REACTIVATING MEMORY
Modules

Contents

Background on the Tulsa Race Massacre
Background on Shuffle Along
Journalism
Archive Work
Arts and Tulsa
Blackface in Arts
Reckoning with History
Reactivating Memory
Shaping American History

 


Background on the Tulsa Race Massacre

Learning Goals

  • Understand the basic events of the Tulsa Race Massacre that took place from May 31 – June 1, 1921
  • Hear first-hand from survivors of the massacre who are still living today
  • Spend five minutes doing your own follow-up research with the Library of Congress research guide

External Resource Links

Discussion Questions

  • What had you previously learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre, in school or otherwise?
  • How does that compare to what this material presented to you?
  • What stuck out to you from the survivors’ testimonies?
  • What else do you want to know about the massacre?

 


Background on Shuffle Along

Learning Goals

  • Understand the plot and context of the 1921 Broadway production Shuffle Along
  • Understand the plot and context of the 2016 Broadway production Shuffle Along, or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed
  • Get a sense of the style of the show
  • Understand the impact of the first all-Black Broadway musical

External Resource Links

Discussion Questions

  • What did you know about Shuffle Along before going through the module?
  • Why do you think people largely forgot about the 1921 production of Shuffle Along until the George C. Wolfe created the 2016 musical?
  • What innovations do you see in the 1921 Shuffle Along that influence your artistic work? How do they impact you?
  • Can you trace a lineage between the innovations in Shuffle Along (1921) and performance art that you are learning about in your course?
  • What did the cast and creative team sacrifice in order to get their show on Broadway? Do you think artists of color today sacrifice in similar ways? How can we change that?

Additional Materials

Footnotes by Caseen Gaines in Firestone Library Catalogue

 


Journalism

Learning Goals

  • Start by going through the primary sources (indicated by two indentations) and then finish by reading secondary sources on how journalism impacted the massacre and learning about it
  • Analyze how Black journalists and white journalists covered the massacre differently
  • Think about how the telling of the Tulsa Race Massacre changed over time
  • Gain insight on the media’s role in how we learn history
  • Feel more confident reading and analyzing primary newspaper sources
  • Compare the apologies from the Kansas City Star and the L.A. Times

External Resource Links

Discussion Questions

  • What lessons can you bring from this module into your course or experience as a journalist?
  • How did newspaper coverage facilitate the massacre?
  • What was interesting to you about how the newspapers covered the massacre while it was happening?
  • Was there anything unexpected in what the Black authors (Walter White and Oklahoma Sun author) wrote?
  • How did media outlets help Americans forget about the Tulsa Race Massacre?
  • In his piece in The Nation, Black journalist Walter White wrote, “Without pausing to find out whether or not the story was true, without bothering with the slight detail of investigating the character of the woman who made the outcry (as a matter of fact, she was of exceedingly doubtful reputation), a mob of 100-per-cent Americans set forth on a wild rampage that cost the lives of fifty white men; of between 150 and 200 colored men, women and children…” How do we reconcile this attitude with the attitude of believing women and with the knowledge that this kind of rhetoric is regularly used to discount women’s testimony in order to uphold patriarchy?
  • In what ways do you think media outlets today fail to tell history fully? What impact has that had on your life? What could they do better?
  • What did you learn from the apologies of the L.A. Times and the Kansas City Star for the past racist coverage?
    • – Should more papers be doing this?
    • – Which did you like better? Why?
    • – What ideas could you bring from them into your own work?

 


Archive Work

Learning Goals

  • Explore some archives related to Shuffle Along (1921) and the Tulsa Race Massacre
  • Question the reliability of archives. Think about how archives you deal with might be misleading or neglecting certain perspectives of history
  • Brainstorm ways in which you can apply the lessons of the Kansas City Star archive comparison project to one of the institutions of which you are a part

External Resource Links

Discussion Questions

  • Are you surprised that any of these archives exist?
  • What is one challenge that you’ve experienced in trying to find archives? How do you think people overcame those challenges to find these?
  • What is the importance of archives?
  • What does the piece ‘How Local Media Fueled the Tulsa Massacre — and Covered It Up’ tell us about the potential gaps in archives?
  • What did the Kansas City Star do well in their attempt to reckon with history through archival work? What did they fail to do?

 


Arts and Tulsa

Learning Goals

  • Explore how artists have grappled with the Tulsa Race Massacre through art
  • Think about the strengths and weaknesses of different art forms in reckoning with and/or teaching history

External Resource Links

Discussion Questions

  • How might you be able to incorporate the Tulsa Race Massacre into your course’s artwork?
  • What are the benefits of learning about historical events through art? What are the drawbacks?
  • What do you think should be considered when artists draw upon traumatic events in their material?
  • Can working through traumatic events in art help us heal?

Additional Materials

Footnotes by Caseen Gaines in Firestone Library Catalogue

 


Blackface in Arts

Learning Goals

  • Compare how sources discuss the history of blackface in American performance
  • Think about the tension between the progress Shuffle Along represented for Black actors and the perceived necessity of Black actors using blackface to make the show successful among white audiences
  • Draw connections between the history of Shuffle Along‘s production and the themes presented in Spike Lee’s 2000 film Bamboozled. (The film also stars Savion Glover who choreographed the 2016 Broadway production of Shuffle Along.)

External Resource Links

Discussion Questions

  • In what contexts have you seen blackface throughout your life? What has been done to address the behavior of the person in blackface?
  • In ‘Shuffle Along and the Lost History of Black Performance in America,’ Sullivan writes, “the stage had power in it, and someone who appeared there couldn’t help partaking of that power.” What power does the stage have today? Are there ways to leverage that power with the goal of racial equality?
  • To some, Blacks in blackface represented progress for African-Americans because it helped Black performers get a broader (white) audience, though it relied on demeaning racial stereotypes. Where do you see similar dynamics play out in the arts today? Do you think embracing stereotypes is every worth the visibility it may provide?
  • Was it necessary for some actors in Shuffle Along to use Blackface? Could the show have been successful among a white audience without the trope?
  • Shuffle Along itself wasn’t progressive or groundbreaking. How do we reckon with that? How did the 2016 revival reckon with that?

 


Reckoning with History

Learning Goals

  • Be exposed to various ways through which Americans have tried and/or failed to reckon with the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre
  • Draw connections between the failure to reckon with the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre and current protests in the U.S.
  • Connect Professor Eddie Glaude’s claim that reexamining storytelling is essential to reckoning with our past with other materials in the module and think about what might be a better story of the Tulsa Race Massacre and Shuffle Along than what you have learned in the past
  • Brainstorm how the massacre changed the lives of the people who experienced it and what the Greenwood neighborhood might have looked like later had the massacre not happened. Understand that the toll on the survivors is not just the trauma of the day, but the loss of money, education, and community.

External Resource Links

Discussion Questions

  • What does it mean to you to reckon with history?
  • What do the current protests in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and all over the U.S. say to you about how we have dealt with reckoning in this country?
  • Is it necessary to keep reckoning with this history? Will there ever be a point when there has been enough reckoning? What would that look like to you?
  • In what other ways do you think we can try to reckon with the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre?
  • How does the 2016 production of Shuffle Along reckon with the erasure of the original production, either in the actual show or simply through its creation?
  • What do you think of the Kansas City Star‘s attempt to reckon with their past of racist coverage?
  • How can arts and media help us reckon with the past? Where might they fall short?

 


Reactivating Memory

Learning Goals

  • Think about what George C. Wolfe did to “reactivate memory” by reviving Shuffle Along in a meta production
  • Analyze how different media outlets have tried to reactivate the memory of Shuffle Along
  • Compare the different types of memories that are reactivated in different media like the survivor’s testimony, the University of Oklahoma exhibition, and the search for mass graves in Tulsa

External Resource Links

Discussion Questions

  • Why do you think people forgot about Shuffle Along for so long, despite its many innovations on Broadway?
  • What can we learn from how Shuffle Along was forgotten?
  • What role do journalists have in memory retention and reactivating memory? Politicians? Artists? Academics?
  • What do you think is accomplished by inducting A.J. Smitherman into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame?
  • What is the importance of excavating potential mass graves today? How do you feel seeing modern-day Tulsans standing around mass graves during a reburial?

 


Shaping American History

Learning Goals

  • Draw connections between the Tulsa Race Massacre and Shuffle Along (1921) and modern times in America

External Resource Links

Discussion Questions

  • How did Shuffle Along (1921) shape American history?
  • How did it reflect American history?
  • How did the Tulsa Race Massacre shape American history?
  • How did it reflect American history?
  • What does it mean for American history that Shuffle Along — a huge success for Black artists — opened one week before a white mob killed hundreds of Black neighbors in the Tulsa Race Massacre?

Additional Materials

Footnotes by Caseen Gaines in Firestone Library Catalogue

Learn more about
REACTIVATING MEMORY

Shuffle Along and the Tulsa Race Massacre:
A Centennial Symposium

This resource guide was compiled by Princeton University student Marissa Michaels '22.