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Tulsa 1921

from Tulsa / It's a start by mike skliar

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about

Written about the Tulsa, Oklahoma massacre of 1921, a subject that is much less known about then it should be.

lyrics

Mr.Rowland, entered an elevator, in Tulsa in 1921
A young black man on his way to the bathroom, the segregated one
He might have tripped, but some store clerk thought he was a threat
The girl didn’t want to press charges, but Rowland’s fate was set

Rowland was arrested, some feared a lynching that night
So a group of Roland’s neighbors went to see everything’s all right
Met by a larger white mob, before long the guns appeared
Bullets were exchanged, just as some had feared

The KKK had members all throughout the state
Who couldn’t stand that the blacks had dared to stand up straight
The white folks brought in airplanes, to do what damage they could
The planes dropped bombs to level the whole black neighborhood

After two days of assault, hundreds wounded or dead
Thousands of black folks homeless, no houses, no beds
All the exact numbers are lost to the mists of time
No indictments, no convictions, no mention of the crime

The history books were written, of Tulsa not a word
Almost no way of knowing, just what had occurred
Its only in the last few years, we’ve started to remember
And you can still find statues of old Klan members

a hundred years later, the president rallies his base
On Juneteenth, the anniversary of slavery’s disgrace
where does he pick, to hold it, Tulsa, Oklahoma
what kind of strange fruit is this, what a horrible aroma

So don’t you go telling me, racism is dead and gone
The list of the names that we’re chanting go on and on and on
How many other Tulsas happened that we don’t know
The only thing that’s clear is that white supremacy has got to go

(c) M. Skliar 2020

credits

from Tulsa / It's a start, released June 13, 2020

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mike skliar New York, New York

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