He went by Bobo: a jokester prone to pranks and charmed by life in the Mississippi Delta—the countryside, extended family, and the stately homes of Greenwood. In the photographs that would immortalize him, you see semblances of a baby face: wide eyes, chubby cheeks, and a kind smile. The brutal violence he’d experience belies what we all know but rarely confront: Emmett Till was a kid. And he was killed for doing what kids do—testing the bounds of what’s considered appropriate.

Nearly a century after the deadly Tulsa race riots, the city is digging into its history, hoping that by searching for possible mass graves, they can finally put the past to rest.

They marched into the thriving black Tulsa neighborhood on May 31, 1921, with shotguns and Molotov cocktails. Some wore masks, while others proudly showed their white faces.

One of the worst race massacres in the nation’s history occurred in Tulsa over a 14-hour period May 31-June 1, 1921.

Dozens of people were killed, hundreds were injured and thousands were left homeless. Most of the segregated black district, known as Greenwood, was destroyed. Although the massacre itself lasted only a few hours, its repercussions are still felt today.

"It's not a choice of who is telling one or the other. I don't see them as separate stories. You can't tell the story of civil rights without mentioning the tragedy of Reconstruction. This is our history. We just have to be honest."

--Karlos Hill, chairman of the African and African-American Studies Department, University of Oklahoma

The ABA is hosting a webinar Friday to commemorate Juneteenth, an annual holiday marking the day that people who were still enslaved in Galveston, Texas, walked away from bondage after they were told that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued two-and-a-half years earlier.

On June 10, the same day that President Donald Trump announced that his first major in-person campaign event since the novel coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. would be a rally in Tulsa, Okla., near the site of a 1921 race massacre, a panel of Tulsa public school teachers met on a Zoom call. They were there to talk to other educators about how to teach that history — and how to link the events of nearly a century ago to current news.

The Rev. Mareo Johnson chuckled when asked if Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization.

“No,” said the leader of Tulsa’s chapter, “Black Lives Matter is not trying to overthrow the government. We just (want) a fair government.”

In retrospect, and probably even at the time, the chances of success were slim indeed: creation of an all-Black territory and eventually a state out of a hunk of the United States already deeded to American Indians and an object of lust for white settlers, cattlemen, land speculators and railroaders.

A live-streamed discussion about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and a new exhibit at Bizzell Memorial Library will be hosted by the University of Oklahoma at 4 p.m. Thursday.

The event will begin with a talk by Karlos Hill, chair of the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at OU, and Mechelle Brown, program director and tour guide at Tulsa’s Greenwood Cultural Center.

The OU Bizzell Memorial Library is hosting an exhibit on the Tulsa Race Massacre called “From Tragedy to Triumph: Race Massacre Survivor Stories.”

Karlos K. Hill, associate professor and chair of the Clara Luper Department of African and African-American studies, curated the exhibit along with Mechelle Brown, program director of the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa.

OU will offer a Presidential Dream Course about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre during the 2021 spring semester.

The Presidential Dream Course will be open to all students to explain the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre and commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the violent attack against the city’s Black community, according to a webpage about the course. It will be taught by OU professors Rilla Askew, Meta G. Carstarphen and Karlos Hill.

According to a university press release, the OU Public Relations Student Society of America is working with OU faculty to promote a presidential dream course next semester focused on the centennial anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.