Tulsa (Black Wall Street Massacre 1921) Poem by THEODORE MOSLEY

History told us nothing about this history of slaughter as two lives changed the course of history.

Shining shoes for wages of the day and now he is faced with a war waged on the color of his skin.

Dick Rowland was nineteen and black when he stumbled; Sarah Page was seventeen and white when she screamed.

Tulsa Black Wall Street Massacre began with colors of rage, ignited into hopes of extinction of our lives.

While balancing himself bodies touched without warning, a scream was made and panic ensued.

Running from the building for protection of his life, the ox bow incident came alive with open racism.

Who would believe an elevator ride to a segregated restroom they appointed for us would be a war cry.

They said I assaulted Sarah Page on my journey to coloreds only for relief of my water of the day.

News of my desire for the white girl of only seventeen years old became our national anthem for killing.

Arrested and scared my soul reached to the epitome of time when they said a black man child is born.

Armed with freedom of rights to bear arms, solidarity crusaded for our brother for due process.

Inferior because of his skin color their actions sound the charge of civil unrest and dreams were abolished.

Caged and shackled in his mind, he reached for his mother's voice and heard lynch him for his sin of life.

Tulsa Black Wall Street Massacre engulfed "Greenwood" with bombs of fires and bullets of no return.

Shouts of burn them alive were sung as they campaigned for more bodies to be buried alive in torment.

Shifting from the corner of death row, they ascended to the corner of willing to kill them when they appeared.

Tulsa Black Wall Street Massacre burned with white pride as they descended into obscurity.

Fires of shattered dreams that housed hospitals, schools and banks that our hands of skill erected.

What flourished like Wall Street NY are now ashes of death surrounded by eyes of hatred in the night.

Children of preparation of time to come surrendered their smiles on the hands that nourished them.

Tulsa Black Wall Street Massacre created in dreams of chaos and founded on destruction for our end.

Sixteen hours of hurricane winds of hatred foretold the whirlwinds of their truth within our souls.

Presidents, engineers and CEO's were drafted into the night of hell as they conducted raids on their flesh.

When education was a death sentence for the men and women of color, we build and chaired banks.

We were seen as cotton pickers for life, we picked the national landmark for our schools to stand upon.

Degraded and worthless in the eyes of our captors we became self-made millionaires with time.

Tulsa Black Wall Street Massacre gave us black history of living in 1921 Greenwood Oklahoma.


Written by Theodore Mosley
May 14,2015