Friday, May 21, 2021
‘People want to know about Black Wall Street’ Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell shares his thoughts on the Tulsa Race Massacre
TENTH in a series
Ryan Novozinsky Editor-in-Chief
“Greenwood Here and Now” is a project by The O’Colly Media Group that highlights the tragedy and triumph of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, 100 years after the Tulsa race massacre.
As the state’s first ever director of tourism, Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell has a good pulse on when people are coming to visit Oklahoma. From Pinnell’s perspective, there will be a boom of visitors to Oklahoma this summer be-
cause of one main reason: the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. “The race massacre museum that’s going to be open this year, it will probably be the most talked about new museum in the country,” Pinnell said. Pinnell is referring to the new state-ofthe-art history center in Tulsa called “Greenwood Rising,” which opens in the summer of 2021. The museum was built by the Tulsa Race Massacre See Wall Street on pg.3
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Some OSU students welcome an increase to the minimum wage.
Raise the wage? OSU students weigh in on potential minimum wage bump Ellie Melero Staff Reporter In the United States, debate rages on whether the minimum wage is a livable wage. In Stillwater, a college town where many students rely on minimum-wage jobs to get by, many workers and some business owners say it’s time for a pay raise. Balancing the books on minimum wage can be difficult, particularly for students. Savannah Basco, a student at Oklahoma State University, works two jobs to support herself
while going to school, and she said she fully supports raising the minimum wage. “I think, for the most part, (the current minimum wage) is unrealistic,” Basco said. “My cost of living is really cheap compared to other places in the country, and I still struggle to make ends meet with two jobs. So, thinking about other students who have higher rent and are making $7.25, I just don’t see how it’s possible.” The minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour, and it hasn’t gone up since 2009, although the number of workers who actually make the minimum continues to
decline, to 2.3 percent of all workers in data released from 2017. President Joe Biden made a campaign promise to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, however the Senate removed the measure to raise the minimum wage from the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill Biden signed March 10. The debate hasn’t gone away. Basco works as a barista at Aspen Coffee Co. and makes minimum wage. She has the opportunity to make more through tips, but she said tips are inconsistent and vary wildly. That’s why she has a second job at Tropical Smoothie Café. Basco works 25 hours per week
at Aspen and 15 hours per week at Tropical Smoothie on top of her school responsibilities. She said her workload has made it difficult to focus on classes and assignments, which is why she decided to take this semester as a “break semester” and enrolled in only one class. She said a higher minimum wage would help, and she said she hopes Congress revisits the issue soon. “I think (Congress) should keep in mind the people that are actually working these jobs,” Basco said. “A lot of (Congress members) probably See Wage on pg.2