The Critical Next Steps in Tulsa’s Mass Graves Search
runitback.substack.com
Welcome to the first edition of Run It Back, my biweekly newsletter about neglected black history. For the foreseeable future the newsletter will be focused on Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, which I’m currently writing a book about for Random House. Not far from Greenwood, beneath a large oak tree still brilliantly green in the drab cold of November, I first came upon the graves of Eddie Lockard and Reuben Everett. Their tombstones are modest but resilient, with their shared death date still clearly legible: June 1, 1921. Before that day Reuben was a bricklayer who lived on Archer Street in the heart of Greenwood. Eddie was a member of the Odd Fellows fraternal order and likely a waiter at a restaurant owned by his brother. These men could have lived long and anonymous lives; instead they died as horrific history unfolded. It’s the least we can do to remember them, and the many other victims of the Tulsa race massacre whose names have been lost because they never received a proper burial.
The Critical Next Steps in Tulsa’s Mass Graves Search
The Critical Next Steps in Tulsa’s Mass…
The Critical Next Steps in Tulsa’s Mass Graves Search
Welcome to the first edition of Run It Back, my biweekly newsletter about neglected black history. For the foreseeable future the newsletter will be focused on Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, which I’m currently writing a book about for Random House. Not far from Greenwood, beneath a large oak tree still brilliantly green in the drab cold of November, I first came upon the graves of Eddie Lockard and Reuben Everett. Their tombstones are modest but resilient, with their shared death date still clearly legible: June 1, 1921. Before that day Reuben was a bricklayer who lived on Archer Street in the heart of Greenwood. Eddie was a member of the Odd Fellows fraternal order and likely a waiter at a restaurant owned by his brother. These men could have lived long and anonymous lives; instead they died as horrific history unfolded. It’s the least we can do to remember them, and the many other victims of the Tulsa race massacre whose names have been lost because they never received a proper burial.