There are Juneteenth sales, promotions, but no remunerations

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Tulsa serves as ground zero for the rise in awareness of Juneteenth as a holiday – and as a showcase for the issues that continue to plague race relations and economic development in the state of Oklahoma and nationwide.

Even as businesses highlighted Juneteenth sales and promotions and federal employees enjoyed a day off, some note that there still has been no government remuneration for the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.

“America continues its capitalistic drumbeat by discovering, yet again, another way of commoditizing Black culture without cutting the check,” wrote Nehemiah D. Frank, founder and editor-in-chief of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street Times in an editorial published Monday.

Nationwide, major retailers such as Amazon and J.C. Penney highlighted Juneteenth sales. Walmart last month dropped promotion of its new Juneteenth ice cream flavor – swirled red velvet and cheesecake – after the campaign received a flood of negative attention on social media.

In Oklahoma, Tulsa and several other communities held an array of Juneteenth-themed events over the weekend, featuring family-friendly entertainment, food trucks and shopping from local merchants. Edmond’s Heard on Hurd monthly street festival benefited RestoreOKC, a restorative justice organization in Northeast Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City’s Juneteenth on the East celebration, which garnered more than 30 local business sponsors, included a car show and a 5K run.

Tulsa’s Greenwood District hosted three days’ worth of events, with the festival’s website describing the event as “a safe space to exist in the fullest expression of yourself, as a human, free and worthy of the joy of liberation.”

Former President Donald Trump took credit for making Juneteenth “famous” in a Wall Street Journal article published in June 2020. Trump had scheduled a large, indoor rally in Tulsa, originally scheduled for June 19, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged.

Trump rescheduled the rally for June 20, 2020, as criticism sharply mounted for scheduling the rally on Juneteenth at the site of what the nation was just beginning to learn was one of largest incidents of racial violence in American history – the Tulsa Race Massacre, which was gearing up for the 100th anniversary of the event.

Hundreds were killed, thousands displaced and millions of dollars’ worth of property was destroyed in May 1921 as a mob of white Tulsans destroyed what was then the most prosperous Black community in the nation. The event was spoken little of, even in Tulsa, until a state commission to study the event issued its report in 2001 and started a campaign to raise millions for a 100th anniversary commemoration.

Survivors of the massacre declined to attend the event in 2021, when the commission could not reach an agreement with their attorney over how much of the funds raised for the event – used to provide entertainment and create the state-of-the-art Greenwood Rising history center – would be used to recompense survivors and their descendants. Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum has repeatedly stated that race-based reparations is not an avenue the city is pursuing for survivors and descendants.

The 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre coincided with nationwide protests after the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans. President Joe Biden signed the legislation that made Juneteenth a federal holiday in June 2021, shortly after meeting with survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

The events sparked nationwide interest in Juneteenth, which had been celebrated for generations in the Black community. The holiday commemorates the day in 1865 when Gen. Gordon Granger announced in Texas that slavery had been abolished nationwide.

Texas has recognized Juneteenth as a holiday and gave state employees the day off since 1980. As of 2022, 24 states and the District of Columbia give state employees the day off.

Juneteenth is still not a paid holiday for Oklahoma state employees, though Oklahoma was one of the first states to recognize the holiday, in 1994. Some city offices and services in Tulsa and in Oklahoma City were closed Monday in observance of Juneteenth.

In May 2022, a federal court judge ruled a lawsuit filed by the last survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre against the State of Oklahoma and the City of Tulsa can proceed. The lawsuit accuses the government of conspiring with the rioters, calling out the National Guard and deputizing local white citizens to “brutalize and terrorize the African American residents of the Greenwood District.”

“The U.S. continues to owe reparations yet claims the money isn’t there to repair the harm it has and continues to inflict on Black communities like Greenwood,” Frank said. “Meanwhile, out of thin air the U.S. was able to immediately provide billions in aid to Ukraine.

“Communities like Greenwood, which suffered a brutal, unprovoked attack by a neighbor, can empathize with the plight of Ukrainians like few other communities can,” Frank said. “Yet, the aid to the Eastern European Nation shows that what’s preventing reparations to Black people isn’t a lack of funds, it’s simply a lack of empathy and political will.”

Even now, state officials are working against educating school children about what happened in Tulsa in 1921 and the race relations that led to the massacre, Frank said.

On June 17, 2022, state Secretary of Education Ryan Walters, who is running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, published a letter he addressed to the Tulsa Public Schools. In the letter, Walters criticizes the board for “targeting” a board member for diversity, equity and inclusion training.

“Tulsa is a low-performing school district and I am demanding that you stop emphasizing woke policies over student achievement,” Walters wrote.

Tulsa Public Schools responded with a letter stating they will “not limit attendance at our board meetings to exclude people with whom you, we, or anyone else disagrees.”