Matchroom Boxing makes its return to the United States for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic rocked the sporting world with a unique event headlined by undisputed welterweight champion Cecilia Brækhus defending her titles against super lightweight champion Jessica McCaskill in Tulsa, Okla.
While that fight has incredible significance, the real story of the event is that there will be a boxing ring set up at the intersection of E. 5th Street and S. Boston Avenue.
And that location carries historical relevance that cannot be avoided. Especially in the current racial climate of America.
Less than a mile away from where Brækhus and McCaskill will square off is the neighborhood of Greenwood, known affectionately in the early 20th century as “Black Wall Street.” It was a thriving epicenter of African-American business and culture filled with doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, banks and schools.
The neighborhood boasted a prosperous and affluent Black community at a time where racial harmony was nothing more than a dream scenario in a country where the troubling state of race relations was reflected in D.W. Griffith's explicitly offensive 1915 film "Birth of a Nation."
Black Wall Street thrived despite the racial tension in America, to the point that the surrounding white neighborhoods were collectively offended by the idea that a Black community could be more prosperous than their own. But Black Wall Street was the pinnacle of Black excellence.
Unfortunately, “was” is the operative word here because it is also the location where the single worst incident of racial violence in modern American history took place.
The Tulsa Race Massacre.
Our history books and classrooms seldom discuss the massacre that claimed the lives of 300 black residents, injured hundreds more and left thousands homeless as the carnage wiped out 35 city blocks of black-owned homes and businesses.
It all started in 1921 with an incident where Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old African-American shoeshiner, was accused of sexually assaulting Sarah Page, a white elevator operator, at the Drexel Building, which is just a short walk from where tonight’s fight card will take place. The allegations were never been substantiated with any form of proof, but that didn't stop the Tulsa Tribune from publishing a story with the title "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator."
Because of the racially inflammatory report, an angry mob of white residents outside of Greenwood assembled at the Tulsa County Courthouse — a mere quarter mile from where this boxing ring is located — and demanded that Rowland be turned over to them for their own brand of mob justice … lynching.
The mob was met with resistance by the Greenwood community, which took up arms in an effort to defend Rowland from what would have surely ended in tragedy. Despite gunfire and scuffles outside the courthouse, the citizens of Greenwood successfully protected Rowland from being apprehended.
However, this set in motion a truly harrowing scene, with several hundred white Tulsa residents taking their frustrations out on the residents of Greenwood with a 16-hour wave of violence throughout the opulent African-American district.
Businesses and homes were burned to the ground and lives were lost in a senseless and unspeakable act of racial violence.
After nearly a day of uninterrupted rioting, “Black Wall Street” was no more.
The Tulsa Race Massacre is not necessarily the story that America wants to tell, but it has to be told in order to get a better understanding of the racial tension that has plagued this country and continues in 2020 as protests rage on in search of racial equality.
Black Lives Matter isn’t a slogan that suggests Black lives should be treated better than others, it’s one that demands Black lives be treated the same.
It has been nearly a century since the Tulsa Race Massacre, and here we are, still demanding equality. There is still a great deal of work to do in this country to get people to understand that all lives cannot matter until Black ones do.
With tonight’s card featuring a diverse group of individuals, it’s important to remember what happened just a short walk away from where these combatants will ply their craft.
There will be a fight on 5th and Boston, but it will conclude with the combatants showing mutual respect for the individual they shared the ring with, the trainers, the referees and more — regardless of their gender or ethnicity. Just as the Black people in Greenwood showed great human perseverance in its rebuilding stage after the massacre, American society more than ever looks to a future where we can live harmoniously while both acknowledging and appreciating our cultural differences.
We owe this to Tulsa and the legacy of Greenwood.