I am not sure why we all look like we are sleeping in the photo, but I assure you that it was a lively conversation. On Wednesday evening, 16 April 2025, the Mary Jones Parrish Reading Room joined Black Public Media and Trinity University Press in sponsoring a panel discussion on the January 2025 US Department of Justice's Review and Evaluation of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, under the auspices of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent. This year marks the Forum's fourth annual session and took place in New York City from 14-17 April.
A panel of three people who contributed to the DOJ work explained their connection to the report and offered to the audience of over 60 participants their perspectives on the impact and implications of the investigation, now that the report has been filed. Genetic genealogist Lisa Fanning spoke about the DNA analysis that allowed her to help in identifying the remains of an anonymous massacre victim who turned out to be Mr. C.L. Daniel of Georgia -- a World War I veteran buried for over 100 years in an unmarked grave. Author Victor Luckerson described living in Tulsa for five years as he carefully researched the history of Greenwood -- from the beginning through the present -- for the book, Built From the Fire. He helped the audience grasp the institutional nature of the attack versus a narrative of a crazed mob randomly destroying the African American enclave and was the only panelist interviewed by investigators. For my part, I described how I sent my great grandmother's (Mary Jones Parrish) book, The Nation Must Awake, to the Justice Department, which was cited in the report and is part of the permanent Federal record.
The day before, Tuesday, 15 April, I had the opportunity to speak at one of the Forum's plenary sessions, Reparatory Justice for Africa and People of African Descent, where I brought the legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre to the floor, using the occasion of the release of the DOJ's investigative report. I described my connection to the topic and asked that my ancestor, Mary Jones Parrish, be recognized as the first person to capture the oral histories of massacre survivors mere weeks after they endured the worst catastrophe of their lives. She carefully and clandestinely collected their stories and assembled them into a book that was published c. 1923. While history has sought to erase her from the contribution she made, I urged the Forum to support resistance to historical erasure of Black women's contributions to preserving true and accurate history. Here is the text of the speech:
I am here today as a descendant of survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. My name is Anneliese Bruner. For over 100 years, descendants and survivors have sought reparative justice for this crime, which was committed in plain sight and with impunity.
Just this year, the US Department of Justice released the findings of a high-level investigation of what can only be described as a pogrom on American soil, designed to eradicate or displace African Americans from their home in Greenwood in Tulsa. The investigation enters into the Federal record the savage precision of the attack: People were executed with bullets to the back of the head as they were on their knees praying, and weapons of war, like machine guns and airplanes, were deployed against civilians.
As heinous as this was, another atrocity looms on the horizon – the crime of historical erasure. The story of the Tulsa Race Massacre was deliberately suppressed for almost 100 years, with documentation being destroyed and death threats issued to people who dared to ask questions, well into the 1970s. Just as mob violence combined with sophisticated military strategy to bring about Greenwood's destruction, today we face authoritarian regimes who use the threat of military intervention, or worse, to squelch legitimate internal dissent.
Censorship of complete and accurate American history, with threats to teachers' and librarians' livelihoods, harkens back to identifiable, parallel elements of the Tulsa story. My ancestor, Mary Jones Parrish, clandestinely collected oral histories of survivors, in the midst of their grief and
loss, who were brave enough to speak with her. Some would only do so with the guarantee of anonymity. Among the ruins of Greenwood, she collected their stories.
I am here to ensure that the world knows the story of Tulsa and the role that my great grandmother, a brave and intrepid woman who did this work even as she faced her own fears and did her best to shield her young daughter, my 7-year-old grandmother whose trauma trickled down through the generations. They both deserve to be remembered, and Mary Jones Parrish should be recognized for her groundbreaking work that brings to us an inside view of that terrible time. I urge the Forum to support resistance to misogynoir and historical erasure regarding their contributions to true and accurate history.--Anneliese M. Bruner
I am fundraising to support my newly completed screenplay as I submit it to workshop and film optioning opportunities. I would appreciate your help: https://ko-fi.com/anneliesebruner