‘We always carry over here’ — Black Wall Street workers bear arms 105 years after deadly massacre
Much like the men of Black Wall Street who were forced to engage in a shootout with 10,000 white supremacists in 1921 during the deadly Tulsa Race Massacre to defend their businesses, these shop workers said they won’t hesitate to use their guns in the face of danger.
Entrepreneur Cyndii Cosper, 53, of the family-owned Black Wall Street Tees and Souvenirs gift shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, told The Mirror US, “Our first defense is to handle [a possible attack similar to the Tulsa Race Massacre] as peacefully as we can, … but we do exercise our Second Amendment right.”
Stowed away in the back of her store, which she runs with her two sons —Daniel Washington, 22 and Isaiah Harris, 25 — is a 9mm pistol meant to be used in the wake of a deadly attack.
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Both Daniel and Isaiah said they own similar pistols, which are kept at their home. The Tees and Souvenirs shop “helped me become the man as I am now,” so “we always carry over here,” Daniel told The Mirror US, signaling that he’d bear arms beside his mother and father to protect their legacy.
Growing up in Tulsa, he didn’t learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre until he was around 16 years old, adding he “didn’t want to believe it.”
Isaiah, who designs the novelty sweaters and T-shirts sold at the store, carries a firearm with him “out of precaution” given the area’s history. “It could be anywhere. You want to be the safest at work because I’m here the most.”
‘We always carry over here,’ Daniel Washington, 22, told The Mirror US
Dante Williams, 45, a maintenance worker of Tee’s Barbershop on Black Wall Street, told The Mirror US he’d “get his gun” the second a threat were to come to the business.
Tee’s is a staple of Black Wall Street, providing haircuts to the young men of the district. Williams, who added that he is an unofficial security guard, claimed the majority of patrons are open-carry enthusiasts. “I don’t believe in violence, but I believe in protecting my people,” he said. “If you have to bear arms, do that.”
Isaiah Harris, 25, says it’s important to feel safe at work
“I believe that I’m a soldier at war, and I love this place.”
The state of Oklahoma allows open carry. Anybody who is lawfully permitted to possess a handgun and is 21 years of age or older (or 18 years of age or older and in the military) may openly carry a firearm without a permit under the state’s constitutional carry rules.
Dante Williams, 45, said patrons of Tee’s Barbershop on Black Wall Street are always armed
Exactly 105 years ago today, at least 300 African Americans were shot and killed in cold blood when a violent mob of racists, comprised of Tulsa cops, former veterans and even National Guard Troops, descended on Black Wall Street to essentially steal the wealth of self-made millionaires who moved to Oklahoma to escape the deadly grip of the Jim Crow South.
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The victims banded together with firearms to defend their businesses that had the potential to create generational wealth, but ultimately lost and were left to bleed out in the streets.
The policemen and military service members who participated in the attack proceeded to burn down every Black-owned business from North to South Tulsa and blamed the entire event on the victims.
The death toll is widely believed to exceed 300, as Tulsa City officials continue to investigate and uncover additional corpses left in the wake of the bloodbath in 1921.
