THE Tom Hanks wrote an essay on the 100th anniversary of the racial massacre in Tulsa, saying American schools are not doing enough to teach students the facts. The massacre took place in the city of Oklahoma on May 31-June 1, 1921, with 300 black Americans dead. In his New York Times essay, Tom Hanks states that he and many others had not learned of the massacre in school and that instead of these issues, American History lessons were devoted to topics such as how the British Stamp Act contributed to the protests of Boston Tea Party, the forerunner of the American Revolution.
“In all my school years, I never read a page in a history textbook about how, in 1921, a crowd of white people burned an area called Black Wall Street, killed up to 300 of its black citizens, and displaced thousands of black Americans. who lived in Tulsa “writes the American actor and director. “My experience was shared: History was written mostly by whites for whites like me, while the history of blacks – including the atrocities in Tulsa – was often left out. “Until relatively recently, the entertainment industry, which helps shape what is history and what has been forgotten, has done the same.”
Tom Hanks suggests that the massacre was probably ignored by schools “because it was seen as a very honest, very painful lesson for our little white ears” and wonders how different perceptions would have been if taught to children. Praising the recent depictions of the massacre on the TV series Watchmen and Lovecraft Country, the actor said it was time for the story to be shared in schools. “Should our schools now teach the truth about Tulsa? “Yes, and they should also stop fighting to embellish their curricula to avoid annoying students,” he wrote.
The history of America is difficult but knowing this makes us wiser and stronger people. “1921 is the truth, a gateway to our common, paradoxical history,” he emphasizes. Last week, Joe Biden became the first US president to visit the site of the massacre, urging Americans to be honest about what happened 100 years ago.
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