ARE YOUR QUESTIONS BEING ANSWERED? Listening to the Ancestors with Artist Yielbonzie Charles Johnson by Ayanna Najuma
Yielbonzie Charles Johnson,Greenwood Rising - Variations on a Theme
Who is prepared to tell the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the mass graves, the destruction of property and most of all to express the fear associated with reparations? This is a question that artist, pastor, and community organizer Yielbonzie Charles Johnson continues to ask.
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Twenty years ago this horrific event started to creep into the newspapers and was discussed over cocktails. Believe it or not, this event was not published in Oklahoma history books and even today a curriculum is not presented to students. Johnson believes that there is a level of mystery preventing the residents in Tulsa today
from being able to accept the truth surrounding this historic event. Many African Americans settled in Tulsa prior to Oklahoma becoming a state in 1907. By 1921, because of the law and white racism, the African American residents were compelled to
