Tulsa Church Commemorates Race Massacre Centennial With New Prayer Wall

Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church was largely destroyed in 1921 after a white mob burned, killed, looted and leveleld a 35-square-block area.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Hundreds gathered Monday for an interfaith service dedicating a prayer wall outside historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church in Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood on the centennial of the first day of one of the deadliest racist massacres in the nation. National civil rights leaders, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and William Barber, joined multiple local faith leaders offering prayers and remarks outside the church that was largely destroyed when a white mob descended on the prosperous Black neighborhood in 1921, burning, killing, looting and leveling a 35-square-block area. Estimates of the death toll range from dozens to 300. Barber, a civil and economic rights activist, said he was “humbled even to stand on this holy ground.”