The Count of Race Massacres in America Exceeds Fifty

   One wonders how many race massacres there have been in America. 

   There was the Rosewood Massacre in Rosewood Florida 100 years ago. Officially, six Black people and two White people were killed, but eyewitnesses put the death count at about 27. The town of Rosewood was destroyed and residents forced to move and live elsewhere. 

   Then there is the much-more famous Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921, with officially 37 killed (26 Black people and 13 White). One count put the death toll at 176. More than 800 were seriously injured.

  But, those are but two in a long list. Begin the list with the massacre of Pequot Native Americans by Puritans in 1637. Continue with the attack on a fort on the Apalachicola River in Florida that was home to more than 300 African and Choctaw families. Then there was that election day "Bloody Monday" in 1855 that stands as one of the worst anti-immigrant massacres in our nation's history as Protestant mobs attacked German and Irish neighborhoods in Lousville, Kentucky.

   The Zinn Education Project lists more than 50 such massacres, though some might not quite fit under the race label. Chinese have been killed, Muslims have been killed, and obviously, Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans have been killed.

    And, the Zinn list is not complete. It does not include the 1945 Midnight Massacre in Salina Utah, in which nine German prisoners were killed by a guard, who simply explained that he hated Germans.

   And, one wonders about the children's graves that have been found, from Native Americans being sent to perochial schools only to be killed.