capital of the world, but more
recently, home to new residents
drawn by an affordable cost of
living and a transforming
downtown, rich in music, history
and culture, including
Greenwood.
In fact, my own story began
here.
I was born and spent the early
years of my life in this, the
second largest city in Oklahoma.
I only lived in Tulsa for five
years, but I came back often to
visit family, especially my
grandmother, who lived in this
house in north Tulsa.
I never remember hearing
anything about Greenwood until
news reports began to circulate
a few years ago.
>> We're sitting right sort of
at the epicenter of the 1921
Tulsa race massacre, arguably
the worst incident of urban
racial violence in American
history, and it was not
discussed openly for nearly 75,
80 years.
So, this represents the
evolution of Tulsa's really
racial history.
Judy: Tulsa's mayor, G.T. Bynum,
comes from a long line of
tulsans, as well as former city
mayors on both sides of his
family.
>> And the goal of course at the
top is reconciliation for us as
a community.
Judy: In 2021, he apologized for
the city's failure to protect
black tulsans 100 years earlier,
and from decades of
discrimination after.
>> I think the greatest change
I've seen in my lifetime, and
especially just in the last five
to seven years, is the openness
with which racial disparities
are discussed in our city.
And we've tried to, over the
last I'd say 20 years as a
community, to start having those
conversations around race in our
city that should have been
happening for a century.
But we have tried to contact all
of that into the last 20 years,
and really in earnest in the
last decade.
Judy: Historians estimate that
300 people may have been killed
in the massacre.
In 2018, mayor Bynum announced
an effort to find out more,
using ground penetrating radar,
coring, and excavation to
explore four sites where victims
of the massacre may have been
buried.
Just recently, a team announced
that they had sequenced DNA from
six sets of human remains
exhumed from oaklawn cemetery,
and are now seeking the public's
help in identifying them.
>> It's an opportunity for us to
make Tulsa the kind of city that
I think this generation of
tulsans wants it to be.
We want to be a city where, when
horrible things happen to
people, we as a city rally
around them and do our best to
find out what happened and be
there for their families and
their descendants.
At the same time, there's a
human challenge.
There's a great lack of trust
towards the city because the
city didn't do enough for so
long.
>> The question that I have, and
the question that so many north
tulsans have is, what are you
going to actually do about it?
These are abandoned homes.
And you see this throughout my
district.
Judy: City councilor Vanessa
hall Harper, who represents
Tulsa's first district, in the
north, recently gave me a tour
of her district, where many
black tulsans live today.
>> You have a lot of vacant
houses and vacant lots.
Judy: Following the carnage of
the massacre, many Greenwood
buildings and businesses were
rebuilt. But in the decades that
followed, developers built a
highway through the heart of
Greenwood, which, combined with
housing discrimination in the
form of race restrictive
covenants and redlining, drove
many residents north.
>> This was the only part of
town that black people could
live.
Judy: Today, hall-harper says
her district suffers from poor
housing, health care, nutrition,
and employment.
And a 2015 Tulsa health
department report found a
greater than 10-year difference
in the lifespan of those living
in a zip code in the north
versus just a few miles away in
south Tulsa.
>> The community living in north
Tulsa is largely African
American, black, brown and poor.
People in south Tulsa is largely
white, affluent.
And so, that's a problem.
And that's not only a problem
for north tulsans, that's a
problem for the city.
Judy: She campaigned on a
promise to address the food
deserts in her community, and in
2021, with support from mayor
Bynum, she helped deliver fresh
fruits, vegetables, and dairy in
the oasis fresh market.
But she says a lot more needs to
be done to make this community
whole.
>> I grew up when I had to
apologize, I had to do more than
just say I'm sorry, I had to do
all that I could do to make
right what I had done.
Judy: She's currently helping to
lead a series of community
conversations called beyond
apology, to try to engage
residents over what more the
city should do, including on the
question of reparations.
When you speak of reparations,
what do you mean exactly by
that?
>> I think we are in the process
right now having those
conversations, but if you're
asking me, Vanessa hall Harper,
reparations to me is land and
cash.
Judy: To whom?
>> To everyone that was
involved.
To not only to the victims, but
to their descendants.
But not only were individuals
destroyed, community was
destroyed.
This entire space, this entire
area was impacted.
And so, what does that form of
reparations look like?
I think those are conversations
that we must have.
Judy: Mayor G.T. Bynum.
>> We need to do right by
tulsans who were murdered in
1921.
That's why we're doing the
search for the graves.
We've allocated over $1,000,000
in city funds that has been
unanimously supported by the
city council and overwhelmingly
supported by the public.
The public has overwhelmingly
supported our work around
economic development.
One could view all of that work
as reparations.
There are others who say, we've
got to settle this lawsuit and
levy a property tax on everyone
who lives in Tulsa and issue
cash payments.
That, to me, is a much more
challenging question because
you're financially penalizing
everyone who lives in Tulsa
today for something that
criminals did 100 years ago.
But we're going through a
dialogue.
And I think the way you address
it is to keep the dialogue
going.
Judy: And yet, Republican state
lawmakers have arguably made
that harder.
>> More fallout from the house
bill 1775 in Oklahoma.
Judy: In 2021, despite
opposition from school boards
and public universities across
the state, governor Kevin Stitt
signed house bill 1775,
legislation restricting how
history can be taught in public
schools.
>> As governor, I firmly believe
that not one cent of taxpayer
money should be used to define
and divide young oklahomans
about their race or sex.
Judy: On its face, 1775 is about
preventing discrimination on the
basis of race or sex.
But it includes a provision that
says no individual should feel
discomfort, guilt, anguish, or
any form of psychological
distress on account of his or
her race or sex, which some
worry is so broad and subjective
that it's having a chilling
effect on the teaching of
difficult subjects, like the
1921 massacre.
>> I think it is ridiculous.
I think it's totally ridiculous
that you don't teach history of
what actually happened just for
fear of making someone feel
guilty.
Teach them also, in order for
this not to happen, these are
the things that we must do.
>> Tulsa public schools is the
first school to violate the law.
Judy: The law is already having
real-world consequences.
Last summer, the accreditation
ratings of two Oklahoma school
districts, Tulsa and mustang,
were downgraded, in Tulsa
because teachers took part in an
implicit bias training.
>> House bill 1775 was created
to create accountability and
transparency.
Judy: Tulsa-area resident Janice
Danforth spoke in favor of the
downgrading at the July state
board meeting in Oklahoma City.
>> I ask you today to follow
through and let tps be the
example throughout Oklahoma that
breaking the law is not only an
optimal, it is illegal.
Judy: A mother of two boys, one
in public school, one in
private, in 2021 Danforth
founded the Tulsa chapter of
moms for liberty, a nonprofit
parents rights group started in
Florida during the pandemic that
has now spread across the
country.
The group is officially
non-partisan, but aligns itself
with conservative causes.
Danforth says Tulsa public
schools, which for years have
struggled with low funding and
test scores, need to focus on
academics.
>> And that should really be the
only thing they're focusing on
and not diversity, equity, and
inclusion.
Judy: Are you saying that it's
wrong for teachers to be
conscious of diversity?
>> Not at all.
Judy: Then what is the argument,
then?
>> Well, critical race theory,
or if you want to look at
diversity, equity, inclusion, we
don't -- equity is making
everyone equal.
That's not the case, right?
We can't all have the same
thing.
That is marxism, literally.
We want equitable, not equity.
Where everyone has the same
opportunity.
Judy: I asked Danforth how
teachers are supposed to manage
how a student feels about a
historical event, like the 1921
massacre, without worrying about
hurting their district's
accreditation or jeopardizing
their teaching licenses.
How do you carefully make that
separation?
>> I think you can show that
there were some people in that
time frame that were not good
people.
The Ku klux Klan was a terrible
organization that did terrible
things to black people.
And I think kids can learn about
it without having to have that
concept put on them like it's
their fault.
Judy: And you think teachers are
able to make that distinction,
should be able to make that?
>> Absolutely.
I think if you're worried about
how you're teaching it, then
you're probably teaching it
wrong.
>> I would not want any student
in Tulsa taught that they are
lesser than someone else because
of their race.
At the same time, there are
legitimate concerns around
making sure that we do have
difficult conversations and that
we learn about difficult
history.
Judy: For his part, mayor Bynum,
a Republican, says if, in fact,
the new state law is preventing
the teaching of history like the
events of 1921, legislators
should amend it.
>> We're home to the
consequences of not talking
about difficult history for
three quarters of a century
right here in Tulsa, where the
city fathers, after 1921,
decided we're not going to talk
about this race massacre because
it's such an embarrassment.
And so now it's left to this
generation of tulsans to try and
catch up on all that and
investigate it 100 years after
the fact, which is really
challenging.
>> Also want to keep educating
ourselves on our own.
That is really important.
Judy: Community activist Kristi
Williams isn't waiting for the
legislature to act.
She recently started her own
program, black history
Saturdays, for young people,
their parents, and local
teachers to meet once a month to
learn in an environment free
from the fear of saying the
wrong thing.
>> You know, history and
learning, it is uncomfortable.
But if you understand someone's
history, then you will not treat
them like they are an outcast.
If you were taught that all I
was a slave, my people were just
slaves, you don't see that much
in me.
So it's a benefit for all people
to learn black history.
Judy: A community that remains
divided over its past, and how
to move forward, but still
trying to engage.
For the "Pbs newshour," I'm Judy
woodruff in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Amna: And take a look online,
where Judy shares her personal
reflections on reporting on
Tulsa.