In order for our society to secure a more just, harmonious and peaceful future, there is perhaps no endeavor more important than a compassionate and honest accounting of our past. Tulsa mayor G.T. Bynum reopened an important effort on that front this week, with attempts to locate and excavate the unmarked graves of victims from … Continue reading Truth, reconciliation and digging up the ugliness of our past
Race Relations
King’s struggle remains relevant
America paused Wednesday to remember Martin Luther King Jr. on the 50th anniversary of his assassination. It’s good to honor MLK. But, too often, we confine him to sentimental memory. A great man, dead too soon. With our obligatory honor paid, we box up the injustices against which Dr. King fought, and file them away … Continue reading King’s struggle remains relevant
Living memories of segregation
This is the first installment of an ongoing series about school segregation and integration in Oklahoma 60 years after the Little Rock Nine. Interviews for this week’s articles began on Aug. 11, one day before the Aug. 12 white supremacist marches in Charlottesville, Va. ENID, Okla. — At the corner of South Fifth and East York, … Continue reading Living memories of segregation
Not much has changed
"Not much has changed." Those were the words yesterday of a 73 year-old museum curator and Black Indian activist I was interviewing when I asked her how much, in her estimation, had race relations changed since her childhood in the 40s and 50s. She grew up in a segregated school system, in a race-zoned … Continue reading Not much has changed
James R. Neal 