You see people climbing the side of the courthouse, getting in. And you see the exact same thing in 1919 Omaha. And law enforcement was just overwhelmed by these mass numbers of people. The juxtaposition was almost uncanny – at the Capitol, scaling walls to get into buildings and forcing their way in, while law enforcement and security was trying to keep them out. I immediately looked at the images, and I saw a parallel with the Omaha race riot in 1919. What were your thoughts when you saw what was happening? In the middle of this project, the Capitol insurrection happened on 6 January, and we saw supporters of Donald Trump breaking into the Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the election results. The charges were pretty flimsy to begin with, but, yeah. He’s already arrested! He was going to probably stand trial. For example, in Omaha, they destroyed the courthouse and destroyed downtown to kill one guy who was already arrested. All the officers and folks there were showing me that if you look right here, you can still see there’s still some buck shots from 1919.īeing in these places where you knew there was this level of intensity and violence, it really was a reminder of what human beings can be capable of for really very foolish reasons. In Arkansas, for example, the Phillips county courthouse is still that same building. You can see how different these places are now, but also how much the same they are. So I’m really looking at these scenes and looking at where everything would have been. We tried to match the shots as closely as possible to the photos. But it was really profound to be at these sites after studying all this and to see them as real places and see real people who live there now, on top of this grand history, that’s pretty horrific. It was actually pretty revelatory – maybe that’s a strong word.
What was it like to stare at these black and white photos of horrific events that happened 100 years ago, and then go back to that exact location of the incident? I wanted to create the feeling of standing on a site and seeing these streets that, if you live in that area, you’ve walked or driven by many times – and help draw a direct connection that we’re standing and living on top of very troubling, challenging history that has been intentionally avoided, and removed from the larger historical narrative about the United States of America. These events are often not discussed, are often not taught and, to a large extent, they’ve been rendered invisible for more than 100 years. Why did you want to create 360 immersive videos to tell these stories? I didn’t hear about East St Louis and Houston until my late 30s.
And then I didn’t hear about the Elaine massacre until I was in my mid-30s, and that’s when I learned about the Red Summer as well. I did not learn about it in high school or middle school. But I had not heard of a lot of these other incidents. It was some time in college that I heard about Tulsa and the Chicago massacre of 1919. But I did not know about these massacres until I was much older. I grew up in a pretty politically and historically aware family, and I attended a historically Black college. When did you first hear about the racial violence against Black Americans after the first world war?
The interview has been edited for clarity and length. As he concludes the project, we asked him about his experience retracing the steps of this oft forgotten history and what he learned.