This episode is being recorded on May 30, 2019.  It is a special edition episode that is part history, part imaginal prayer, part generational healing, part reminder of the violence that man is capable when we veer too far away from the commandment to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole mind and to love your neighbor as yourself.  It is not meant to rationalize or explain away the horrible actions of white mobs, nor is it meant to diminish in anyway the haunting horrible effects their actions had on those days.  It is an event that occurred in my home city nearly 50 years before I was born and it's aftermath haunts the residents of that city and of our nation to this day.  The purpose of this imaginal prayer exercise is recall that tragic and violent event and pray for healing of the city and nation it occurred in, for healing of the victims, for healing of the perpetrators and for healing of the racial tensions still festered and harbored below the surface by many in our country who are European American, African American, Latin American, and Native American.  On this date 98 years ago in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the history of the United States was about to erupt.  On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young black man named Dick Rowland was riding in the elevator of the Drexel Building at Third and Main with a 17 year old white elevator attendant named Sarah Page.  The details of what occurred are not certain.  Sarah Page screamed and Dick Rowland was seen running from the elevator.  Police were called, Rowland was accused of assault.  Newspaper accounts spread news of the suspected assault of a white girl by a black man. The Tulsa Tribune — the evening newspaper int he city — printed an editorial to "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl on Elevator". By the next day, May 31, Rowland was arrested and taken into custody.  Whites gathered around the courthouse which led to fears he'd be lynched.  Alarmed, some of the local black population gathered at the courthouse too, some armed.  Shots were fired.  12 people were killed.  The mobs dispersed — the black community members went back to the Greenwood District where most of the black community in Tulsa lived at the time.  The Greenwood District was a prosperous black business area.  Booker T. Washington dubbed it the "black Wall Street." In the early hours of June 1, 1921 a white mob retaliated by invading the Greenwood District looting and burning the district destroying many of the businesses, homes, and buildings in the area.  The racial massacre lasted for over 16 hours and in the end some 40 city blocks of buildings and homes had been destroyed, the "official" death toll was reported to be 36 killed — now believed to be closer to 300 black people killed, 10,000 black citizens of Tulsa left homeless. No rioters were ever charged.  Dick Rowland was never charged for the incident in the elevator.   It was a dark moment in the city of Tulsa, and our country for that matter, that was rarely discussed or taught in the schools.  Growing up and being educated in the Tulsa Public Schools, what little was discussed about the worst racial violence in our country was described as a "race riot" with little details save for the description of the incident in the elevator and a high level discussion of what ensued.  Today, we know that it was described as a "race riot" because a riot was one of the few clauses in most insurance policies at the time where the insurance company did not have to pay on claims involving a riot.  None of the black owned businesses ever received compensation for any claims maid against their insurance during the incident. The light of truth shines today as we now know it was not a "race riot", but thanks to historians and activists who have helped us identify it for what it was a "race massacre." In recent years there has been much talk about reparations.  I don't know how reparations could ever truly be made for the utter violence and destruction that occurred at the hands of angry white mobs.  I do know that God's grace, God's love, God's light and truth heals. I thought an imaginal prayer exercise remembering those involved, those who witnessed it, the victims, the violent mobs, and all their descendants left to make sense of the violent massacre and destruction and loss was in order. This imaginal prayer exercise will be holding all of the above — living and deceased — in Divine Light and love with the intention of healing all involved and impacted by the events and seeking to eradicate in our imaginal prayer such racially violent energy and desires from taking hold of men again. 

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