oklahoma
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Former Pro Football Player and Republican Congressman J.C. Watts Spearheads First Black News Channel, Launching Nationally This Week
Did it really take a former Republican congressman to finally launch the first black news network? Apparently so. He’s a former professional football player, too. If that matters. The groundbreaking Black News Channel — the same one that The Root’s very own Michael Harriot wrote “looks pretty conservative” last year — will finally hit television…
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Rebuilding Black Wall Street: Tulsa Advocates Fundraise to Bring Greenwood Back to Its Glory
The Greenwood Chamber of Commerce kicked off a major fundraising effort to rebuild Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood commercial district, the home of Black Wall Street, last week. The group is seeking $1 million in donations to rebuild the site, which was destroyed by white supremacists in 1921 in one of the bloodiest racist massacres in U.S.…
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Scientists Say They’ve Found Possible Evidence of Mass Graves From 1921 Tulsa Massacre
Forensic archaeologists in Tulsa, Okla., appear one step closer to identifying the site where hundreds of black residents were buried after the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, considered one of the worst episodes of white supremacist violence in U.S. history. A team of scientists announced at a public forum Monday night that they found “anomalies … consistent…
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Hell Houses Have No Place in Christianity
When I was 10, I was forced to give my life to Christ. As a kid, my mother was a devoutly religious woman (she would not even let me dress up for Halloween), so I was shocked when she told me I was going to go to what she called a “Hell House.” I was…
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Nearly 100 Years Later, Tulsa Begins Search for Mass Graves From 1921 Black Wall Street Massacre
A few blocks away from Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood sits the city’s oldest existing cemetery, Oaklawn. On Monday, scientists and forensic anthropologists scoured the cemetery with ground-penetrating radar, looking for signs of a mass grave that could hold the remains of hundreds of black residents killed during the 1921 Tulsa massacre. As the 100-year anniversary of…
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Strangers Chip In When Oklahoma Mom Who Got 12 Years for Selling $30 Worth of Weed Is Tossed in Jail Again When She Can’t Pay Court Fees
Years after an Oklahoma mom was released from prison after being handed a 12-year sentence for making $30 in weed sales, she landed in jail again for not paying court costs related to the case. Luckily for Patricia Spottedcrow, strangers learning of her plight chipped in to pay the $1,139.90 in court costs she still…
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White News Anchor Keeps Job After Comparing Black Co-Anchor to a Gorilla: ‘He Kinda Looks Like You’
In the long list of things to never say to a black person, right before, “No, you can’t have more napkins” you’ll find comparing us to a primate right up there. Yet despite this longstanding edict, KOCO anchor Alex Housden decided to risk life and limb by uttering the following: During a segment about a…
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Woman Who Shows Her Entire Ass During a Traffic Stop Lives to Tell the Tale; Guess on Which Side of the Racial Divide She Resides?
A woman in Oklahoma repeatedly refused being given a traffic ticket, authorities say, apparently going so far as to kick the cop and get herself shocked with a Taser. Given the tragic ending of so many police encounters in this nation (read: Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, and Alton Sterling), you can probably guess how this…
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Police Confront Robbery Suspect in Texas, Shoot Three Children
Three children, aged five, four and one years old, were taken to a Tulsa, Okla.-area hospital after a police officer fired at a robbery suspect in a pickup truck. Their injuries are considered non-life-threatening, according to WKRG. Though authorities did not immediately release the ages or conditions of the children, Olivia Hill told Texas news…