Lyr Add: God's Gonna Make Things Over (Tulsa 1921)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: God's Gonna Make Things Over (Tulsa 1921)
From: Helen
Date: 27 Feb 23 - 03:07 PM

Thanks for posting this song, Rick Pollay.

God's Gonna Make Things Over by Guy Davis

Subject: Lyr Add: God's Gonna Make Things Over (Tulsa 1921
From: GUEST,Rick Pollay
Date: 27 Feb 23 - 02:50 PM

God's Gonna Make Things Over
by Guy Davis re: Tulsa race massacre – May 31, 1921

Though my people may be slaves
buried down in nameless graves
God's gonna make things over one of these days
Tulsa Oklahoma, 1921
That's when the killing had just begun
God's gonna make things over one of these days

It ain’t right!... It ain’t right!...
What the white folks did in Tulsa on that night

W. Tate Brady* was an evil man.
He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan
God's gonna make things over one of these days
Negroes begging down on their knees
White folks hanged them up in trees
        God's gonna make things over one of these days

It ain’t right!... It ain’t right!...
What the white folks did in Tulsa on that night

There was money in Greenwood town
White folks burned it to the ground
        God's gonna make things over one of these days
Black Doctor raised his hands up high
And they just shot him to watch him die
        God's gonna make things over one of these days

It ain’t right!... It ain’t right!...
What the white folks did in Tulsa on that night

Tell me what did you learn.
When you watched my body burn?
        God's gonna make things over one of these days
When you hang me from a tree
Raise me high so my people can see
God's gonna make things over one of these days
        
It ain’t right!... It ain’t right!...
What the white folks did in Tulsa on that night (X2)


A few factoids about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre – May 31, 1921

35-40 square blocks of residential area in smoking ruins.
Virtually every commercial structure (Black Wall Street) destroyed.
Estimates of deaths ranged between 36 and 300.
Official records indicate that at least 700 persons were injured, with no doubt many more not seen by hospitals, etc.
Nearly 9,000 made homeless.

*W. Tate Brady was the OK Commander of Sons of Confederate Veterans!!
The local newspaper very racist and inflammatory

For detail: https://digitalcollections.tulsalibrary.org/digital/collection/p15020coll6/search