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Greenwood

from May Day by David Rovics

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Written on the centenary of the American pogrom known as the Tulsa Race Massacre.

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Greenwood

If you go to Tulsa today, in Greenwood you'll find a plaque
A paragraph remembering when the neighborhood was Black
It had been Indian Territory up til the Trail of Tears
Then the government said it was part of the frontier
People went to many places in the Great Migration
They fled, and crossed the nation

Some went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the dusty winds blow
Where the pogrom was, a hundred years ago

When America was settled they gave the settlers guns
Collect the scalps and bounties, that's how the west was won
And if a settler was slighted, there was little doubt
It was the duty of a white man to wipe them out
And when the World War was over, for the surviving traumatized
Unemployment and media lies Back in Tulsa...

Thousands gathered, ready for war
Nothing like the one they'd fought before
In this one the shots all went one way
Planes dropped explosives, like a World War play
Except the bombs and guns were very real
So many lives lost, that are never going to heal In Tulsa...

Insurance claims ignored, survivors interned
After thirty blocks had burned
To make sure to erase any memory
When the highway came, it went through Greenwood city
Still no reparations for all the property taken
No justice for all of those lives forsaken

In Tulsa...

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from May Day, released August 26, 2021

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David Rovics Portland, Oregon

Singer/songwriter, writer, podcaster (on Spotify, Substack & Patreon), anarchist, dad, lover of life.

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