Russell Westbrook may no longer play for Sam Presti and the Thunder, but he’s still giving the State of Oklahoma a huge assist.
As the NBA’s return inches forward, 15 days after the death of George Floyd, much of the conversation in professional sports revolves around race relations, police brutality impacting the black community and reform.
One other item that has been discussed has been the Tulsa race massacre.
In 1921, between May 31 and June 1, in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, white residents attacked the neighborhood which had become known as “Black Wall Street” due to its concentration of wealthy black residents and prosperous black-owned businesses.
The violence was believed to have begun due to a conflict between a black man, 19-year-old Dick Rowland and a white woman, Sarah Page. Rowland was accused of assaulting Page, which led an angry mob of whites to pick up arms and instigate a violent uprising which would see the black community bombed and mostly destroyed. About 10,000 black people were said to have been homeless after the two days of destruction, with and property damage believing to have totaled more than $32 million in 2019 dollars.
For many years, the events of the incident were underreported and somewhat ignored. Westbrook, now, seeks to change that.
According to Variety, Westbrook will team with well-renowned film director Stanley Nelson on the project.
Westbrook is teaming with celebrated documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson and “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez” producer Blackfin for a series on the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, titled “Terror In Tulsa: The Rise And Fall of Black Wall Street.”
The production will shine a light on a lost chapter in American history. No release date has been reported, but for the sake of educating the masses, hopefully it’ll be in the near future.
