As President Joe Biden travels to Okalahama on the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, some Californians are asking why the massacre was not better taught in local schools.
In 1921, white mobs destroyed thirty-five blocks of Black-owned businesses and homes in the affluent Black community of Greenwood in a two-day riot. The mobs are thought to have killed between 100 and 300 people. So why isn’t it better known?
“I had to learn about Black Wall Street. I had to learn about the Tulsa events after high school, after college, on my own,” said Rev. Najuma Smith Pollard of Los Angeles.
She is not the only one.
Even Oklahoma State Sen. Kevin Matthews, who grew up in Tulsa, had not heard of the massacre until he was in his 30s.
“I watched it, and I thought it was a fictional movie,” Matthews told the Oklahoman. “I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was shocking to me. I couldn’t understand how I could get to be an adult and not know this story.”
Matthews now leads the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, but whether the massacre's history is covered enough in schools remains a debate in Oklahoma and elsewhere.
“One of the great injustices of this country is that that whole narrative is not taught in schools across the nation,” said Rev. Pollard.
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Kimberly Bolanile Paggett is a teacher at an LA Charter school who thinks students need to hear about the massacre.
"Tulsa is an essential body of knowledge that needs to go out to the masses," said Pagget.
"If we are not intentional about those elements, then, guess what, it’s going to continue. It's going to be a continuation of ignorance," Pagget added.
LAUSD commemorates the Tulsa Race Massacre on its webpage with a lesson that can be downloaded, but it is not clear if that means it is required learning for students.
KNX 1070 reached out to LAUSD to find out if the Tulsa Race Massacre is part of the mandatory curriculum. A spokeswoman is looking into it.