Tulsa 1921
Tulsa 1921
by Richard Hamilton
Fireballs rained down from the sky, according
to several eyewitness accounts.
Aerial attacks foreshadowed the 1985 MOVE
bombing in Philadelphia, except the victims.
Media loved the children so, it could not bear
seeing kids raised like beating hooves,
naked limbs galloping in the front yard. Is
that why we bombed the fuck out of them?
Feral, obsessive compulsions with fledgling
colts not human impulses wealthy or worthy
of de-escalation, we murdered. Eclipsed.
Should not a tally of Tulsan deaths that day,
an estimated 300 include
what precipitated the massacre, moments
leading up to the event?
Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old black shoe
shiner accused of raping a white woman.
Eclipsed.
Bankers, not porters. Lawyers, not janitors.
Owners, not farmers. Not the indigenous
Muscogee (Creek) Indians we remember,
their forced removal.