Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke this week visited sites in Tulsa and Oklahoma City that were targeted by violence, and made a point of linking the Tulsa race riots and a recent deadly mass shooting in his Texas hometown.
The former congressman stopped Monday in Tulsa’s Greenwood District, where a white mob in 1921 looted black businesses , left homes and churches smoldering and killed an estimated 300 people. He later visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, which honors the 168 victims of a 1995 domestic terrorist bombing of a federal building.
Turkey says convoy hit by airstrike in Syria
O’Rourke’s visit to Oklahoma followed the Aug. 3 shooting in El Paso, Texas, where a white nationalist killed 22 people and wounded two dozen others. Police said the attacker targeted Mexicans when he went into a Walmart with an AK-47 assault rifle. The shooting is one of the deadliest in U.S. history.
“What I find Tulsa doing for me and for the rest of America today is to connect those dots all the way back to 1921 and before — the very foundation of this country,” O’Rourke said. “Not only are we as divided as we’ve ever been, but the racism that has been foundational to this country has now been admitted out into the open. And people are acting on that,” he said.
Source: Beto O’Rourke on historical racist attacks: US as divided as ever
