Don't Go Back to Normal
When I moved out to Tulsa, Oklahoma I got some tourism and history books to learn a bit more about the city and state that I was going to be calling home. Through this deep dive into Tulsa and Oklahoma history, I learned about the oil businesses, Route 66, tornadoes, Native American reservations and laws, the numerous lakes, delicious BBQ, and the unique landscapes offered in this state. My current congregation - Boston Avenue UMC - was even featured in the tour guides as a piece of 1920s Art Deco architecture and a place that should not be missed!
You know what was missed in all of those books? The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
Unfortunately I was not alone in not knowing of this history. My husband, a good ole Okie from Muskogee, was never taught about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in school and only heard about it in a college class. It's not in the Oklahoma history books and is only brought up for a teacher's prerogative.
However, Black Tulsans know the history. Black Tulsans live with the communal trauma that has passed down - a trauma that is unable to properly grieve the dead as mass grave sites are unknown, a trauma that is unable to move forward as reparations have never been paid, a trauma that has triggering cycles as a baseball field is constructed over what used to be Black Wall Street and a highway connector prohibits growth for the community.
One building remains from the destruction. Historic Vernon AME Church was just beginning to build its new congregation when the 1921 Race Massacre destroyed their community. The basement alone survived...a place that held families and kept them safe from the flying bullets, angry fists, raging fires and dropping bombs. When the pastor, Rev. Dr. Robert Turner, came to share a bit of history about the Tulsa Race Massacre with our congregation, he spoke painful words to our mostly white congregation. "After all of the destruction, after all of the bombs and bullets and death and fear...we had to rebuild. But you know what? Not a single white hand hammered in a nail. Not a single white dollar passed through our doors. Not a single white person journeyed with us."
This is our history...but it doesn't have to be our future. Our nation is in a movement of awareness right now around racial injustices, around the institutions that are built to favor whites, around the ways that being Black leads towards discrimination and death. Our United Methodist Church has not always had the best record in racial relations and inclusion. My congregation was a Methodist Episcopal Church South - and responded to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre with words from the pulpit that placed blame on the Black community and increased the fear in white hearts. We were wrong. We must repent. We must change, remove the sin of racism from our hearts, and journey with our Black neighbors.
In the midst of COVID-19, I hear the phrase over and over again, "I just want to return to normal." Normal though is a place of racism and homophobia and discrimination and the inability to see the image of God in all creation. Let's not go back - but instead let's move forward, out of the ashes, into the new movement that sprouts up among us! Can you see it? Do you hear God calling you? I invite you to continue to watch what's happening in the world, stay in spaces of discomfort and challenge, pray for repentance and healing and then act. Let's create with God a world where all are affirmed as beloved children of God!
Rev. Sara Pugh Montgomery is one of the pastors at Boston Avenue UMC in downtown Tulsa, OK. She is a Candler School of Theology grad and was ordained at the Virginia Annual Conference in 2013. Sara is married to Larry and together they have a stepson in college (Ethan), a rambunctious toddler (Ruth) and infant twins (Millie and Olive).