Activists in Tulsa, Okla., on Monday put tens of cardboard gravestones on a Black Lives Matter mural in Greenwood to protest its removal, The Washington Post reported.
The gravestones represent Black Americans who were killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, when white mobs descended on Black businesses and killed Black residents in one of the nation’s most horrific racial massacres in history, and those killed by police.
“I felt like displaying the names of the victims of police brutality and the names of the victims of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre would help people understand why we say, ‘Black Lives Matter,’” one of the activists, Tiffany Crutcher, told the paper.
“There was no atonement for the massacre of 1921 and no atonement for people whose lives were lost through police brutality,” Crutcher, who told the paper she her twin brother was killed by police years back, said.
“The same culture that burned down Black Wall Street is the same culture we are seeing today,” she continued.
The mural was painted close to Juneteenth last month to protest President Trump’s rally in Tulsa.
But last week city officials ordered the mural to be removed because it wasn’t approved, CNN reported at the time.
The order came after a pro-police group requested to paint another mural on a public street.
Though the Black Lives Matter mural was supported among some city council members, the group had decided then that it would be unfair to allow one group’s mural to remain and not allow the same from other groups.
“It’s not about the message or anything like that. I applaud it. It’s great. But at the same point, it comes down to: yes, if you allow one, then you have to allow all of them,” Councilor Connie Dodson said at the time.
However, after the gravestone display Monday, Tulsa officials temporarily suspended the order to remove the Black Lives Matter mural. It’s unclear when the city plans to reschedule the removal.