White Anti-Mask Protesters Jeered A Black Pastor Demanding Tulsa Race Massacre Reparations

A group of white anti-mask demonstrators jeered a black pastor outside Tulsa’s City Hall this week as he demanded reparations for the 1921 race massacre.

The confrontation took place Wednesday as the Rev. Robert Turner delivered his weekly message about the need for reparations for one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history. A group of white people protesting Tulsa’s new mask ordinance swarmed him, poured water on him and grabbed at his bullhorn.

A video shows the group shouting, “USA! USA! USA!” as Turner began his sermon explaining the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which left as many as 300 black people dead and leveled a 40-square block area of the all-black community of Greenwood.

On Monday, Tulsa broke ground in its search for suspected mass graves from the century-old massacre.

Turner, senior pastor of the historic Vernon AME Church in Greenwood, has come to City Hall each Wednesday for more than two years to protest the massacre and demand reparations for survivors and descendants.

“A racist mob of white people descended on Greenwood and dropped a bomb on Greenwood and killed black people,” Turner shouted in the bullhorn. “And not one of those angry, racist thugs was charged with a crime. God sits high and looks low.”

As Turner continued his sermon, the group of white demonstrators mocked him, with one asking if he took credit cards and another warning that he was “the sign of the beast.”

As the group jeered, Turner shouted: “You care more about a face mask than you do justice, than you do for people whose bodies are still in mass graves.”

One white man shouted, “My ancestors freed your people.” Another shouted, “You are a baldfaced liar.” One white man, wearing a red hat, screamed in Turner’s right ear. Two women are seen in the video grabbing Turner’s left arm.