Tulsa theater once named for a KKK member unveils BLM banner ahead of Trump rally
Once named for an influential Tulsa businessman and Ku Klux Klan member, the recently rebranded Tulsa Theater unfurled a Black Lives Matter banner from the rooftop Thursday, just two days before President Donald Trump’s scheduled campaign rally in the city.
Trump agreed to postpone the event originally planned for Friday, outlets report, after facing criticism that it would have been held on Juneteenth, a celebration of slavery’s end in the United States.
The BOK Convention Center in Tulsa’s downtown, where Trump will speak, is less than half a mile away from Tulsa Theater.
In the face of widespread protests against racism and police brutality, Trump has encouraged the use of military force to quell civil disobedience, dubbing himself “your president of law and order,” CNN reported, and has publicly opposed the idea of renaming military bases bearing the names of Confederate military leaders.
A Tulsa chapter of Black Lives Matter is scheduled to protest Trump during his Saturday visit, with over 300 members planning to attend, according to the group’s Facebook page.
Trump’s visit comes not long after the anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred May 31 and June 1 in 1921. Thousands of white Tulsans, spurred by increasingly exaggerated rumors that a Black man had somehow disrespected a white woman the day before, descended on the Greenwood District, destroying homes and businesses in the affluent Black community — known as “Black Wall Street — injuring hundreds and killing dozens, according to the Tulsa Historical Society.
The initial death toll was estimated at 36, but historians now believe it’s closer to 300, perhaps more.
In the days following the Race Massacre, Tulsa Theater was used as a detention center for the Black residents who survived the brutality, The Frontier reported.
The historic building changed its name from The Brady Theater in 2018, as scrutiny grew toward its namesake, W. Tate Brady, and his racist past, the outlet reported.
Thursday, the theater owner said he plans to keep the BLM banner up all week as a show of support for the movement, according to Fox 23.