Have you heard of the Slocum massacre? Probably, you have not, and you may not have even heard of Slocum.
Slocum is a town in Texas, no post office, a voluntary fire station and a population of only around 250, this sleepy little through town has a dark history.
On 29th July 1910 the predominately African American town was a thriving self sufficient community, much like Tulsa and Rosewood. However, this was the date many of it’s citizens were massacred.
The terror attack that occured in Slocum was at the hands of whites, whites that wanted to maintain economic power. The fear of successful blacks led to murder in the coldest blood.
Tulsa and Rosewood both had their own terror attacks, attacks that we still hear a bit about to this day but for some reason Slocum was all but forgotten.
The incident that led up to the massacre, officially of 8 African Americans bit some say hundreds, was maybe a fear that blacks would revenge after the lynching of a man, maybe a white-black business dispute, or maybe even fabricated.
A mob of 200-300 whites came to the town and apparently killed indiscriminately, shot black people in the back.
The truth be told. the fact that this and other massacres happened in these communities were prove of the wide fear that blacks were becoming successful, competitive and arguably ran much better than many comparable white communities.
The massacre has been lightly remembered, Wikipedia says:
On January 16, 2016, a roadside marker commemorating the victims was unveiled by their descendants. The marker was sought by Constance Hollie-Jawaid, a Dallas school district administrator whose great-grandfather, John Holley, was among the victims. After the massacre, the family changed the spelling of its surname. Jimmy Odom, chairman of the Anderson County Historical Commission, said that the citizens of Slocum today had nothing to do with what happened in 1910: “This is a nice, quiet community with a wonderful school system. It would be a shame to mark them as racist from now until the end of time.” Despite his position, Odom attended the unveiling of the marker.
These moments lost in history should not be forgotten and luckily many are working hard to keep the memory alive.
You can read much more here (http://zinnedproject.org/2014/07/slocum-massacre/) and in the book The 1910 Slocum Massacre: An Act of Genocide in East Texas available on Amazon here.
Also, you can learn more in the lesson “Burned Out of Homes and History” by Rethinking Schoolsauthor Linda Christensen: http://bit.ly/1fDOUvG
Please spell check this and other articles. There are numerous misspellings and I do not want the people reading your post to be able to make any negative comments regarding this fact. Please spell check