For Black Tulsans, Trump's visit evokes painful legacy of 1921 massacre

Ernest Scheyder, Reuters•June 19, 2020

For Black Tulsans, Trump's visit evokes painful legacy of 1921 massacre

By Ernest Scheyder

TULSA, Okla. (Reuters) - Thirteen jars filled with ash and dirt and bone rest in the basement of Tulsa's Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church, an unsettled repose for the victims of a nearly century-old massacre that still haunts the Black residents of Oklahoma's second-largest city.

There are no graves for Eliza Talbot, Ed Adams or 11 others. Their bodies were lost, along with hundreds, when a white mob killed and burned its way through the city's Greenwood neighborhood in 1921, at the time one of the largest and wealthiest Black communities in the United States.

To the dismay of community leaders https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump/in-tulsa-fears-that-trump-rally-may-worsen-racial-unrest-spread-of-coronavirus-idUSKBN23O1GO and residents, and just weeks after a May 31 vigil to mark the massacre's 99th anniversary, President Donald Trump plans his first campaign rally since March mere blocks away from Greenwood on Saturday.

The rally will occur a day after Juneteenth https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-juneteenth-factbox/factbox-what-is-juneteenth-idUSKBN23N3A0, which commemorates when a Union general went to Texas in 1865 and announced the Emancipation Proclamation had freed enslaved people, more than two years after it was issued in 1863.

"Trump's presence will cast a huge shadow over these events," said Rev. Robert Turner of the Vernon A.M.E. church, which was rebuilt after it was burned down during the 1921 attack.

"The president is supported by racists, by neo-Confederates. I fear this rally will attract all those people to our city."

Trump, who has said his supporters "love Black people," moved the rally to June 20 from its original Juneteenth date, tweeting that the change was "out of respect for ... this important occasion and all that it represents."

The rally also coincides with protests against police brutality and racism across the United States and globally, after the May killing of George Floyd https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-protests/george-floyd-hailed-as-cornerstone-of-a-movement-at-funeral-family-calls-for-justice-idUSKBN23G1JQ by a white police officer who knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Floyd's death has added to the disquiet among Black residents in Tulsa, which saw its own demonstrations in 2017 after a white police officer was acquitted of manslaughter for shooting a Black man during a routine traffic stop.

"I do look at Trump's visit as a slap in the face, a form of disrespect," said Rev. Mareo Johnson, who runs the Tulsa Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapter.

'SACRED GROUND'

In Greenwood, which was cut in half by a highway in the late 1960s, Black residents say they still struggle with the massacre’s enduring scars.

The district's main thoroughfare, Greenwood Avenue, once boasted the largest Black-owned hotel in the United States as well as Black-owned banks, medical practices, law offices and libraries.

It is now lined with a handful of small retail shops and a restaurant, and abuts a minor league baseball team's field. Tulsa's north side, home to most of its African-American residents, has no traditional grocery stores or much retail shopping, further isolating the residents.

"Greenwood today is confined like a holding zone," said Cleo Harris Jr. who owns Black Wall Street T-shirts and Souvenirs shop on Greenwood Avenue. "The dividing of Greenwood by this highway was white America's way to contain us. Black people are still considered less than."

Greenwood's concentration of wealth in the early 20th century led to the area becoming known as "Black Wall Street." African-Americans made up roughly 12% of Tulsa’s 72,000 population in 1920, as Greenwood’s success and the Oklahoma oil boom attracted other Black Americans.

"Greenwood used to be the mecca of Black opportunity and Black economy. This is sacred ground," said community activist Kristi Williams, whose great aunt survived the massacre.

"This was the place to be for newly-free Africans to re-establish themselves. There are bones in the land that keep us connected to this place."

The massacre began after a local Black youth was arrested for allegedly assaulting a white girl. The allegations were never proven.

White rioters tore through Greenwood, destroying 23 churches, more than 2,000 Black-owned businesses and homes, and 36 square blocks of the neighborhood, according to the Greenwood Cultural Center.

About 300 people died and more than 6,000 survivors and Black Tulsa residents were sent to internment camps and held, according to a Human Rights Watch report in May that called for reparations.

For decades it was not clear where many bodies were buried, but recent archeological work points to a mass grave near the Arkansas River. Dig work at the site was halted this spring due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Tulsa never paid restitution to the victims and insurance companies refused to pay out, citing riot clauses in contracts. No one was charged in the murders. While survivors returned to Greenwood, it never regained its former status.

Some Black Tulsans are hoping to use Trump’s visit to spotlight racial inequity and push for reparations for victims of the 1921 disaster, either through money, scholarships to local colleges or returning land taken from victims.

"I want to channel all this pain and anger into change for our community," said activist Williams.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; editing by Amran Abocar and Grant McCool)

The 'TikTok grandma' who started the prank targeting Trump's Tulsa rally has only been a Democrat for one year and voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson in 2016

Rachel E. Greenspan Jun 23, 2020

The noticeably scarce attendance at Trump's Tulsa rally, after the campaign bragged about the expected turnout, has been credited to an Iowa woman. Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images; @MaryJoLaupp/TikTok

After low attendance was observed at President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign rally in Tulsa on Saturday, TikTok teens and K-pop stands took a victory lap, claiming that their prank flooding the event with false ticket requests led to the campaign's inflated expectations.

Mary Jo Laupp, the newly-dubbed "TikTok grandma" with volunteer experience on Pete Buttigieg's Democratic nomination campaign, started the trend. 

Laupp, who only became a Democrat in 2019 to caucus for Buttigieg and says she's "voted all over the place," will soon begin volunteer work with a grassroots group supporting Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. 

Many have praised TikTok teens and K-pop stans for seemingly inflating the Trump campaign's expected attendance for a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma Saturday. But it was a grandmother from Iowa who originated the idea for claiming the event's free tickets as a massive trolling effort.

Ahead of the rally, Trump's 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said on Twitter that the campaign had received more than one million ticket requests for the free event, which would admit guests on a first-come, first-serve basis.

But the nearly 20,000-person Bank of Oklahoma (BOK) Center was noticeably empty on Saturday, with at least one-third of the venue's seats empty, The New York Times reported. The campaign had constructed a second stage outside of the arena, which Trump and Vice President Mike Pence could have used to directly speak to an overflow of attendees. That idea was dashed when the real number of attendees proved to be much lower than projected.

Mary Jo Laupp, who's been dubbed the "TikTok grandma" and previously volunteered for Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign, appeared to be one of the first TikTok users to spread the idea. She said she knew the best way to bother Trump would be to have empty seats at his first-rally, which Tulsa's public health head called the "perfect storm of potential over-the-top disease transmission," referencing the possible spread of COVID-19.

In a June 11 TikTok video, Laupp explained that people could book the free tickets for the rally, originally planned for June 19, with no intention of going, because holding the rally in Tulsa, the site of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, on Juneteenth, was "a slap in the face to the Black community." The campaign later acquiesced to outrage over the Juneteenth rally and postponed it to the following day, Saturday.

"I recommend all of those of us that want to see this 19,000-seat auditorium barely filled or completely empty go reserve tickets now, and leave him standing there alone on the stage," Laupp, 51, said in her original video. Thousands of people on TikTok followed the call, each claiming to have reserved their two free spots at the rally with their cell phone numbers or with Google Voice-created numbers.

TikTok users largely took credit for the underwhelming turnout, claiming they reserved free tickets online in an effort to irk Trump and reduce the crowds following Laupp's video, though the actual effect that the reservations had on real turnout is unclear. Anonymous Trump campaign officials told The New York Times that many of the reservations to the event were trolls, which theoretically would have led to inflated attendance expectations, though the campaign claims they took those into account in their estimates.

Mary Jo Laupp was a lifelong independent voter who voted for Gary Johnson in 2016, until Pete Buttigieg changed her mind.

Mary Jo Laupp poses with Pete Buttigieg in Iowa in November 2019. Courtesy of Mary Jo Laupp
Laupp only registered as a Democrat last year after lifelong independent voter status, during which she "voted all over the place."

"I've never been an official member of a political party," she told Insider. But then, in 2019, she decided to register so that she'd be able to caucus for Buttigieg in Iowa. "That's what pushed me to make that decision," she said. While she has no plans to leave the Democratic party, Laupp did say she has never voted a straight-party ticket, and probably won't in November. In the 2016 election, she said she voted for Gary Johnson.

Since her newly viral moment, Laupp confirmed to Insider that she will be supporting Joe Biden in the 2020 election, and is collaborating with a grassroots organization called Biden's Digital Coalition to support the campaign. (The group is not officially affiliated with Biden's campaign, which has its own digital team.)

While many TikTokers spreading the ticket-claiming prank said they wanted to make the president angry, Laupp said she did this not to harm Trump, but on behalf of her friends in the Black community who dealt with the trauma of the rally being held in Tulsa close to Juneteeth.

"This was always about, for me, the location and the date," she said, adding that Black Wall Street, the site of the 1921 massacre, is close to the BOK Center, where "an entire neighborhood was wiped out because of racism."

When asked for her opinion on Trump, Laupp said, "I think there are times that he says things without thinking carefully first."

"I think he is trying to be president in a way a CEO would run a company," she continued. "America's not a company."

The popularization of the trend has also been largely credited to the K-pop fandom community, which has been a huge source of activism during worldwide racism and police brutality protests sparked by the May 25 killing of George Floyd. Laupp, a musician who has always worked with local high schoolers, has been impressed with the activism of teens, particularly on TikTok during the Black Lives Matter protests.

"It's important for them to see that the older generations are supporting the material because they hear so much about how useless they are, how lazy they are, how entitled they feel. And that's not what I'm seeing out of that [generation] at all," she said.

Read more:
TikTok teens say they tanked Trump's comeback rally in Tulsa by reserving thousands of tickets then not showing up

Trump officials are anonymously admitting that TikTokers and K-pop fans likely helped tank his Tulsa rally, despite vigorously denying it in public

K-pop stans have been heralded as digital heroes for fighting racists online, but Black fans are still getting left out of the conversation

Teens on TikTok are trying to 'save Barron Trump' from the White House and have started a petition with thousands of signatures

Racial discrimination has cost American economy trillions. Tulsa, massacres just a start.

Marcus Anthony Hunter
Sun, May 30, 2021

Houses on fire after the Tulsa massacre

Racism is costly.

In fact, a recent Citigroup report estimated that racial discrimination has cost the American economy $16 trillion. Most notably, the report identifies a substantial $13 trillion loss in potential business revenue because of racial discrimination in lending to Black entrepreneurs and Black businesses. Although these figures are estimates for the last two decades, they point to a repeated pattern of costly preventable violence – financial and physical – against non-white people in America.

When a Black community in America is destroyed, America's progress is destroyed.


More in Reparations: Nearly two dozen Black massacres in American history. Reparations? Rarely.

For Black America, the economic losses are very direct. The wage gap, for example, puts the highest average earnings for Black men at more than $20,000 less than it is for white men.

But economic struggles in the Black community trickle down in ways that are less obvious, but certainly not less meaningful, to non-Black members of society. A close in the wealth gap over the past 20 years would have meant $2.7 trillion more spent on cars, clothes and other goods, services and investments that would have supported jobs for everyone.

Indeed, 100 years later, the story of the Tulsa massacre remains relevant for identifying racism’s true and lasting costs. The lessons and events of this horrific episode provide powerful insights into how acknowledging the effects, costs and destruction of systemic racism is key to healing and repairing the nation today.

Born of the ingenuity of Black migrants, Tulsa's Greenwood community was a bustling and dynamic Black financial district in the heartland of the American Southwest. Before the massacre, that approximately 35-block Black Wall Street community was worth $1 million (the equivalent of $15 million today).

Rather than bask in the glory of the success of Black Wall Street, white leaders, businessmen and residents guided by fear, hatred and a readily believed racist trope that turned out to be, by most accounts, untrue – that a Black male, in this case a 19-year-old, had attacked a white 17-year-old female – saw to it that a mosaic of terror befell the neighborhood by spring 1921.

White mobs looted hundreds of homes and burned down others. Some Black families escaped, but an estimated 300 members of the community were killed. Fires burned from the night of May 31 well into the next day. Little to no property, bank accounts, keepsakes or family heirlooms survived, generating a pattern of loss, death and trauma that endures today.

An African American photographer looking at the ruins of the Midway Hotel in Tulsa.

So how do we get beyond these traumatic losses?

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., are among those calling for a national Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Commission that will, at the least, force things that have been previously hidden into the light. The Tulsa massacre was ignored by the local government for decades. In a perfect world, the commission will set the nation on the road to racial and financial recovery. We must seize this historic opportunity to achieve a future in which the false notion of a racial hierarchy is finally obliterated.

The commission seeks to properly memorialize, archive, mitigate and prevent harms and violence like the massacres in America that didn't begin or end with Tulsa. That's complementary to existing calls for reparations for African Americans long heralded by late Rep. John Conyers and now advanced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, in H.R. 40, a bill that would establish a commission to study the history of discrimination and avenues for repair.

Perhaps we can look to South Africa for an example (even if an imperfect one) of how commissions can acknowledge hurt, make victims financially whole and help a nation collectively move forward.

The process included gruesome testimony that took seven years and included stories of violence, rape and murder from 2,000 people of the apartheid era – some of whom committed acts of violence, others who were victims. The commission surely helped the nation avoid genocide and massive brutality in apartheid's aftermath. The solution included payments to each victim's family that totaled $85 million. Not everyone was happy with the final outcome, but it was a step in the right direction, and it started with the acknowledgment that horrible human atrocities happened.

Testimony from the victims and descendants of the Tulsa massacre, and every other recorded massacre in our nation's history, is vital. It has the potential to not only right the ship but also move the nation forward with a newfound awareness of how and why racism's influence hinders our collective prosperity and solidarity.

Black activists and leaders on the ground have worked tirelessly to restore, repair and replenish the Greenwood district. This work has not been easy, but it's necessary.

The loss of a financial district anywhere in America is a financial threat and loss for all Americans.

Understanding that is the key to racial healing, racial equity and a more prosperous inclusive future. All of our lives – regardless of ethnic background – and economy depend on it.

Marcus Anthony Hunter, a sociology and African American studies professor at UCLA, is the author of several books, including "Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Racial discrimination has cost USA trillions. Tulsa is just a start.

100 years ago, Tulsa endured a racial massacre

AFP•June 19, 2020

This image obtained from the American National Red Cross photograph collection at the US Library of Congress, shows Tulsa, Oklahoma, during the May 31 and June 1, 1921, riots when mobs of white residents attacked black residents and businesses (AFP Photo/-)
    

This image obtained from the US Library of Congress, shows Tulsa, Oklahoma aflame during the 1921 during a mob attack on the black district of Greenwood by white residents (AFP Photo/-)

A monument in Tulsa to a 1921 massacre in which a black neighborhood was burned to the ground and as many as 300 peolple were killed (AFP Photo/WIN MCNAMEE)

This image obtained from the American National Red Cross photograph collection at the US Library of Congress, the smoldering ruins of Tulsa, Oklahoma's black Greenwood district after white mobs attacked May 31-June 1, 1921

Tulsa (United States) (AFP) - Tulsa bears the scars of a racial massacre in 1921 that left up to 300 blacks dead, 1,200 buildings burned to the ground and none of the white rioters that committed the violence ever charged.

It started when a young black shoeshiner was accused of assaulting a white woman working as an elevator operator.

As newspapers jumped on the story and rumors spread, the white community in the Oklahoma city became enraged. Hundreds of whites demanding justice gathered outside the courthouse where the black suspect was being held.

Black men, some of them armed veterans of World War I, feared he would be lynched and raced to the courthouse to intervene.

Shots were fired, and bedlam broke out as white mobs attacked the black neighborhood known as Greenwood on May 31 to June 1, 1921.

"Some type of confrontation between blacks and whites was inevitable because of racism that existed because of the presence of Ku Klux Klan members that were part of our local city government, that were on the rosters of the police department and fire department," said Michelle Brown, program coordinator of the Greenwood Cultural Center. An exhibit there commemorates the massacre.

A commission of inquiry formed in 2001 concluded that local authorities armed some white people and named them police deputies and that they added to the violence rather than curb it.

A night of bloodshed ensued as gunfire rang out from both sides, black-owned stores were looted and torched, and homes of black families were shot up.

Many accounts say planes piloted by white men dropped incendiary bobs on Greenwood, which was known at the time as the Black Wall Street because it was one of the most prosperous African-American communities in America. For whites it was a source of envy and jealousy.

For many years, the massacre was not widely known among average white Americans. But the orgy of violence was depicted last year in the TV series "Watchmen" on HBO, and several documentaries on it are being produced, including one by basketball great LeBron James.

The chaos lasted 24 hours and ended only when the National Guard arrived in Tulsa. One of the first things it did was lock up 6,000 black people in internment camps.

At the exhibit on the massacre at the cultural center, there are photos of all the death and destruction.

"There are about 15 or 20 of these photographs that were taken by white photographers that were used as postcards and were sent around the country because many of them were proud of what they had accomplished," said Brown.

The exact number of blacks killed in the massacre is not known because many bodies were thrown into a river, burned or buried in mass graves.

Investigator: DNA could identify 2 Tulsa massacre victims

By KEN MILLER

June 22, 2022

 In this Friday, July 30, 2021, photo, a group prays during a small ceremony as remains from a mass grave are reinterred at Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa, Okla. Investigators say another step forward has been taken in efforts to identify possible victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The committee overseeing the search for mass graves of victims was told Tuesday, June 21, 2022, that enough usable DNA for testing has been found in two of the 14 sets of remains that were removed from Tulsa's Oaklawn Cemetery a year ago. (Mike Simons/Tulsa World via AP, File)


Investigators seeking to identify victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre have found enough usable DNA for testing on two of the 14 sets of remains removed from a local cemetery a year ago, a forensic scientist said Wednesday.

Danny Hellwig with Intermountain Forensics in Salt Lake City, which is examining the remains, told The Associated Press that it’s a promising step toward identifying the people whose remains were removed from Oaklawn Cemetery.

“We have two (sets) that we’re very excited about,” Hellwig said. “It doesn’t guarantee us a result, but it gives us hope” for learning the names.

The key, Hellwig said, is having descendants of those individuals provide DNA to a database so a match can be made when DNA sequencing is complete.

The sequencing is expected to begin in July or August, Hellwig said. A match to a family member could be made within days if the descendant is in Intermountain Forensics’ DNA database.

None of the remains are confirmed as victims of the 1921 massacre, which occurred when a white mob descended on Greenwood, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Tulsa. More than 1,000 homes were burned, hundreds were looted and the thriving business district known as Black Wall Street was destroyed.

Historians who have studied the event estimate the death toll to be between 75 and 300.

To confirm the remains are massacre victims, investigators are seeking signs of trauma, such as gunshot wounds. Based on accounts at the time, most of those who were killed by the mob were male, according to forensic scientist Phoebe Stubblefield, a member of the team that excavated the cemetery and the remains.

One set of the remains sent to the Intermountain Forensics’ DNA lab in Utah includes a male with a bullet in his shoulder, but did not have enough usable DNA, Hellwig said.

“We’re talking with the investigative team to see if additional evidence can be provided” in hopes of extracting more DNA of that individual, Hellwig said.

Bones and teeth from each of the remains have been provided to the lab, with the usable DNA coming from the teeth, according to Hellwig.

A search for the graves of massacre victims began in 2020 and resumed last year with nearly three dozen coffins containing remains of possible victims recovered.

Investigators haven’t said when they’ll analyze additional sites where suspected mass graves are located and are potential search areas are planned, according to a news release from the city of Tulsa.

Ballerina statue cut down in Tulsa, sold for scrap metal

Mon, May 2, 2022

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A bronze statue depicting one of Oklahoma's most famous Native American ballerinas was cut from its base outside a Tulsa museum and sold for scrap to a recycling company, authorities said Monday.

Museum officials say the Five Moons statue of Marjorie Tallchief was likely removed Thursday from its plinth outside the Tulsa Historical Society, the Tulsa World reported.

Museum officials received a call Monday from CMC Recycling in southwest Rogers County to identify what was believed to be pieces of the bronze statue, the newspaper reported.

Michelle Place, director of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum, checked out the recovered pieces late Monday morning and verified that they came from the statue.

“The Tulsa Police Department is working diligently to apprehend the thief,” the historical society said in a statement.

Pieces of the statute, including the head and part of an arm, are still missing.

Place said the original mold for the statue burned in a foundry fire, so recreating the statute will be much more complicated.

“I am devastated by this,” she said.

The statues known as the Five Moons were created by Tulsa-area artists Monte England and Gary Henson. England worked on two of the pieces before his death in 2005, and Henson completed the project.

The other Five Moons statues of renowned American Indian ballerinas depict Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin and Maria Tallchief, Marjorie Tallchief's sister.

How my family's memory of the Tulsa massacre sheds new light on Jan. 6 Capitol riot


© Erin SchaffAnneliese M. Bruner

Pushing a preferred storyline to uphold a system that favors the powerful is at the heart of any effort to rewrite history. But creating false public narratives is the purview of authoritarians.

This a standard game, but many Americans are still just waking up to it. My great-grandmother Mary E. Jones Parrish understood this dynamic all too well. She was a trained journalist and teacher who moved to Tulsa around 1919 and was reading at home when the violence began on May 31, 1921. Her young daughter, my grandmother Florence Mary, called her to the window, saying: "I see men with guns."

In her newly republished book-length account of the Tulsa massacre of 1921, my great-grandmother reported on the horrific events that she and her daughter escaped. She admonished the nation to awake to the factors that feed state-sanctioned violence and provided a model for capturing and preserving the truth. She knew, as did the other survivors of the massacre: Our democracy depends on it. She wrote: "The rich man of power and the fat politician who have maneuvered to get into office, and even our Congress, may sit idly by with folded hands and say, 'What can we do?' Let me warn you that the time is fast approaching when you will want to do something and it will be too late."

The truth our democracy requires is fighting its way to the light. Earlier this month, "Mother" Viola Fletcher, 107, the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, testified before Congress about what she witnessed on May 31, as a mob of White Tulsans rampaged through her neighborhood killing Black people, looting and torching their homes and businesses. With a calm demeanor that belied the terror she recounted, she told the story of her family fleeing in the middle of the night to escape violence sweeping the Greenwood quarter: "The night of the massacre, I was awakened by my family -- my parents and five siblings were there -- I was told we had to leave and that was it ... I will never forget the violence of the White mob when we left our home. I still see Black men being shot. I still see Black bodies lying in the street."

Hearing the excruciating details of what she saw as a child of seven was not the only shock for viewers -- and it wasn't at all a shock to me. "For 70 years, the City of Tulsa and its Chamber of Commerce told us that the massacre didn't happen, like we didn't see it with our own eyes," she said, revealing the complicity of local government and businesses in covering up the crimes of 1921. City officials were not keen to acknowledge what happened because of how it would look to the outside world and imposed their self serving agenda of denialism on the victimized community, without regard for the people's suffering. Evidence that city fathers, along with the National Guard, bore some responsibility for the destruction provided another motive for official eagerness to suppress the truth.

A week before Mother Fletcher testified, another denial of truth was unfolding within the same halls of power. The House Oversight and Reform Committee held hearings on the Jan. 6 invasion of the US Capitol, during which Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde told his colleagues, "Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures. You know, if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the sixth, you'd actually think it was a normal tourist visit."

He and other like-minded lawmakers oppose the establishment of a commission to investigate the unprecedented attack, downplaying the gravity of an event that some have referred to as a failed coup d'etat. They are working feverishly to characterize the attack as relatively benign and to cast doubt on the legitimacy on any commission that is empaneled to investigate the crimes that took place in Washington, DC -- the city where I reside -- on Jan. 6.

Some others who lived through the attack on the Capitol see it differently. On Feb. 23, former US Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testified before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee: "The events on January 6, 2021, constituted the worst attack on law enforcement that I have seen in my entire career. This was an attack that we are learning was pre-planned and involved participants from a number of states who came well equipped, coordinated and prepared to carry out a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol. I witnessed insurgents beating police officers with fists, pipes, sticks, bats, metal barricades and flag poles. These criminals came prepared for war. They came with weapons, chemical munitions and explosives. They came with shields, ballistic protection and tactical gear. They came with their own radio system to coordinate the attack, as well as climbing gear and other equipment to defeat the Capitol's security features."

Another law enforcement officer, Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone has gained fame for his condemnation of attempts by some lawmakers to sanitize what happened that day. "It's been very difficult seeing elected officials and other officials kind of whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened," he told CNN's Don Lemon, adding, "I experienced a group of individuals that were trying to kill me to accomplish their goal."

In each of these scenarios, authority for bringing to light what happened and who was responsible rests, paradoxically, with stakeholders whose interests align with suppressing a factual accounting. In Tulsa, city fathers were more concerned with their image than in ensuring justice for the victims. And in Congress, what could be complicit factions among lawmakers are thwarting efforts to ensure transparency in government, a hallmark of a healthy democracy, to maintain power and escape possible criminal prosecution.

Their lust for power is matched by the bloodlust that Mary Parrish saw in the Tulsa mobs. She wrote: "This spirit of destruction, like that of mob violence when it is once kindled, has no measure or bounds."

In a conversation I had with renowned historian Scott Ellsworth, who has been studying and writing about the Tulsa Race Massacre since the 1970s, I recall him using that same word -- bloodlust -- to describe what eyewitnesses said the Tulsa attackers exhibited. That was the motivating force for the murderous mob to organize and resume the attack on Greenwood, deploying the machinery and methods of war. It's what we can see in the eyes of those who marched in Charlottesville, carrying torches and shouting "Jews will not replace us." It's what we can hear in the voices of those screaming as they slammed their bodies and weapons into the US Capitol.

Looking back on the events of 1921 and how we dissect and analyze what happened, it feels strange to think that people 100 years from today will evaluate the way we handled the political turmoil and violence in which we are currently embroiled. Will we demand truth and accountability, or will we accept a watered-down investigation that does not make people answer for potential crimes?

Mary Parrish's warning is clear that failing to hold those responsible for political violence will beget further violence and destruction, perhaps even of democracy itself. I hope that we pass muster.


© Trinity University Press

How my family's memory of the Tulsa massacre sheds new light on Jan. 6 Capitol riot

SOCIAL MEDIA USERS FAKE OUT TRUMP
TikTok users, K-pop fans credited with helping to sabotage Trump rally 
AND MANAGING TO KEEP IT SECRET
The prank proved successful, as Forbes reported attendance was just under 6,200.

NOT THE 400LB GUY ON A COMPUTER

IN HIS MOM'S BASEMENT AS TRUMP ONCE SAID

RATHER GEN Z ON THEIR SMARTPHONES

Reuters•June 21, 2020 By Elizabeth Culliford

(Reuters) - TikTok users and Korean pop music fans are being partly credited for inflating attendance expectations at a less-than-full arena at President Donald Trump's first political rally in months, held in Tulsa on Saturday.

Social media users on different platforms, including the popular video-sharing app TikTok, have claimed in posts and videos that they registered for free tickets to the rally as a prank, with no intention of going.

Prior to the event, Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale said there had been more than one million ticket requests for the event. However, the 19,000-seat BOK Center arena had many empty seats and Trump and Vice President Mike Pence canceled speeches to an expected "overflow" crowd.

The Trump campaign said that the entry was 'first-come-first-served' and that no one was issued an actual ticket.

"Leftists always fool themselves into thinking they're being clever. Registering for a rally only means you’ve RSVPed with a cell phone number," said Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh in a statement to Reuters. "But we thank them for their contact information."

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, responded to a tweet by Parscale blaming the media for discouraging attendees and cited bad behavior by demonstrators outside.

"Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID," she tweeted on Saturday. "KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too," she added.

"My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens," tweeted former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt.

CNN reported on Tuesday that a TikTok video posted by Mary Jo Laupp, a user who uses the hashtag #TikTokGrandma, was helping lead the charge. The video now has more than 700,000 likes.

There were some shouting matches and scuffles outside the event between around 30 Black Lives Matter demonstrators and some Trump supporters waiting to enter. A Reuters reporter saw no sign any Trump supporters were prevented from entering the arena or overflow area.

Trump had brushed aside criticism for his decision to hold the in Tulsa, the site of the country's bloodiest outbreaks of racist violence against Black Americans some 100 years ago.

TikTokers and K-Pop Stans Say They Trolled President Trump's Campaign Rally in Tulsa

They reserved seats for the event and didn't show up.

Jun 21, 2020

President Trump's first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic had far less of a turnout than expected, and a group of TikTok teens and K-Pop stans may have been responsible for the shrunken crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Last week, POTUS bragged on Twitter that nearly one million people requested tickets for Saturday night's rally, but that the arena could only hold 19,000 fans, which lead many to believe the event would be at capacity. However, it appears hundreds of thousands of those RSVP requests were made by TikTokers and fans of Korean pop music who had no intention of showing up, according to The New York Times.



In the days leading up the event, TikTok users made videos encouraging their followers to reserve seats and not attend in an effort to inflate expectations.

"Guys, Donald Trump is having a rally next week and it's free. All you have to do is give your phone number and you can get two tickets, so I got two tickets. But I totally forgot that I have to pick every individual piece of lint off of my room floor and sort them by size, so I can't make it," one TikToker sarcastically said in a clip prior to the rally.

"Oh, well. I already got the tickets and I accidentally just verified it, too. So that means there's going to be at least two empty spots."

RELATED: George Clooney Donates $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative on President Trump's Behalf

A thread of some of the TikTokers/Zoomers who reserved tickets to Trump’s rally to shrink the crowd today in Oklahoma 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/ITz4NAbeTD
— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) June 21, 2020

pic.twitter.com/hgg2JSOuz4
— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) June 21, 2020

pic.twitter.com/tdXrp3K2al
— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) June 21, 2020

The prank proved successful, as Forbes reported attendance was just under 6,200.

Following the event, Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale blamed the low turnout on "radical protestors" who blocked supporters from entering the arena.

Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID

Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ☺️ https://t.co/jGrp5bSZ9T
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

U.S. Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez quickly refuted Parscale's claim, and responded: "Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID."

She added, "Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud." Looks like Trump officially got trolled.

Ocasio-Cortez thanks ‘TikTok teens’ who ‘tricked’ Trump campaign

Published: June 21, 2020 By Shawn Langlois

The upper section of the arena is seen partially empty as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in Tulsa, Oklahoma. GETTY

Kids these days.

Donald Trump’s big campaign rally in Tulsa wasn’t quite as big as promised, with the man leading the president’s re-election efforts explaining away the no-shows.

“Radical protestors, fueled by a week of apocalyptic media coverage, interfered with @realDonaldTrump supporters at the rally,” Brad Parscale explained. “They even blocked access to the metal detectors, preventing people from entering.”

Trump, for his part, took to the stage and backed that assessment, saying the media’s urging of his supporters not to attend on top of the protesters outside kept the crowds away.

“We begin our campaign,” Trump said. “The silent majority is stronger than ever before.”

But New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn’t buying it, and she shared her appreciation with those she believes duped the Trump administration:

Ocasio-Cortz was referring to the teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans who were reportedly behind the “millions” of ticket requests ahead of the event. After the Trump campaign’s official account posted a tweet asking supporters to register for free tickets earlier this month, the youngsters decided to prank the administration by pushing followers to sign up but not show.

If true, it sure seemed to work:

“It spread mostly through Alt TikTok — we kept it on the quiet side where people do pranks and a lot of activism,” YouTuber Elijah Daniel, 26, told the New York Times. “K-pop Twitter and Alt TikTok have a good alliance where they spread information amongst each other very quickly. They all know the algorithms and how they can boost videos to get where they want.”

Daniel, who took part in the prank, said most of the people deleted the evidence after the first day so that the Trump campaign wouldn’t catch wind.

“These kids are smart and they thought of everything,” he said.

Erin Hoffman was one of those “kids,” apparently.

“Trump has been actively trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans in so many ways, and to me, this was the protest I was able to perform,” she told the Times. “He doesn’t deserve the platform he has been given.” Hoffman also persuaded her parents to reserve two tickets.

With all the buzz over the prank, #TikTokTeens was trending on Twitter TWTR, -1.82% Sunday:

Zoomers Boast They Sabotaged Trump Rally Turnout With Fake Reservations

Mary Papenfuss HuffPost•June 21, 2020

Members of Generation Z are claiming on social media that the “Zoomers” are at least partially responsible for a number of empty seats at President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night.

As part of a campaign organized on social media, they reserved masses of tickets to the rally that they had no intention of using.

The rally-busting movement involved young TikTok users and K-Pop fans around the nation, according to the prank participants who posted their (unused) ticket confirmations or commented (and celebrated) online after the rally.
@eggzabeth

##greenscreenvideo IT WORKED ✨🤪🧚🏼‍♀️ ##trump ##trumprally♬ original sound - eggzabeth
@emilysdcp

GO REGISTER! And don’t forget to not show up! Take those seats away! ##trump ##trump2020 ##2020 ##trumprally ##republican ##tulsa JK ##blm ##lgbt ##voteblue♬ original sound - vividdreamergirl
@sawyermcd

Tik tok really did that! A million wasted tickets hahahah ##trumpresign ##fyp ##blm ##joebiden ##trumprally ##tulsa ##okboomer ##bye ##Summer2020 ##xyzbca ##fypp♬ yeeeee - cej2.11

Political strategist Steve Schmidt boasted on Twitter that his daughter and her friends in Park City, Utah, signed up for “hundreds” of free tickets to the rally they had absolutely no intention of attending. “You have been rolled by America’s teens,” Schmidt mocked Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale in a tweet.

My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens. @realDonaldTrump you have been failed by your team. You have been deserted by your faithful. No one likes to root for the losing team. @ProjectLincoln https://t.co/VM5elZ57Qp
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) June 20, 2020

This is what happened tonight. I’m dead serious when I say this. The teens of America have struck a savage blow against @realDonaldTrump. All across America teens ordered tickets to this event. The fools on the campaign bragged about a million tickets. lol. @ProjectLincoln.
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) June 20, 2020

Others responded to Schmidt’s tweets, saying they or their kids had also made fake ticket reservations.

Omg my 13 year old told me about teens getting tickets to keep the stands empty. Man do I love this generation! I am finally getting optimistic about our future.
— BeMerrie (@F2FNetwork) June 20, 2020


My 3 cats each have tickets 👍🏻
— ℍ𝕆𝕃𝕐 𝕊ℂℍℕ𝕀𝕂𝔼𝕊 🏳️‍🌈 (@aWomanResisting) June 20, 2020

The movement appears to have been launched by Mary Jo Laupp, a 51-year-old teacher from Iowa, who had worked on Pete Buttigieg’s campaign, CNN reported. She explained her idea in a TikTok video that had 700,000 likes by late Saturday.

@maryjolaupp
Did you know you can make sure there are empty seats at Trump’s rally? ##BLM.♬ original sound - maryjolaupp




On Saturday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted at Parscale, saying he got “ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign” with fake reservations. The congresswoman also hailed “K-Pop allies,” saying: “We see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice, too.”

She added a “shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud.”

Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID

Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ☺️ https://t.co/jGrp5bSZ9T
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too 😌
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

Trump’s campaign had heard of the plot, but may have misjudged its reach. Erin Perrine, principle deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, told CNN last week it was no big concern.

“Leftists do this all the time,” she said. “They think if they sign up for tickets that will leave empty seats. Not the case at all. Always way more ticket requests than seats available at a rally. All they are doing is giving us access to their contact information.”

Usually, tickets aren’t required for campaign rallies, the campaign told CNN. But the situation was different for the Tulsa event, because reservations included a legal disclaimer that participants wouldn’t sue Trump or the campaign if they contracted COVID-19 at the rally. And without a reservation, there would be no legal waiver for attendees to sign beforehand.

When videos from the event showed huge swathes of empty blue seats at the BOK Center where Trump spoke, which holds 19,000 people, TikTok users were thrilled.



“What did you guys do?” a stunned Laupp asked in a video Saturday after seeing the empty seats. “Like, seriously? Are you kidding me right now?”
@maryjolaupp

##TikTokGrandma ##SpeakUp THANK YOU!!!!!♬ original sound - maryjolaupp
@jilljillsiwa

Reply to @mopedrespecter gen Z and the Kpop army killed it... let’s keep it up! ##genz ##kpop ##ARMY ##generationz ##trumprally ##tulsa ##aoc ##vote ##voteblue♬ We Did It! - Dora The Explorer
@baby.witch.hours

##duet with @orphan_since2017 Awe I’m totally sooo sad 😔😔 ##trump ##makeamericagreatagain ##jkfucktrump ##dumptrump ##trump2020 ##trumprally ##fyp ##foryoupa♬ DONT DO THIS ALL IT DOES IS HELP TRUMP SORRY - orphan_since2017
@simonechalamet

##greenscreen speaks for itself dunnit ##fyp ##trump ##trumprally ##tulsa♬ original sound - emann_hh
@whitepapercupp

I think I’m gonna be sick on this day 😔✋✨ google his Tulsa rally and book your tickets! ##maga ##trump2020 ##donaldtrump ##allbirthdaysmatter♬ Macarena - Bass Bumpers Remix Radio Edit - Los Del Rio

TikTok Teens and K-Pop Stans Say They Sunk Trump Rally

Taylor Lorenz, Kellen Browning and Sheera Frenkel,
The New York Times•June 21, 2020

A Trump supporter sits alone in the top sections of seating at the president's Tulsa rally. (Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s campaign promised huge crowds at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, but it failed to deliver. Hundreds of teenage TikTok users and K-pop fans say they’re at least partially responsible.

Brad Parscale, the chairman of Trump’s reelection campaign, posted on Twitter on Monday that the campaign had fielded more than 1 million ticket requests, but reporters at the event noted the attendance was lower than expected. The campaign also canceled planned events outside the rally for an anticipated overflow crowd that did not materialize.

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said protesters stopped supporters from entering the rally, held at the BOK Center, which has a 19,000-seat capacity. Reporters present said there were few protests.

TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music groups claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Trump’s campaign rally as a prank. After the Trump campaign’s official account @TeamTrump posted a tweet asking supporters to register for free tickets using their phones June 11, K-pop fan accounts began sharing the information with followers, encouraging them to register for the rally — and then not show.

The trend quickly spread on TikTok, where videos with millions of views instructed viewers to do the same, as CNN reported Tuesday. “Oh no. I signed up for a Trump rally, and I can’t go,” one woman joked, along with a fake cough, in a TikTok posted June 15.

Thousands of other users posted similar tweets and videos to TikTok that racked up millions of views. Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“It spread mostly through Alt TikTok — we kept it on the quiet side where people do pranks and a lot of activism,” said YouTuber Elijah Daniel, 26, who participated in the social media campaign. “K-pop, Twitter and Alt TikTok have a good alliance where they spread information amongst each other very quickly. They all know the algorithms and how they can boost videos to get where they want.”

Many users deleted their posts after 24 to 48 hours in order to conceal their plan and keep it from spreading into the mainstream internet. “The majority of people who made them deleted them after the first day because we didn’t want the Trump campaign to catch wind,” Daniel said. “These kids are smart, and they thought of everything.”

Twitter users Saturday night were quick to declare the social media campaign’s victory. “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted in response to Parscale, who had tweeted that “radical protestors” had “interfered” with attendance.

Steve Schmidt, a longtime Republican strategist, added, “The teens of America have struck a savage blow against @realDonaldTrump.”

Mary Jo Laupp, a 51-year-old from Fort Dodge, Iowa, said she had been watching Black TikTok users express their frustration about Trump hosting his rally on Juneteenth, the holiday on June 19. (The rally was later moved to June 20.) She “vented” her own anger in a late-night TikTok video June 11 — and provided a call to action.

“I recommend all of those of us that want to see this 19,000-seat auditorium barely filled or completely empty go reserve tickets now and leave him standing there alone on the stage,” Laupp said in the video.

When she checked her phone the next morning, Laupp said, the video was starting to go viral. It has more than 700,000 likes, she added, and more than 2 million views.

She said she believed that at least 17,000 tickets were accounted for based on comments she received on her TikTok videos but added that people reaching out to her said tens of thousands more had been reserved.

Laupp said she was “overwhelmed” and “stunned” by the possibility that she and the effort she helped inspire might have contributed to the low rally attendance.

“There are teenagers in this country who participated in this little no-show protest, who believe that they can have an impact in their country in the political system even though they’re not old enough to vote right now,” she said.

The effort to deprive Trump of a large crowd spread from Twitter and TikTok across multiple social media platforms, including Instagram and Snapchat.

Erin Hoffman, an 18-year-old from upstate New York, said she heard from a friend on Instagram about the social media campaign. She then spread it herself via her Snapchat story and said friends who saw her post told her they were reserving tickets.

“Trump has been actively trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans in so many ways, and to me, this was the protest I was able to perform,” said Hoffman, who reserved two tickets herself and persuaded one of her parents to nab two more. “He doesn’t deserve the platform he has been given.”

Laupp said that many of the people who shared her video added commentary encouraging people to procure the tickets with fake names and phone numbers. In the comment section under her own video, TikTok users exchanged advice on how to acquire a Google Voice number or another internet-connected phone line.

“We all know the Trump campaign feeds on data; they are constantly mining these rallies for data,” said Laupp, who worked on several rallies for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. “Feeding them false data was a bonus. The data they think they have, the data they are collecting from this rally, isn’t accurate.”

She added that several people who took part in her campaign complained that once they signed up for the rally with their real phone numbers, they couldn’t get the Trump campaign to stop texting them and sending them messages.

Mary Garcia, a 19-year-old student from California, said that she used a Google Voice number to sign up for the rally but that two of her friends who also signed up used their real numbers and had been inundated with texts from the Trump campaign.

Garcia said she decided to sign up on a whim after seeing Laupp’s video, but after she saw the Trump campaign boasting about its record-setting ticket numbers she regretted what she had done.

“I feel like it doesn’t even matter if the rally is full or not,” Garcia said. “They are going to boast about a million tickets being registered, and then they’ll just lie or whatever about how big the audience was.”

K-pop stans have been getting increasingly involved in American politics in recent months. After the Trump campaign solicited messages for the president’s birthday June 8, K-pop stans submitted a stream of prank messages. And earlier in June, when the Dallas Police Department asked citizens to submit videos of suspicious or illegal activity through a dedicated app, K-pop Twitter claimed credit for crashing the app by uploading thousands of “fancam” videos.

They also reclaimed the #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag in May by spamming it with endless K-pop videos in hopes to make it harder for white supremacists and sympathizers to find one another and communicate their messaging.

Whether or not the prank to call in false tickets was the reason for the empty upper rafters at Trump’s rally, teenagers online celebrated. On Twitter, several accounts tweeted, “best senior prank ever.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company