Air Date
June 18, 2020
Robin Washington, editor at The Forward, points out that General Granger’s announcement of the Proclamation was less to inform the enslaved, many of whom already knew, but to make sure that slaveholders knew—and that the Federal Government was willing to enforce the order, at bayonet point if necessary.
2021 was the centennial of the massacre. Survivors’ accounts were shared, and some gestures toward accountability entertained. But by 2023, the city was attempting to have a lawsuit dismissed, prompting advocates to speculate that the city hopes that the clock will run out—that the last survivor will die—before any restitution measures are actually implemented.