One of the last known survivors of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 has died, his family has confirmed in a statement.
Hughes Van Ellis died from cancer Monday night at the age of 102, his family said.
He was one of the most outspoken activists for reparations over the massacre and fought for them on behalf of Tulsa’s Black community for decades. But, his grandnephew Ike Howard told CNN: “He died waiting on justice.”
The family’s statement added: “Two days ago, Mr Ellis urged us to keep fighting for justice. In the midst of his death, there remains an undying sense of right and wrong. Mr Ellis was assured we would remain steadfast and we repeated to him, his own words, ‘We are one,’ and we lastly expressed our love.”
The Tulsa race massacre was one of the deadliest cases of racist violence in US history. It began when a white mob stormed an area of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, referred to as “Black Wall Street” because it was one of the wealthiest Black communities in the US at the time.
I learned about it from YouTube videos like
as well as various news stories.
My high school history classes were basically “slavery happened which was bad. Then, Lincoln freed the slaves. Nothing important happened until the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his ‘I have a Dream’ speech and black people were fully given equal treatment under the law. Then everything was perfect and there were no lingering issues at all.”
Now, I get that high school history classes are time limited. You can’t possibly cover all of US history in 2 semesters. Some things need to be cut/glossed over. I don’t expect a high school class to give a fully accurate accounting of EVERYTHING that happened. At the same time, glossing over all the bad stuff that happened to black people between slavery ending and the Civil Rights movement seems suspect as does glossing over any issues after the Civil Rights movement. (For reference, I was in high school in the early 90’s.)