Had you heard of The Tulsa Massacre before it was featured in the TV series Watchmen?

43 comments

  3. I (M48) never heard of the Tulsa Massacre until my kids took “The African American Experience” class in high school a few years ago.

    I have a feeling there is a lot of history I was never taught, so I’m trying to catch up on things now.

  6. Yes, I didn’t learn about it from Watchmen.

    I was an adult though, on Reddit. Within the last 10 years.

  8. Yes I had, but not until well into adulthood. I also feel that in this case, reparations are long overdue for the victims and their families.

  9. Yeah, it was covered in school along with other topics regarding civil rights. The similar situation I learned about much later was why Denver doesn’t have a Chinatown; a riot destroyed it and drove out the Chinese immigrants.

  11. There’s a memorial in Tulsa if you ever find yourself out that way.

    I will admit I learned about it as an adult though, but not from Watchmen. Made a point to visit the memorial when I passed through Tulsa a while back.

  12. I’ve never even heard of the show watchmen, and have known about the Tulsa race massacre for a very long time.

    Black wall street was a big deal, and to have people just demolish it in a racist hateful way is just so wrong.

    Its another example of how and why generational racism is an actual thing and how it becomes systemic

  16. I’m not sure I had.

    I knew about it by the time I got around to watching the show, but I think I first heard about it around the time the show came out.

  17. Yeah, it was called the Tulsa Race Riots back in the day, but recently changed to Tulsa Massacre as the former term was pretty whitewashey

  20. Yeah, I grew up in the Tulsa area, it along with the trail of tears was taught in I wanna say 8th grade, where those two topics outside of Oklahoma probably are glossed over quick if even at all.

  21. Never watched the show, learned about it in my 20s but don’t remember from where.

    Maybe there was a paragraph or two in a textbook, but I don’t remember there being any significant time devoted to the post WW1 race riots when I was in school. Tulsa seems to be getting the attention it deserves, but I don’t think it’s led to a wider understanding of all that happened in the post war years.

  22. Yes, and FWIW I’ve never seen Watchmen or knew it was referenced in the show.

    Now, the question is why so many folks got it via that route and then that was that? Was their intellectual curiosity piqued about what else they were ignorant of? Will they need to be featured in a fictional series before folks learn about the Rosewood Massacre and others?

  24. Native Okie here. It was taught as the Tulsa Race Riot at the time.

    Our school went very in depth about how the whites were the cause of the problem,

    and all of the killings, fire bombings and the first supposed use of airplanes to bomb the black neighborhood. We also studied the cover up by the state government and how the native tribes of the area helped saved a lot of the black refugees, and buried the bodies that were dumped into the river.

  27. No. I was 30 years old and completely shocked and disgusted to find out it was a real thing.

  28. Yeah, we covered it in high school history in a general lesson about racism in the US. Dark times.

  29. Yeah, I learned about it in high school, then learned more in-depth about it in college.

  30. No. When I saw that scene, I dismissed it as fiction- “Fucking *Tulsa*? Did they just pick a random city on a map!?” But lo and behold, not only was there a race massacre, but a massacre of the most affluent black community at the time.

    (I wasn’t surprised at a race massacre in 1920, but that Tulsa, Oklahoma of all places had a significant black community).

    The prior year’s Chicago Race Riot was known to me through school and family history: my great-grandfather relocated his new family to Michigan in its aftermath.

  31. Yes (and I didn’t see that show), but I admit to not having in-depth knowledge, and I don’t think it was mentioned in my high school US history class. Not sure what it was about the US in the years immediately after WWI and the Spanish Flu, but we seem to have collectively lost our minds. Labor and race riots, the first Red Scare, immigration restrictions, Prohibition, the rebirth of the KKK, etc.

  34. Seems like there aren’t too many people willing to comment on the internet to say they didn’t know something by the looks of it, so I’ll be the first to say:

    No, I hadn’t heard of it, and had to look up more information on it after watching the show. I was surprised I hadn’t heard of it before, but not shocked that the powers that be would want to try to erase it from the curriculum.

  35. Yes. My mom made sure my siblings and I were well versed on Black History so I read about it as a kid.

  36. I guess I’m the odd one out because I had not heard of it and originally thought it was something dramatized for that show. It was not something taught in any of the U.S. History courses I’ve taken, and I’ve taken quite a few between my K-12 and college years.

  37. Yup

    Elaine Massacre, the Atlanta race riot of 1906 or Ocoee, not so much

    Growing up in Alabama, I had thought it was one of the states with the worst record for this kind of thing, but it’s surprisingly low considering where it is (lynching numbers are bad in AL, but surprisingly pale compared to LA/MS/GA by a decent margin. Add in FL if you do by per black pop in state). Knowing Alabama’s history is bad as it is, but then learning that’s its actually not as bad it really got was honestly shocking.

  38. Yes, I learned about it years ago but not in school. Interesting bit, the state official in charge of Oklahoma’s schools instructed teachers to teach that the Tulsa Massacre *was not about race.* The single worst incident of racial violence in American histor*y.*

  40. No. I learned about it roughly 10 years ago because I stumbled upon an article. This wasn’t a topic talked about in school and I doubt many would know if I brought it up. 2oth century history wasn’t taught, in depth in any school I was in beyond economics of the 20’s, Ellis Island, the crash of 29. Then a small amount of WW2, which was heavily glanced over and focused on countries themselves, and we were supposed to learn about the holocaust but I think they were scared to teach much about it. I do know a large amount of USSR geography though, I guess they thought that was more important. So glad I liked to read and watch documentaries.

  41. Not only had I not heard about it but didn’t realize it was real. I at first assumed it was part of an alternate history in the watchmen universe and only after looking into it realized it was an actual event in our own very real history.

  43. Yes, but I’m a black American and we talk about these things in our community.

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