I've seen three documentaries now commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, and I might watch another when it's released on Juneteenth weekend. Besides this one from the History Channel, I also saw CNN's "Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street" and "Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten" form PBS. Predictably, there's a lot of overlap among them. They all frame the history within the recent unearthing of a mass grave where victims of the riot were hidden and the crime covered up. Some of the same historian interviews, archival footage from survivors, bits of news coverage of the mayor and such are repeated across the pictures. There are some illuminating differences among them, as well, though. A point that's mostly left to be attached at the end of this one--the comparison of racism then and now--is more sustained in the PBS doc, for instance, although this one gives more time to the issue of reparations, including showing the mayor being asked about it (as opposed to his more unflinchingly flattering portrayals in the other movies). Meanwhile, the CNN version does well to reflect on racist tropes and the role of cinema itself in race relations, with limited animation sequences recreating scenes from the massacre to tell the story. Where this History Channel one succeeds, perhaps not surprisingly, is in its more thorough depiction of history.
Visually, there's more emphasis on historical photographs. We also hear memoirs from the victims of massacre read. There's more history told regarding African Americans migrating to the West in the hope of escaping racial violence, as well as the freed slaves already living in Oklahoma when it was known as "Indian Territory," before the oil boom attracted white settlers, too, and led to the area becoming a state. Even an anti-lynching advocate like Ida B. Wells is mentioned, as are some of the more prominent members of "Black Wall Street" in the Greenwood District of Tulsa. While the incitement of racial violence of the city's white newspapers is mentioned in the other docs, too, this one does well to also cover the competing narrative of African-American A. J. Smitherman's paper The Tulsa Star.
Most of all, this documentary just does a more thorough job of detailing the events of the massacre, its escalation and the immediate aftermath. The other two, for example, hardly discuss how much of a battle the massacre was, including how black residents and business owners fended off the white mob at first and how the mob was not only deputized but armed by the police, who went so far as to loot gun shops in preparation. Plus, there's the refusal of the white firemen to put out the subsequent fires in Greenwood, and the National Guard being complicit in the torching of a hotel, as well as arresting and putting the blame for the massacre on African Americans, whom they locked up in internment centers with ID cards--only to be released if vouched for by white people. Recent police shootings, such as of Terence Crutcher, and the Black Lives Matter movement is also covered, all of which goes to a central theme of this picture that it, indeed, says their names.
Visually, there's more emphasis on historical photographs. We also hear memoirs from the victims of massacre read. There's more history told regarding African Americans migrating to the West in the hope of escaping racial violence, as well as the freed slaves already living in Oklahoma when it was known as "Indian Territory," before the oil boom attracted white settlers, too, and led to the area becoming a state. Even an anti-lynching advocate like Ida B. Wells is mentioned, as are some of the more prominent members of "Black Wall Street" in the Greenwood District of Tulsa. While the incitement of racial violence of the city's white newspapers is mentioned in the other docs, too, this one does well to also cover the competing narrative of African-American A. J. Smitherman's paper The Tulsa Star.
Most of all, this documentary just does a more thorough job of detailing the events of the massacre, its escalation and the immediate aftermath. The other two, for example, hardly discuss how much of a battle the massacre was, including how black residents and business owners fended off the white mob at first and how the mob was not only deputized but armed by the police, who went so far as to loot gun shops in preparation. Plus, there's the refusal of the white firemen to put out the subsequent fires in Greenwood, and the National Guard being complicit in the torching of a hotel, as well as arresting and putting the blame for the massacre on African Americans, whom they locked up in internment centers with ID cards--only to be released if vouched for by white people. Recent police shootings, such as of Terence Crutcher, and the Black Lives Matter movement is also covered, all of which goes to a central theme of this picture that it, indeed, says their names.
