2021 Creative Writing Contest

Bravely & Boldly Addressing OurAmerican History of Racial Injustice

The African Descent Lutheran Association and the Creating Writing Contest Partners believe that in these current times we must support and encourage truth, equity, and justice for all. We invite participants to submit a creative writing based on the following:

“How does the history of injustice related to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre reflect and relate to modern day injustice in the United States of America? How can the Church recognize its historical complicity with racial injustice and be moved to respond and proclaim truth, equity, and justice for all in our nation today?”

Deadline for entries is Monday, May 10, 2021.

The African Descent Lutheran Association and the Creating Writing Contest Partners believe that in these current times we really must support and encourage truth, equity and justice for all. It is our mission to bravely and boldly address and confront our American history of racial injustice. We invite participants to submit a creative writing based on the following topic(s) and questions :

“How does the history of injustice related to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre reflect and relate to modern day injustice in the United States of America? How can the Church recognize its historical complicity with racial injustice and be moved to respond and proclaim truth, equity, and justice for all in our nation today?”

Background

The Tulsa Race Massacre (known alternatively as the Tulsa race riot, the Greenwood Massacre, the Black Wall Street Massacre, the Tulsa pogrom, or the Tulsa Massacre) took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, OK. It has been called “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.” The attack, carried out on the ground and from private aircraft, destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the district—at that time the wealthiest black community in the United States, known as “Black Wall Street.”

2021 marks the centennial year of the massacre. As a way to remember and commemorate the loss of this community in such a dark period of history, the ELCA’s African Descent Lutheran Association and partners have organized a writing contest to gather thoughts, tributes, and sociological/theological understandings of the detrimental impact of this community’s demise on Black American wealth and economic equality.