06/19/2026
On Juneteenth, we honor freedom, and the people who made sure its history wouldn't be lost.
Eddie Faye Gates spent decades doing exactly that. As a Tulsa educator, writer, and community activist, she was appointed to the Tulsa Race Riot Commission in 1998 and went on to collect firsthand accounts from survivors and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, preserving stories that might otherwise have disappeared with them. Her collection, now held at Gilcrease Museum, holds photographs, oral histories, and decades of research that keep those voices present for future generations.
Juneteenth marks a promise of freedom delayed but not denied. Gates' life's work reminds us that freedom isn't just won — it has to be remembered, documented, and protected, generation after generation.
🔗 Explore the Eddie Faye Gates Tulsa Race Massacre Collection, link in bio.
Eddie Faye Gates and Senator Barack Obama with Otis Granville Clark, Wess Young, Sr., and Robert Holloway walking down the hall at the United States Supreme Court building, Copy 1 of 3, 2005, Photograph, Gift of Eddie Faye Gates, Tulsa, OK, teacher, author, community activist, Gilcrease, Accession No. 4328.10971
Eddie Faye Gates and a group of her students, 1993, Photograph, Gift of Eddie Faye Gates, Tulsa, OK, teacher, author, community activist, Gilcrease, Accession No. 4327.10706
Eddie Faye Gates with Dr. Louis Ballard, a Native American speaker, writer, and composer at the Tulsa Metropolitan Ministries Racism Conference, at the Downtown Doubletree Hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Photograph, 1991, Gift of Eddie Faye Gates, Tulsa, OK, teacher, author, community activist, Gilcrease, Accession No. 4327.10688
Book authors Brenda Perry, Johnnie P. Stevenson, and Eddie Faye Gates at the Oklahoma History Center for the Black History Program Lecture, Photograph, 2006, Gift of Eddie Faye Gates, Tulsa, OK, teacher, author, community activist, Gilcrease, Accession No. 4328.10569
Eddie Faye and Norman Gates at the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, Photograph, 1988, Gift of Eddie Faye Gates, Tulsa, OK, teacher, author, community activist, Gilcrease, Accession No. 4327.10734
