John W. Franklin has specialized in the history and culture of Africa and its Diaspora for the past 50 years. For the past several years, he has focused on the legacy of slavery at American universities and advising Davidson College’s Race and Slavery at Davidson Commission. He is engaged in preparations in Tulsa on facets of the commemoration of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which his grandfather, Buck Colbert (B.C.) Franklin survived.  After 30 years of Federal service, he recently retired from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.  

Mr. Franklin will introduce the Keynote Speakers and moderate sessions.

American sculptor and historian Edward Joseph (Ed) Dwight will provide a tour of the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park.  As the artist who designed the outdoor museum and associated sculptures for the public park, Mr. Dwight’s insights will provide historical context to the choices made in depicting the experience of Blacks, Native Americans and Black Indians in Oklahoma from the 1830’s, slavery, the Civil War experience, Buffalo Soldiers, the building of the all Black town of Greenwood, the burning of Greenwood to the ground, the rebuilding of Greenwood, and today’s work toward Reconciliation.

Ms. Bruner is the great-granddaughter of Mary E. Jones Parrish, a survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre.  Ms. Bruner will discuss her latest book, The Nation Must Awake:  Mary E. Jones Parrish and a Legacy of Reckoning with Political Terror and Personal Trauma followed by a Q&A with John W. Franklin.  

Through the lens of her latest book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, Wilkerson will provide an examination of our entire social structure as an unrecognized caste system.  She will, additionally, provide perspective on how looking back at the Tulsa Race Massacre allows us to reflect on how institutionalized racism passes through generations and influences future outcomes for racial hierarchy for a city and a nation.  She will also provide perspective for how to respond to those who argue that race would be less of a problem if we left in the past the historical actions that were past problems. 

Dr. Daina Ramey Berry will provide a national perspective of how national understanding of assigned value of the slave body (emerging from her book - The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation  - evolved into a sense of self-worth that a community such as Greenwood area could evolve and come to embody a dream of collective worth for the African Americans across the United States and the world.  She will also provide perspective on how she sees the black female voice in influencing the building and rebuilding of the Greenwood area. 

Ms. Williams will participate in a joint luncheon panel discussion that illuminates how important historical events tie into the history of places we live (with the Greenwood area for Black Wall Street and the Race Massacre as local models), with Williams focusing on how past and current narratives help shape our collective and individual memories for purposes of preserving, honoring, and creating cultural histories.  Williams will also discuss how activism, performance art, monuments, and place intersect in both preserving the past and carving a path for the future.

Dr. Lowe will participate in a joint luncheon panel discussion that illuminates how important historical events tie into the history of places we live (with the Greenwood area for Black Wall Street and the Race Massacre as local models), along with extrapolating the various meanings and impacts of events, and trace their continuity/transformation into the present.  Lowe will also focus on how history, monuments, scholarship, business, and place intersect in both preserving the past and carving a path for the future.

Historian, journalist, and author, Dr. Scott Ellsworth, will provide a review of major historical points about the 1921 Race Massacre, along with what new, updated information about the Massacre and Greenwood has emerged that sheds new insight into the events of 1921 and the Greenwood area.  

Dr. Cornel West, prominent and provocative democratic intellectual, will provide perspective on the significance of looking back at the history of race and institutional practices that creating the environment for black communities such as Greenwood. Further, West will add insight into how looking back creates an essential pathway for a better community for race relations. And reconciliation efforts. 

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Want an interactive experience with Dr. Cornel West?  Attend one of the six Community Participation Sites in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.  Click here for more information. 

Policy Analyst and Data Scientist Samuel Sinyangwe will provide perspective on how policy and data can provide a lens into how looking back at historical events can shape the work needed to improve the future.  Specifically, Samuel will illuminate how local and national data can inform how looking back at the vents of the Tulsa 1921 Race Massacre should shape how we move beyond 2021 and consider the next 100 years in Tulsa.

Pulitzer prize journalist Eli Saslow will share a luncheon panel with Derek Black, the former white-power heir apparent, and Matthew Stevenson (an Orthodox Jew), as they recount how Stevenson’s invitation to a Shabbat dinner served as a roadmap for navigating some of the hardest and most important territory of our time – seeing each other beyond race, bigotry, and bias so that reconciliation and human respect is at the center of our relationships, not hatred.

R. Derek Black, the former white power heir apparent, will share a luncheon panel with Eli Saslow and Matthew Stevenson (an Orthodox Jew), as they recount how Stevenson’s invitation to a Shabbat dinner served as a roadmap for navigating some of the hardest and most important territory of our time – seeing each other beyond race, bigotry, and bias so that reconciliation and human respect is at the center of our relationships, not hatred.

Matthew Stevenson was born and raised in South Florida. He graduated from the New College of Florida, the state's honors college, with degrees in mathematics and economics. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and currently works as an investment analyst at T. Rowe Price. Stevenson is featured in Eli Saslow’s book Rising out of Hatred, about the former white nationalist Derek Black. After Derek’s ideology was outed at their college campus, Stevenson (the only Orthodox Jew on campus) invited him to Shabbat dinner, and became an instrumental figure in Black’s transformation.

Jessica Kirzane is part of the presentation team with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and members of In geveb:  A Journal of Yiddish Studies.  They will present research on contemporaneous Yiddish language newspaper articles and other archival sources which reflect on the Tulsa Race Massacre.  Additionally, they will discuss racially motivated violence that erupted in America in the early 20th century.  Further, this session will focus on translating, contextualizing, and incorporating these materials into new pedagogical resources. 

Steven J. Zipperstein is part of the presentation team with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and members of In geveb:  A Journal of Yiddish Studies.  They will present research on contemporaneous Yiddish language newspaper articles and other archival sources which reflect on the Tulsa Race Massacre.  Additionally, they will discuss racially motivated violence that erupted in America in the early 20th century.  Further, this session will focus on translating, contextualizing, and incorporating these materials into new pedagogical resources. 

Alyssa Quint is part of the presentation team with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and members of In geveb:  A Journal of Yiddish Studies.  They will present research on contemporaneous Yiddish language newspaper articles and other archival sources which reflect on the Tulsa Race Massacre.  Additionally, they will discuss racially motivated violence that erupted in America in the early 20th century.  Further, this session will focus on translating, contextualizing, and incorporating these materials into new pedagogical resources. 

Hanna Pollin-Galay is part of the presentation team with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and members of In geveb:  A Journal of Yiddish Studies.  They will present research on contemporaneous Yiddish language newspaper articles and other archival sources which reflect on the Tulsa Race Massacre.  Additionally, they will discuss racially motivated violence that erupted in America in the early 20th century.  Further, this session will focus on translating, contextualizing, and incorporating these materials into new pedagogical resources. 

Uri Schreter  is part of the presentation team with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and members of In geveb:  A Journal of Yiddish Studies.  They will present research on contemporaneous Yiddish language newspaper articles and other archival sources which reflect on the Tulsa Race Massacre.  Additionally, they will discuss racially motivated violence that erupted in America in the early 20th century.  Further, this session will focus on translating, contextualizing, and incorporating these materials into new pedagogical resources. 

Read Mr. Schreter's Bio