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Tulsa Church North Peoria Church of Christ Celebrated Good Friday Despite Church Shooting Last Year on the Day

Three people were dead and two others in the hospital last Easter, after two white suspects reportedly drove through north Tulsa hunting for black people as targets.

The shooting spree attracted national – even international – attention, with the famous civil rights leader in town to speak at a “Rally for Hope and Healing.”

The media can wait, Bartlett told Jackson. “Why don’t you meet me at the funeral home instead?” 

Before going inside to pray together over the victim’s body, they stood in the parking lot, Bartlett remembers.

“He brought up the Race Riot of 1921, and some of our other history,” Bartlett says.

Then the Rev. Anthony Scott, pastor of First Baptist Church North Tulsa, spoke up, according to Bartlett’s account.

“We’re not like that anymore,” he told Jackson. “This city is coming together over this.” 

Jackson’s demeanor changed immediately, Bartlett says.

“A lot of people were looking at Tulsa at that moment and expecting to see a city divided,” the mayor says. 

 

“What they saw was something very different.”