The 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre is one of those stories that punches every button that can be pushed in news coverage today, especially after months of news about the complex Black Lives Matter movement and its impact on American life.
Obviously, this is a story about history and the voices of the few survivors who are alive to talk about the impact of this event on their lives and their community. In many parts of America, this is a story that can be linked to similar horrors from the past. For starters, there were the Red Summer riots of 1919 here in Knoxville, Tenn., and elsewhere.
Obviously, this is a legal and political story right now as efforts continue to pull the details of the Tulsa Massacre into the light of day. Consider the top of this remarkable multi-media report from The New York Times: “What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed.”
Imagine a community of great possibilities and prosperity built by Black people for Black people. Places to work. Places to live. Places to learn and shop and play. Places to worship.
Now imagine it being ravaged by flames.
In May 1921, the Tulsa, Okla., neighborhood of Greenwood was a fully realized antidote to the racial oppression of the time. … Brick and wood-frame homes dotted the landscape, along with blocks lined with grocery stores, hotels, nightclubs, billiard halls, theaters, doctor’s offices and churches.
Yes, many of the 13 churches in Greenwood were destroyed or damaged, as 35 square blocks were burned down. No one truly knows how many people died, but the estimate of 300 is almost certainly low, with reports of mass graves and bodies tossed in the Arkansas River. As many news reports noted, no one has ever been prosecuted the crimes linked to the massacre in and around what was known as America’s Black Wall Street.
Did the major news coverage of the anniversary — some of it staggering in its complexity and depth — cover the many religion angles of this story? Yes and no. As always, political voices and news hooks received the most attention.
But there was one Associated Press story in particular — “Tulsa pastors honor ‘holy ground’ 100 years after massacre” — that we discussed, and praised, during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). We also urged readers to seek out coverage by veteran GetReligion writer Bobby Ross, Jr., in his role as editor of The Christian Chronicle, a newspaper specializing in covering the Churches of Christ.
First, let’s look at the Associated Press story.
White attackers destroyed the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood 100 years ago this week but bypassed the original sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of North Tulsa. They thought the brick veneer structure was too fine for a Black-owned church. https://t.co/N6XnoHHEdq
— Sally Stapleton (@sestapleton) May 30, 2021
It will not surprise GetReligion readers to see this website praise veteran religion-beat reporter Peter Smith, known in the past for his work at the Louisville Courier Journal and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Our Julia Duin recently noted the importance of his move to AP, where his copy will now be seen in newspapers from coast to coast and around the world. The Associated Press needed to hire a veteran, skilled religion-beat professional after the staggering loss of Rachel Zoll to brain cancer, after 17 years of work on the beat for the wire service.
What made his Tulsa-dateline story different? Obviously, this report was based on coverage of a symbolic worship service linked to the anniversary. Here is the overture:
When white attackers destroyed the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood 100 years ago this week, they bypassed the original sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of North Tulsa.
By the church’s own account, the attackers thought the brick veneer structure was too fine for a Black-owned church. The mob destroyed at least a half-dozen other churches while burning and leveling a 35-square-block neighborhood in one of the nation’s deadliest spasms of racist violence. Estimates of the death toll range from dozens to 300.
On Sunday, First Baptist’s current sanctuary throbbed with a high-decibel service as six congregations gathered to mark the centennial of the massacre and to honor the persistence of the Black church tradition in Greenwood, as shown in the pulsing worship, call-and-response preaching and heavy emphasis on social justice.
Obviously, what was happening in historic Black churches was the most important theme in this report, including the many calls for reparations and the restoration of a community that continues to be scarred by the events of 1921.
But the story included other crucial voices, such as:
Pastor Deron Spoo of First Baptist Church of Tulsa, a Southern Baptist church less than two miles from the similarly named North Tulsa church, told his congregation that the massacre has been “a scar” on the city.
The church has a prayer room with an exhibit on the massacre, accompanied by prayers against racism. It includes quotations from white pastors in 1921 who faulted the Black community rather than the white attackers for the devastation and declared racial inequality to be “divinely ordained.”
Spoo told congregants on Sunday: “While we don’t know what the pastor 100 years ago at First Baptist Tulsa said, I want to be very clear: Racism has no place in the life of a Jesus follower.”
Smith touched base with another Southern Baptist church, as well — in the Tulsa suburbs.
During the podcast, host Todd Wilken and I discussed this question: Would the coverage of the Black Lives Matter story have been different if more newsrooms had included religion-beat professionals in that work? Would this, in particular, have led to better coverage of the efforts in churches — Black and White — to address issues of police reform and racial reconciliation?
Have White church leaders been unanimous in supporting efforts of this kind? Of course not, and that is a valid subject for news coverage.
At the same time, reconciliation efforts in some major denominations — the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God, for example — needed to be covered, as well.
You cannot understand current SBC tensions about race without understanding the crucial role that Black churches now play in America’s largest non-Catholic block. The divisions are real, which only underlines the fact that there are leaders working for reconciliation and facing the past, as well as those who would prefer silence.
Which brings us to this recent Ross editorial: “From the editor: About our recent coverage of racial issues in Churches of Christ.”
Just talked to a supposedly Christian reader who said that if he’d been there, George Floyd wouldn’t have lived 30 seconds — much less 9 1/2 minutes.
Speechless.
Although I did convey a word or two before quickly ending the call. https://t.co/fQSmITxfsz
— Bobby Ross Jr. (@bobbyross) June 3, 2021
Here is the opening of that short piece:
If my inbox is any indication, some Christians — particularly White ones — think we talk too much about race.
“Please cancel my subscription. I’m tired of your racially divisive articles,” one reader said in a recent email. “Get back to the TRUTH. There is only one race, human. Your publication has become too racist for me and my family.”
That writer did not cite a specific story. However, the note came as the June edition of The Christian Chronicle — featuring in-depth news coverage and an editorial related to the first anniversary of George Floyd’s killing — arrived in mailboxes.
Based in Oklahoma, Ross also went to the Tulsa area to cover events linked to the massacre anniversary. A few calls led him to a joint worship service between the predominantly white Broken Arrow Church of Christ and the North Sheridan Church of Christ, which is majority Black.
Here is a crucial passage from the story that resulted: “At Tulsa massacre’s centennial, two Oklahoma churches focus on racial unity.” The key voices here are those of Tim Luster, the leader of the North Sheridan congregation, and Tim Pyles of Brown Arrow:
At the massacre’s centennial, Pyles said, the ministers hoped ”to address the ongoing challenge and evil of racism, both in our culture and, sadly, among far too many Christians.”
Before praying, Luster stressed, “The prejudice that exists within the body is on both sides of the fence. … This is something that Satan has created within us, and it is his effort to divide us and keep us divided.
“Let us overshadow that with the spirit of Christ,” he said. “Let us learn to accept one another and be together as one.”
Can a few worship services of this kind erase decades of pain and sin? Of course not.
But these pastors have been meeting together for five years to work on these issues and to try to build bridges. Read the story and you will see some of the painful and complex history that led to their efforts to work together.
Is that part of the Tulsa story? Yes, religion played a major role — good and bad — in the past and the present. Those voices matter, just as much as those seeking justice through politics.
Enjoy the podcast and, please, share it with others.
FIRST IMAGE: Library of Congress photo used in a National Public Radio online report: “A Century After The Race Massacre, Tulsa Confronts Its Bloody Past.”
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