I remember the screed, the fuel-fired gist of which, subtle as an Oliver Stone movie, was there was no such thing as 12:00 AM or 12:00 PM.
That there was only 12:00 Noon or 12:00 midnight.
The former of which came midday when the sun was high in the sky; the latter in the dark of night, when the date flips and Cinderella’s carriage turns back into a pumpkin.
Except for this Memorial Day. The Louisville Cardinals’ baseball season expired at High Noon, when their name was not among those designated for a regional in the NCAA tournament.
It was a sad but justified end to this seriously disappointing campaign for the U of L 9.
It was a most appropriate finish to this academic year for the three major men’s sports programs.
Scott Satterfield’s pigskinners finished 4-7, with only three league Ws, and no post-season bowl game. Then the coach flirted with South Carolina.
Chris Mack’s hoopsters finished 13-7, and finished the year ranked #69 in the hearts of the Selection Committee. Then the coach canned two of his assistants, one of whom’s threats ended up with criminal charges.
I remember, in brighter days not so long ago, the disappointment when Dan McDonnell’s team was not listed among the potential regional hosts. On a telecast, Chris Burke observed, some #1 seed was going to be dismayed when the Cards were also in their region.
Now, like their football and basketball brethren, the baseballers are standing outside, at no tourney site, their faces pressed to the candy store window.
Adding to the gloom is that coaching vacancy in Baton Rouge at Louisiana State University. Where college baseball is huge, and has been so for decades. I’ve Apriled in New Orleans for decades, and remember how odd it seemed in the 80s and 90s, to read these huge game stories in the Times-Picayune, way before the collegiate game became part of the ESPN franchise.
At his Monday press conference, McDonnell was asked about the rumors linking his name to the Tigers’ job. He was fairly dismissive of the chances of that happening.
After saying he had not had any contact with LSU, he finished his response with a quiet, almost afterthought, “. . . yet.”
And so cometh the inglorious, ignoble end to an autumn, winter, spring and upcoming summer of discontent for fans of Louisville Cardinal men’s sports.
It doesn’t appear that 2013 be pulling up to the Thinker in a limo any time soon.
The best golfer in the world is not actually the best golfer in the world. Only in this sport could one make this argument and plenty of others agree.
There are a lot of reasons for this, of course, most notably that the primary source that tracks such things (the Official World Golf Rankings) is a lagging system that goes two years deep into the archives to pull results with which to produce a No. 1 golfer in the world. Currently, it's Dustin Johnson, who has as many top 10s on the PGA Tour over the last three months as you and I do.
Often when this happens -- a great golfer builds a huge lead in the OWGR points race and then tumbles off the table like D.J -- a proper No. 1-in-waiting emerges. In this case, though, nobody has stepped up to fill that void. Some of this is the unintended consequence of somebody (Phil Mickelson) ranked outside the top 100 in the OWGR winning the most recent major championship. It's a reminder of how stupidly deep golf is and also dips the, "Wait, who's the guy right now" conversation into complete chaos.
No matter what metric you use to determine the best golfer in the world, there's a logical argument on the other side. Remember, this is an exercise in micro-trends, not a bigger-picture look at golf. It's much easier to determine the best golfer in the world over the course of 24 months or five years or a decade. Much less so when you look at the last month or two or four, but with two majors, the Olympics, the FedEx Cup Playoffs and a Ryder Cup on deck, the last month or two or four is instructive for what's about to take place.
Nobody would say D.J. is theguy right now, so let's look at a few other candidates. World No. 2 Justin Thomas won the Players Championship; maybe it's him? Oh, but he missed the cut at the PGA Championship and finished T40 at the Charles Schwab Challenge. No. 3 Jon Rahm? No tournament wins in 2021 (although we'll come back to him). No. 4 Bryson DeChambeau is a solid choice considering nobody has more PGA Tour wins (two) than him this season ... but he has not cracked the top 25 in four of his last five events (including two majors).
Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama does not have another top 10 this year. Brooks Koepka is a decent choice, but we currently do not know how many events he'll play the rest of the year nor how many legs he'll stand on when he does. Rory McIlroy (No. 8) won two starts ago, but that was sandwiched with a missed cut and a T49 at two major championships. Xander Schauffele (No. 5) missed cuts at the PGA Championship and The Players. Technically, Jordan Spieth (No. 23) has the best advanced statistics of 2021 by a pretty wide margin, but watching him kick away a win at the Charles Schwab Challenge on Sunday did not engender a lot of, "Yeah, best guy alive" conversation, though as always I contend that we overrate the outcomes of singular rounds.
If you look at average finish at the first two majors and the Players Championship, there's actually an interesting story in there. First, only 20 golfers have made the cut at all three, and only one (Rahm) has an average finish in the single digits, though Abraham Ancer, Corey Conners, Paul Casey, Patrick Reed, Shane Lowry, Phil Mickelson and Will Zalatoris are all fairly close. Viktor Hovland, Conners and Zalatoris all have an outside-the-box case to be made here as the best golfer, but none have the earned depth of character to force you to apply the label.
If you made me pick somebody, I'd probably go with Rahm, who has seven top 10s in 11 appearances worldwide in 2021. I could also be convinced to choose Spieth, who is No. 1 in the Sagarin rankings over the last four months and has the best strokes-gained number in the world when looking at every period from six months inward. I would also consider Collin Morikawa, who is gaining over 2.0 strokes per round from tee to green this year (the only golfer who's doing that) and could have won about four events with a putter approaching average.
But I don't feel fantastic about any of these choices, which is sort of the point.
Golfer
OWGR
Wins
Top 10s
Strokes Gained (Jan. 1)
Dustin Johnson
1
1
1
28
Justin Thomas
2
1
2
19
Jon Rahm
3
0
7
3
Bryson DeChambeau
4
1
4
13
Xander Schauffele
5
0
4
10
Collin Morikawa
6
1
5
15
Brooks Koepka
7
1
3
22
Rory McIlroy
8
1
4
24
Viktor Hovland
12
0
6
5
Jordan Spieth
23
1
8
1
So what exactly does it mean that there is not one dominant golfer in the world right now, nobody that you can look to and say, "I don't know if he'll win, but I know he's contending this week"?
Well, it means there's a bit of a mess when it comes to the odds of the next two majors. William Hill Sportsbook does not know what to do with the favorites. Rahm, who again has not won a golf tournament this year, is now the U.S. Open favorite. There are eight guys -- Rahm, D.J., McIlroy, Thomas, Spieth, DeChambeau, Koepka and Schauffele -- bunched together at the top between 11-1 and 16-1. The same is mostly true of The Open at Royal St. George's.
It's fitting that two different Opens will be played this summer because that's the word I would use to describe the landscape right now: open.
With just a few months remaining on the most grandiose season in professional golf history, nobody has emerged the way we thought they might and made a career for himself. Nobody has bagged four events or two majors or stepped out in front of the rest of the deepest and most competitive collective group of golfers this sport has ever seen in its 100-year (or so) history at the professional level.
Parity is good, and this exercise is a reminder of just how difficult it is to dominate, to be the guy. It makes those four-month or six-month runs guys go on where they leave no doubt about the "best golfer alive" debate even more impressive than we imagine them to be. It also cracks the door like it did at the PGA for somebody to come from the depths of who's playing well and snag a major championship.
So the question as Memorial Day hits and a monster golf summer begins is the same as it was when the PGA Tour kicked its super season off back in September: Will anyone step up and own this year, or will it be what the "who's the real No. 1?" debate is right now and go down as one of the most shared and least dominated seasons of all time?
June 01, 2021 at 12:34AM
https://www.cbssports.com/golf/news/forget-jordan-spieth-or-jon-rahm-theres-not-a-clear-best-golfer-in-the-game-now-which-opens-it-for-all/
Forget Jordan Spieth or Jon Rahm, there's not a clear 'best golfer' in the game now, which opens it for all - CBS Sports
PICKERINGTON - Growing up with his siblings as the children of a World War II veteran, Kevin Diehl heard stories about his father's wins in poker games played between missions.
It wasn't until recently that Harry Diehl, his 92-year old father, started sharing more stories about his time as a crew member of a Douglas C-47 Skytrain, flying missions in Europe and Northern Africa. Annie Diehl, Harry's wife, worked in a celanese factory in Cumberland, MD, inspecting parachute 'jets' to ensure the packs functioned properly.
Kevin was excited when his parents had the chance to share those stories with a local non-profit organization, and hopes more veterans take the opportunity.
"It all happened in a round-about way. One of my dad's granddaughters works with the (United Service Organizations) in Columbus, and someone from the Columbus Blue Jackets reached out to her to ask if she'd ask my dad to come be recognized at one of the games," Kevin said. "When one of his grandsons shared the post on Facebook, one of his high school friends reached out about Guardians Never Forget, and my mom and dad agreed to share their experiences from the war."
Guardians Never Forget is a documentary series chronicling the lives of veterans of any campaign, from any branch of service. A product of Operation Meraki's ReFocus project, GNF was inspired from the stories veterans would share during the course.
Michael Thomas, Operation Meraki founder and GNF project lead, explained that ReFocus is an alternative therapy route for veterans offered as a part of his non-profit organization.
"ReFocus is a course for veterans to learn more about photography and to provide a way to express themselves without having to talk. Some of the guys would talk about their experiences, some of whom hadn't talked about them for a long time," Thomas said. "I heard one veteran say he hadn't talked about his time in the service since 1987, and I just thought 'wow!' I knew the impact of sharing and capturing these stories was critical."
"I know that the veterans' suicide rate has increased, and we're losing more veterans each month, whether that's from age or other factors, but we need to preserve those stories and get the veterans their due."
"They experienced the war firsthand"
For Harry Diehl, his experience serving in the war never seemed to be that important to him. When he returned from Europe, there was no big fanfare, he said, nothing like the V-J Day in Times Square photo.
"It wasn't like that for us, there wasn't a lot of celebration. My parents were there to pick me up, but there were a lot of people on that boat, but not a lot to celebrate," Harry said. "I was in Holland when the war ended, and citizens over there would come up to us and shake our hands, thanking us for serving. It was like it was bigger over there, probably because those people experienced the war first hand."
In fact, Harry said he almost expected to get back to the states, and just keep going west. He was enlisted as duration-plus, which meant he would serve through the war, plus any time needed for military occupation.
"The Japanese hadn't surrendered by the time I got home, so I thought I would be off to the Pacific theater until they dropped the atom bombs. No one wanted to go to that war," Harry said.
He was never sent west, though. The war ended, and Harry and Annie Diehl married. They live in Pickerington, living in the same house since the 1970s. They have three children, with five grandchildren and seven great-grandsons.
They never thought their stories were too important, nothing to be lauded: when they served, they were doing their jobs. But Kevin said he felt differently, especially as time goes on.
"From my siblings' and my vantage point, we grew up knowing they served during the war. I was proud of them, but it wasn't like they were getting any adulation or special treatment. Nearly everyone their age had served, most of the men I knew were veterans," Kevin said. "They didn't think they were special, because they all were just doing their duty. But now, with many veterans gone without sharing their stories, it's getting more rare to hear those, and for veterans to share them."
"That's why I think what Michael is doing with the Guardians project is terrific, it's important."
"They're the true heroes"
Kevin said he's noticed a push to honor veterans, citing the Blue Jackets event and his father being picked as the "honored veteran" in a Veterans Day Parade in Columbus.
"I also got to go with dad on an Honor Flight (Columbus), which he called the 'homecoming' celebration he never had. But the biggest reminder to my dad of what he did was the trip to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, paid for by a friend of the family that works with the Honor Flight," Kevin said. "He hadn't returned to Europe since the war, and the trip came together very nicely, even though we rushed to get his passport and make arrangements."
Harry wasn't the only veteran returning for the event, but his treatment wasn't an exception: French citizens greeted and thanked him, taking pictures with him and treating him like a celebrity.
"They kept coming up to me and swarming me almost. The people there were still grateful for everything that we did, and they treated us like royalty," Harry said. "It couldn't have been nicer. One little boy came up to me and asked me if he could hug me, and it just stood out that they still feel this way."
"But what really stood out to me was the cemetery of the fallen soldiers, all those white crosses."
Harry was speaking of the Normandy American Cemetery, where the soldiers that died on Omaha Beach during D-Day are buried. He said it was a somber experience.
"When you see the cemetery, know that all those young men buried there gave up their lives for something that didn't have anything to do with them, it's humbling. Each cross stood for one young boy, because that's what they were," Harry said. "They're the true heroes that gave everything. I don't think I'm a hero."
For Kevin, he said he sees that attitude from other veterans from the same era as his parents. During the ceremony in Normandy, five veterans were awarded the French Legion Medal of Honor and later that day, Harry and Kevin encountered someone who told Harry he deserved the medal too, but he declined.
"That's the same feeling these men have about the war, about their stories. It's not a false humility, it's not an affectation. They truly don't feel special, they were just there to do a job, but they did extraordinary things," Kevin said.
So when Harry can share his stories from the war, when he had to hide from German patrols for three days after he was forced off his plane, or when his crew helped transport the sick and wounded survivors of a concentration camp, it means a lot to Kevin.
A bond forged through service
When he got the chance to interview Harry, Michael Thomas said he was excited.
"This man is my hero. I was almost starstruck, talking to this man who helped ensure I had the chance to do what I do so many years ago. That's the point of Guardians, to honor those people that history has overlooked, people like Harry, who had to make hard choices to survive. Veterans like Harry have a wealth of knowledge that needs shared," Thomas said. "Plus, once they realize they're speaking to a veteran, that Guardians is a veterans-to-veterans conversation, they know they can trust us, we're united through our service."
For many veterans, Thomas said, and even families or loved ones of veterans, it's difficult to adjust when they return home. Too often, Thomas said, instead of sharing stories or traumas, there's just a need to change the subject, a need to pacify in the short-term.
"It's hard for everyone to realize that things have changed during the time the veteran was serving. It's not possible to just go back to the way life was before. And even if they weren't the ones wearing the uniform, it can't be said that the families of veterans weren't also faced with their own trauma. So it's easy to understand why there's a feeling of needing to get back to normal, instead of opening up and sharing," Thomas said.
"That's what the Guardians project can accomplish, allowing people, even family members, to get to know more about the veterans' experiences and getting to know them beyond just the uniform they wore. It adds a layer of understanding to them," he said. "It also provides a place to process what happened: when you're serving, it's mission to mission to mission. Guardians offers a space to share stories with someone who's lived that lifestyle."
Thomas said the ultimate goal for the project is a traveling exhibit, with a display for each soldier or service member, then a place to listen and watch their story. Harry is the first soldier interviewed, Thomas explained, and there are still spaces available for any veteran, from any campaign.
"Right now, we're going to prioritize veterans of older wars, just because they are less available than other soldiers, and we need to ensure we get their stories captured," he said. "Our goal is to get 45 veterans done this year, so we've got 44 more slots. If there is a veteran willing to speak, or even a family member looking for more information, they're more than welcome to reach out to us by e-mail or by phone."
The e-mail to contact the Guardians Never Forget project is "team@guardiansphotoproject.com" or they can be reached by phone at 614-957-3942.
For the Diehl family, sharing Harry and Annie's experiences with GNF seemed like the right thing to do. Harry said one reason he decided to speak with Thomas was to remember history, the impact of what the second World War meant to the world.
"Before Pearl Harbor, it felt like an ordinary conflict, then the attack came. And when we could see the aftermath, that's what made it clear it wasn't like anything else we'd seen. I was fine with sharing my story, but I'm not sure what people will get out of it or what they might say," Harry said.
Kevin said he thought the GNF idea is terrific.
"I hope it can pick up and gain more traction, it just seems like a natural exhibit that people would want to see. I hope other veterans can see my mom and dad's example and come share what they learned. I know some people might be reluctant, but it's a big part of history. As the years have gone on, the importance of what those soldiers and service members did builds," Kevin said. "They might not have realized it then, but they were doing very important work. I hope more World War II vets can be recognized, and I'd really hope to see more Korean War vets remembered."
blawlis@gannett.com
740-681-4342
@BarrettLawlis
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May 31, 2021 at 03:30PM
https://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/story/news/local/2021/05/31/guardians-never-forget-series-capture-and-share-veterans-stories/5194274001/
Guardians Never Forget series will capture and share veterans' stories - Lancaster Eagle Gazette
NVIDIA(NASDAQ:NVDA) got its year started with a bang. In the fiscal first quarter of 2021 (the three months ended May 2, 2021) revenue increased 84% year over year to $5.66 billion, and adjusted earnings per share were up 106%. Ahead of the quarterly update, the semiconductor designer announced a 4-for-1 stock split. While stock splits don't have a material impact on a business's valuation, investors struck an upbeat tone on the news. Shares are now up 175.8% since the start of 2020.
Stock split aside, there's reason to believe NVIDIA's run isn't over. Chip demand is sky-high right now, and the company is a leader on multiple high-growth technology fronts. Let's look at three reasons why this stock could continue its upward movement in 2021.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. New gaming GPU upgrades are just getting started
NVIDIA got its start with high-end video game graphics, and the industry remains the company's largest market. Gaming sales were $2.76 billion in Q1, up a whopping 106% year over year. The surge is driven by the RTX 30 series GPUs released late last year. These advanced chips come standard with ray tracing and AI-enhanced graphics capabilities to help players get the most out of their gaming experience.
With such a boom in video game sales, it might seem like this leading segment at NVIDIA would be headed for a slowdown. That time hasn't arrived yet. The hardware upgrade cycle is really just getting started. NVIDIA just recently announced the first batch of laptops with RTX GPUs are coming out this summer, which makes its new chips available to tens of millions more gamers worldwide. And to better address video game market demand, NVIDIA has built restrictions in the RTX 30 series to prevent these graphics processors from going to cryptocurrency mining outfits (the new CMP chips custom designed for the crypto market are out and are expected to haul in $400 million in sales next quarter).
NVIDIA said it expects revenue to be about $6.3 billion in the second quarter, up 63% from a year ago at the midpoint. While cryptocurrency chips are contributing to this torrid pace of growth, the gaming and data center markets represent the lion's share of expansion.
New laptops featuring NVIDIA RTX 30 chips are coming soon. Image source: NVIDIA.
2. Complex data centers need new tech hardware
Speaking of data centers, this has quickly emerged as NVIDIA's second-largest vertical. Sales were $2.05 billion in Q1, up a more-than-respectable 79% year over year.
Data centers operate behind the scenes but are critically important computing units in today's world. They operate the internet, mobile networks, the myriad of software services built and residing in them, and coordinate real-world activity like managing postal services and healthcare information. And in an increasingly sophisticated digital world, better hardware that is able to coordinate all this new data is needed. Lots of companies are adding GPUs to their data center designs as computing accelerators, or outright replacing older CPUs (central processing units) with faster and more energy-efficient GPUs. This is a space traditionally dominated by Intel(NASDAQ:INTC), but NVIDIA is gunning for the chip giant's haymaker. Last year, it unveiled a new data processing unit (DPU) and early in 2021 announced a CPU called Grace designed to pair with its GPUs and built from the ground up for modern data center applications like AI.
Just like its gaming business, data centers are in the early stages of getting upgraded. CFO Colette Kress said on the earnings call that "every industry is becoming a technology industry." There's no shortage of growth opportunity for NVIDIA, especially in cloud-based services and AI as companies unlock new capabilities and get more efficient in their operations using new chip tech.
3. NVIDIA is not just a hardware company anymore
NVIDIA of course makes money from the sale of its semiconductors. Licensing revenue from selling chip designs will get a big boost from the pending ARM Holdings acquisition (which Kress said is still on track to be completed by early 2022), but there's a lot more to NVIDIA's business model these days.
Cloud-based recurring software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue is a promising front for this chip company. Its auto industry platform is a prime example. Auto revenue was flat year over year in Q1 at $154 million as NVIDIA continues to exit commoditized vehicle infotainment hardware. But its Drive autonomous vehicle platform spans not just hardware but also software services, helping automakers and autonomous vehicle researchers advance self-driving and safety capabilities.
Another example is Omniverse, a new collaborative software platform for designers and creators of all sorts. Omniverse has been in open beta but will have a commercial launch this summer for both individual users and enterprises. Kress said there have been over 17,000 downloads of the open beta so far, indicating robust demand for this SaaS-based business line in short order.
Software sales will be a longer-term development for NVIDIA, but it nevertheless represents an exciting new outlet for this tech giant that pairs well with its leadership in GPUs. Innovation is firing on all cylinders at NVIDIA right now, and shares could continue their upward momentum through the back half of 2021 as growth continues at a rapid pace.
This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the “official” recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. We’re motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.
May 31, 2021 at 08:31PM
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/forget-next-gen-consoles-the-biggest-gaming-platform-is-already-in-your-pocket/
Forget next-gen consoles. The biggest gaming platform is already in your pocket - The Seattle Times
An act of terrorism America tried to forget – 360 video
Racial terror has long been the go-to response for aggrieved whites in America. The insurrectionists waving Confederate flags who attacked the Capitol on 6 January to overthrow the results of the 2020 national elections weren’t an anomaly. The intimidation, disempowerment and humiliation of the “other” to maintain entitled rights has been a recurring narrative since the arrival of European colonizers in America and the growth of the slave trade.
“The trigger for white rage, inevitably, is Black advancement,” Carol Anderson writes in her seminal 2016 book, White Rage. “It is not the mere presence of Black people that is the problem; rather, it is Blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations, and with demands for full and equal citizenship.”
This is a lens through which to understand the significance of the centenary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, among the worst acts of violence in US history, and a past that lives today in the ongoing political, economic and extrajudicial attacks on Black people. As the United States and the world commemorate the anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, the long-hoped-for racial reckoning still awaits a country seemingly unwilling to acknowledge in its historical memory the most terrible, deliberately obscured sins in its past and their impact today.
Between 31 May-1 June, white residents, peace officers, and soldiers attacked the historical Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as the “Black Wall Street”, killing an estimated 300 residents, displacing upwards of 1,000 more, and inflicting irrevocable economic damage to a thriving business district created by and for Black Americans. It’s believed to have been the first time that bombs were dropped on an American community, and the actions undertaken by the white marauders, who received significant resistance from both everyday Black civilians and soldiers recently returned from the first world war, wasn’t taught in Oklahoma school books and barely mentioned in national textbooks for generations afterwards.
As Blacks were recklessly and wantonly raped, murdered, and driven from hard-earned homes and businesses, the cover-up by local and state government representatives was chillingly efficient. Survivors and their descendants held out hope across generations that the full truth of what happened to Black Tulsans would be acknowledged, and recompense would come. A century later, thanks to the last three survivors of the Tulsa Massacre and the descendants of those who were killed or survived the violence, the full horror may finally be understood.
For much of 1919, from March through November, more than 100 Black people were lynched, thousands were seriously wounded or died from mob actions, and over 30 cities across the United States were attacked by spasmodic, white-led violence including Charleston, South Carolina, Longview, Texas, and Syracuse, New York. Faced with post-pandemic fear and uncertainty following the devastatingly fatal spread of the Spanish flu a year before; the return of nearly 400,000 Black soldiers from combat in the first world war; a squeeze for housing and jobs traditionally held by white men; and the emergence of a thriving, robust Black middle and working class, white Americans in the south and the north saw Black strivers as an existential threat. They seized upon any reason, no matter how flimsy the excuse, to lay waste to their neighbourhoods and communities through physical attacks, as well as rhetoric and policies reminiscent of the past five years of American political life.
Between 31 May-1 June, a white mob killed an estimated 300 Black residents and displaced upwards of 1,000 more. Photograph: The Department Of Special Collections & University Archives McFarlin Library The University of Tulsa
Over the past two years, artist and photographer Bayeté Ross Smith has re-visited the sites of Red Summer and the violence following the war, capturing present-day images through 360 VR (virtual reality) footage and pairing those with interviews of descendants, historians and activists to bring greater consciousness to a little understood and discussed historical period of the United States that is still relevant today. In addition to Tulsa, Smith visited Washington DC, where white men in military uniform laid siege to Black neighbourhoods forcing President Woodrow Wilson to call in the National Guard; Omaha where 10,000 whites attacked a county courthouse where they captured and burned alive a Black man accused of rape; and Chicago, where an estimated 50 people were killed, over 500 injured and more than 1,000 Black families left homeless in the greatest violence in the Red Summer. And he also visited East St Louis, Illinois, where whites fearful of losing political power attacked Black voters and their white allies two years before the Red Summer.
Before and after the Red Summer, Black Americans fought white rage with whatever weapons they could; following the first world war Black veterans became a core factor in that resistance. As NAACP co-founder and scholar WEB DuBois wrote in The Crisis in May 1919, “we return (from World War I) fighting”. DuBois had previously called for Blacks to “close ranks” with their white counterparts at the outset of the war and volunteer to serve. Returning home to the unchanged realities of systemic racism and violence drew many to political action. The NAACP had less than 10,000 members in the early 1900s, but grew to 100,000 by the early 1920’s.
Out of the ashes of Red Summer, the East St Louis riots, the Tulsa Race Massacre, and the later civil rights efforts of the United Negro Improvement Association, founded by revolutionary activist Marcus Garvey, the seeds of the modern civil rights movement and ultimately Black Lives Matter were sown.
The Tulsa massacre is believed to be the first aerial assault on US soil. Photograph: The Department Of Special Collections & University Archives McFarlin Library The University of Tulsa
Jamaican writer Claude McKay’s July 1919 poem, If We Must Die, was the Black anthem for the Red Summer and endures today as a call to never accede to terror, violence or injustice. In it he urges “If we must die, let it not be like hogs….Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” Yet, without full understanding and acknowledgement of the lessons and still resilient legacy of that span of American history, we are inevitably sentenced to relive a contemporary version of it.
In the century since the Red Summer and Tulsa Massacre, historical memory regarding race has perhaps been among the greatest casualties in the war for a commonly shared national narrative. Within the next 20-25 years, the United States will be a country of so-called “minorities”, people of color, further interrogating the ever-relevant question of “who is us?” Can someone be “American” without embodying a fossilized, milquetoast archetype still upheld by many in the United States? In his 1925 poem, I, too am America, Langston Hughes proclaimed his right to full citizenship and recognition, but in the 21st century “Americanness”, and what parts of history deserve to be explored, are still being debated. The denial of truth risks not only the social gains for intersectional racial justice, but also the possibility of a true reckoning with this country’s terrorism of people of color, including Native Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and Latinos.
Black Tulsa residents stand in front of a leveled building in Greenwood. Photograph: The Department Of Special Collections & University Archives McFarlin Library The University of Tulsa
Racial terror undermined the promise of Reconstruction in the wake of the civil war. Between 1865-1877, Freedmen saw unparalleled economic and political gains throughout the defeated south and in urban areas in the north where burgeoning opportunities in industry and commerce prompted the first Great Migration. White backlash – and fear of Black excellence – was swift, without true accountability, or justice. More than 1,000 lynchings occurred in the south by 1920; 90% of those killed were Black and more than half happened in Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana – also locations of Red Summer murders. Louisiana saw two of the most horrifying instances of racial massacres. In April 1873, approximately 150 Black men were killed by armed whites for peacefully and freely assembling in front of a courthouse. More are thought to have perished but the precise number remains unknown as many bodies were thrown into the Red River. A year later in Coushatta, Louisiana, six white Republicans and 20 Black witnesses were killed by members of a paramilitary outfit called the “White League”.
Scores of Blacks migrated north, where the racial codes around housing, jobs and education had a less threatening veneer but were no more equitable than what was faced in the south. By the end of 1919, over a million Black Americans had relocated to northern communities such as Chicago and Philadelphia, whose Black populations grew by 148% and 500%, respectively.
The Harlem Hellfighters – a largely Black infantry regiment – return from a tour of duty during the first world war. Photograph: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
In the years immediately preceding the Red Summer, the United States was a country very much on edge, having formally entered the war in 1917, then facing a global Spanish flu pandemic a year later. In many urban hubs restless white residents blamed the spread of the disease on Black soldiers returning from the war as well as international migrants. To white men, Black men in uniform were especially a tremble-inducing sight, returning to America having proven themselves on the battlefield and received widespread recognition and awards from the French, alongside whom they often fought. Yet after the war’s end, more than 13 Black veterans were lynched across the United States – most while wearing their uniforms – according to the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative.
Wilson, the first southerner in the White House since the civil war and the second Democrat, largely ignored the racial violence that occurred between 1917-1923. As president, he enacted segregation within the federal government. He also infamously screened DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation at the White House in 1915, praising the film, which glorified the Ku Klux Klan, saying it was “like writing history with lightning”. His tolerance and general blind eye to the year-long racist attacks, even when they occurred within view of the White House, gave tacit approval to the violence.
By mid-summer 1919, the pace of violent incidents had escalated. Justification often hinged on the enduring racist perception of Black men victimizing white women, but usually they were instigated intentionally to undermine or destroy some emblem of Black progress. As Quixotic as it ultimately was, resistance inspired communities of color across the country to advocate and mobilize with newfound vigor and hope. The individual toll of the Red Summer on communities across the country was often too heavy to overcome in many places – as the economic and psychological trauma proved to be too great for recovery. The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre remains the most visceral example.
More than 300 Black residents had died by the time the violence subsided on 1 June 1921. Photograph: The Department Of Special Collections & University Archives McFarlin Library The University of Tulsa
On 31 May that year, a 19-year-old Black shoe shiner named Dick Rowland entered the Drexel Building in downtown Tulsa to use one of the only public bathrooms accessible to Black residents. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, he either accidentally stepped on her foot or startled a 19-year-old elevator operator named Sarah Page. Either way, she screamed, drawing bystanders to beat and detain Rowland for arrest by the local police. Black residents – including veterans from the first world war marched to the police station in protest and were met by a white mob looking to take Rowland. In the ensuing confrontation white civilians with the active participation of police, military soldiers and state agents attacked the Greenwood neighbourhood, known as “Black Wall Street”.
When it was over on 1 June, more than 300 Black residents were dead, thousands were injured and maimed, 1,200 homes were destroyed, and over a million dollars (in 1921 value) in damage was inflicted, according to NAACP executive secretary Walter White. In the aftermath, the official death toll was 36, though many Black bodies were burned, put in mass graves, driven away in trucks, or thrown in rivers.
Insurance companies never paid out claims to the Black victims of the Tulsa massacre. Photograph: The Department Of Special Collections & University Archives McFarlin Library The University of Tulsa
“One story was told to me by an eyewitness of five colored men trapped in a burning house,” White recounted in a later report. “Four were burned to death. A fifth attempted to flee, was shot to death as he emerged from the burning structure, and his body was thrown back into the flames.”
BC Franklin, father of renowned historian and scholar John Hope Franklin, was a Greenwood district lawyer who survived and recounted that the “sidewalk was literally covered with burning turpentine balls”, from bombs dropped on the Black community by airplanes. “For fully forty-eight hours, the fires raged and burned everything in its path and it left nothing but ashes and burned safes and trunks and the like that were stored in beautiful houses and businesses.”
Wilson’s successor in the White House, Ohio Republican Warren G Harding is still among the most forward-looking presidents on racial equity and justice. Less than a week after the carnage in Tulsa, he gave the commencement address at Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University, the first degree-granting historically Black college and university. “God grant that, in the soberness, the fairness, and the justice of this country, we never see another spectacle like it,” he commented in reference to Tulsa. In his State of the Union address a month before, Harding asked Congress to pass anti-lynching legislation, a request still unfulfilled today.
In the weeks after the massacre, the Tulsa City Commission squarely laid blame for the deaths and destruction at the feet of Black residents, absolving the white mob of any wrongdoing. “Let the blame for this Negro uprising lie right where it belongs – on those armed Negroes and their followers who started this trouble and who instigated it and any persons who seek to put half the blame on the white people are wrong,” stated the body officially. No insurance claims made by Black survivors were honored and the only recompense of any kind went to a white gun store owner whose businesses was raided by white residents en route to terrorize the Greenwood community.
Local authorities deputized white men to detain and even kill Black men. Photograph: The Department Of Special Collections & University Archives McFarlin Library The University of Tulsa
In 1997, the state of Oklahoma convened a study commission to fully examine what occurred in Tulsa, and the role of state and local government, law enforcement, the military and civilians – both Black and white. The report produced in 2000 affirmed the accounts of Black survivors and witnesses to the extent of the violence, targeted dismantling of Black wealth, and cover-up by authorities. Oklahoma’s governor at the time, Frank Keating, accepted the report but rejected its calls for reparations. A lawsuit filed by esteemed Harvard professor Charles Ogletree, along with civil rights attorney Johnny Cochran, among others, was eventually rejected by the US supreme court.
Three years ago, Tulsa mayor GT Bynum announced a citywide search for mass graves from the 1921 massacre, with one site having been found last fall in the midst of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Excavation of remains will resume in June. The remaining three survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre – 107-year-old Viola Fletcher, her brother 100-year-old Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis, and 106-year-old Lessie “Mama Randle” Benningfield Randle testified two weeks ago before Congress. The survivors are lead plaintiffs in a recent lawsuit for reparations.
“This story shouldn’t go away,” observes Dreisen Heath, a researcher and human rights advocate with Human Rights Watch who spearheaded the organization’s recent reporting on economic and policing inequities for Black Tulsa residents, as well as an historically grounded case for reparations to survivors and descendants of victims. “The [state] culpability is there [as well as] the continued preservation of whiteness and power in Tulsa. There is massive media coverage of [the Tulsa Massacre Centennial] and I appreciate it, but I also hope that news coverage encapsulates the continuing harm since the massacres. The book didn’t close in the late afternoon of June 1, 1921 when martial law was declared.”
The history of white rage and Black resistance is still being written.
Jimmie Briggs is a journalist with more than two decades of experience at the Washington Post, Village Voice, LIFE magazine, among others. The views expressed here are Jimmie Briggs’s own, written in his personal capacity, and should not be attributed to any organization.
Red Summers is a 360 video project by the artist and film-maker Bayeté Ross Smith on the untold American history of racial terrorism from 1917 to 1921. The project is funded by Black Public Media, Eyebeam, Sundance Institute, Crux XR and the Open Society Foundations.
