Hannibal B. Johnson

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN THE WORKPLACE

By at August 6, 2012 | 5:47 pm | 0 Comment

Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace The Business of Leading Change Hannibal B. Johnson  Introduction Each of us is a complex individual. Yes, we are different from one another, sometimes in significant ways. But what we have in common—our shared humanity—overarches those differences. A Yiddish proverb suggests we are all kneaded from the same dough,

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THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER Musings on the Perils of the Information Age

By at March 8, 2012 | 11:01 pm | 0 Comment

Hannibal B. Johnson The “Information Age” is now firmly ensconced. We are awash in its brackish, untamed waters, buffeted by waves of data at every turn. As with water, separating out the undesirable contaminants requires a process akin to purification, a kind of processing that culls the important, meaningful information from the fluff. While dealing

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REPARATIONS AND THE 1921 TULSA RACE RIOT Righting the Wrongs of History

By at March 5, 2012 | 8:50 pm | 0 Comment

  “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   Tulsa, “The Oil Capital of the World,” “The Magic City,” shone brightly at the dawn of the twentieth century. Black gold oozed from Indian Territory soil, land once set aside for American Indian resettlement. J.

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Curriculum Counts: The Importance of Teaching About the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot

By at April 28, 2011 | 10:03 am | 0 Comment

May 31, 2011, marks the ninetieth anniversary of the cataclysmic 1921 Tulsa Race Riot (the “Riot”), a defining moment in Tulsa and American history. Despite its significance as the worst so-called race riot in American history, even some Tulsans remain oblivious to this tragic event. Still more claim only a superficial familiarity with it. We need to

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BIG MAMA SPEAKS

By at April 1, 2011 | 1:36 pm | 0 Comment

A Tulsa Race Riot Survivor’s Story A PLAY BY HANNIBAL B. JOHNSON Featuring acclaimed actress VANESSA ADAMS-HARRIS  as “Big Mama” Big Mama Speaks is based on Hannibal B. Johnson’s book, Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District. A one-act vignette, the play traces the history of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s African-American community,

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The Illusion of a “Post-Race” America

By at February 6, 2011 | 6:15 pm | 0 Comment

November 5, 2008, newspaper headlines trumpeted the dawn of a new era: “A Nation Changed” (The Bakersfield Californian); “In Our Lifetime” (The Anniston Star); “America Chooses Change” (Tahoe Daily Tribune); and “Obama Wins in Historic Vote” (Record Searchlight), just to note a few. The election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States

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The Limits of the Law

By at December 6, 2010 | 10:05 am | 0 Comment

By Hannibal B. Johnson The words “law” and “justice,” most often coupled sequentially as “law and justice,” fit together like handmaidens. Historically and strategically, African-Americans have been true believers in the marriage of these concepts. From abolition to civil rights, African-American liberation movements viewed changes in the law as the primary means by which to

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Diversity, inclusion: business and moral musts

By at August 26, 2010 | 9:31 am | 0 Comment

Reprinted from Tulsa World with permission of original author By Staff Reports Published: 8/26/2010  2:27 AM Last Modified: 8/26/2010  6:12 AM Last fall, the Tulsa Area Human Resources Association held its first annual “Return on Inclusion” business summit. That TAHRA gathering of business leaders and professionals highlighted the significance of diversity and inclusion generally and,

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Race & Reconciliation: Tulsa, Oklahoma Leads By Example

By at June 13, 2010 | 8:55 pm | 0 Comment

“One might argue the historian is the conscience of the nation, if honesty and consistency are factors that nurture the conscience.” Dr. John Hope Franklin (Race and History, Selected Essays, 1938 – 1988) In life, Tulsa’s hometown hero, Dr. John Hope Franklin, challenged us to identify that which is broken in the world, and then

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February: A Time to Celebrate Black History

By at January 22, 2010 | 9:49 pm | 0 Comment

In 1926, the history of persons of African ancestry was largely ignored—not studied; not documented. African presence in America dates back to pre-colonial times, yet it was not until the 20th century that persons of African ancestry took it upon themselves to chronicle and commemorate their troubled and triumphant history in this country. Eventually, mainstream

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