Some people had not really heard of this story until they were adults. In fact, the details of what happened are still being thought through today! Bodies were thrown in rivers, bodies in graves - In short, it was a mess. Let’s see what really happened. Let’s start with some background knowledge: One day back in 1921 a neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, named Greenwood district, was thriving of Black-owned businesses. People back then even called it a “Golden Age”! But, as great as it sounds, something went wrong. The “KKK” (Ku KLux Klan) was very active at the time in Oklahoma and the nation just went through something else called the “Red Summer of 1919” (when mobs of white people murdered black people in dozens of casualties). Now let’s see how this massacre started, shall we? There were two teenagers involved in the incident, 17 year old Sarah Page (white, elevator operator at Dextel Building) and 19 year old Dick Rowland (black, showshiner). So, Rowland went into the Dextel Building, boarded the elevator, something happened (we don’t know yet) and Page screamed. They both ran out of the elevator. Nobody knows what happened in the elevator but later Rowland was arrested because a local newspaper article claimed that Rowland had assaulted Page. Page refused to press charges and so a white mob formed and gathered on the lawn of the courthouse. Since Rowland was in jail on the top floor, several black men (some armed) marched down there  to protect him. Then there was a struggle between one of the black men from one group and one of the white men from the other. So, obviously, things escalated. Hundreds of armed, white people descended onto Black Wall Street while black residents retreated behind the railroad tracks. Some of the black residents were armed and fought back but were outnumbered. The white mob looted, set fire, and killed that day.. For TWO whole days, Greenwood district burned and in ruins with more than 1200 homes and 35 blocks burned. The exact number of casualties is hard to pin down while different people said different things. The people that survived had to live in tents for multiple months. This story's not finished yet. After the massacre, the cover up started within the media. Pictures from the massacre are now kept in safe places since people thought of those as an example of “White Supremacist” Culture. Don’t worry though, Greenwood got rebuilt, eventually. Oh! And there’s one fun fact about the whole story (it’s not actually fun); Nobody knows where the bodies of the victims are. 

And there you have it. That was my summary of the Tulsa Massacre.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ItsPBTFO0

Wells was also a leader in anti- lynching. This was due to a traumatic experience of seeing one of her friends lynched. She posted an article about the friend of hers and the 2 other African Americans getting lynched and was met with backlash from a white mob. Fortunately she wasn’t there but she was warned to leave out of town and stop printing her papers. As a result she fled to New York and was hired by a new newspaper page. She lead the first anti-lynching campaign which became a major priority for the NAACP, black women’s clubs and other civil rights organizations. Ida B. Wells was an amazing activist and journalist who brought attention to very important issues. 

In 1854 there were two democratic parties that divided the United States, the Whigs and the Democrats. The Democrats were increasingly pro-slavery, but the Whigs were conflicted about the issue. They were afraid that an already growing number of slave states would mean that the power of slave states and the demoocratic party would grow as well. This would hurt free white workers economically, so in 1854 the country is debating weather the territories of Kansas and Nebraska should allow slavery. In this the Whigs disagree and the party collapses entirely leaving only the Democrats in its wake.  Later however the former Whigs form a new party, on better then the one previously formed, this party would be created to fight against slavery in the south, they called it the republican party. By 1860 the republican party had become so powerful that a Republican president emerged, Abraham Lincoln. The south had been very skeptical of Lincoln’s intentions on how he would deal with slavery, so mush so that they decided to secede from the U.S. and create their own country forming the ‘Confederate States of America’. The response of the U.S. is calm, however the Confederacy wanted no part in the U.S. and they decided to fight to be recognized as an independent nation. With this decision the Civil War breaks out between the Confederacy and the newly named Union (United States). The Union however pulls off the victory for the United States and as a result of the war slavery is abolished as a whole in the entire United States, which was only a mere stratagey used by Lincoln to win the war. The country although reunited is still divided and after Lincoln’s assination, reconstruction was the biggest concern. In 1866 the 14th and 15th amendments were passed which almost ensured that the recently freed African American men were treated equally. However during the war the Republican party began to change, the republicans grew rich with war spending and became more concerned with money then what they were fighting for. They didn’t think that it would bring them enough power if they fought for black rights, all this while the south continued to fight back against equal rights. Republicans grew tired of helping freedmen and thought that they’d done enough for the cause. In 1870 the party practically gave up on reforming the south. Republicans became known as the party of ‘big business’ this turns out to be great for the economy and the republicans themselves. Until in 1929 when the economy crashed and the great depression set in, this is when the Democratic party sweeps in and expands the federal government, involved in this were men like Franklin D. Roosevelt, among other democrats. Now the two parties were known as ‘big business’ and ‘big government’ both of which opposed each other. In the 60’s and 70’s the civil rights movement began and race played an even bigger part in American society. In this civil rights debate and in the midst of all of the fighting president, Linden Johnson, a democrat, signed the civil rights act into law, and it's the republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, who opposes this bill arguing that it expands government power too much. A sudden shift takes place and the black voters who were in the republican party convert to the democratic party, some of which were already there. White voters who were previously democrats are now republicans as they begin to heavily resent the big government for its interference in civil rights. The south begins to find its grounds to be mostly republican and the north democratic. As the 2000’s began another controversial occurrence begins in the United States, Hispanic emigration is the republicans growing concern. As the growing concern on the republican side of the U.S. grows more by the day, they become anti-immigration. (Remember these are the same people who were anti-black). The democratic party becomes pro-immigration. As the Republicans begin to fall two republican supreme court members cause an under due revival for the republican party. Donald Trump and a businessman who promises to build a wall to keep immigrants out gets elected due to the newly gained support of the republican party, the big business party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8VOM8ET1WU

Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmt6hK4Y4sU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW6EQ7QkCC8&t=477s