Tom Hanks wrote a column for the New York Times arguing why we should tackle America's violent racist past

• Tom Hanks wrote a column for the New York Times about the Tulsa race massacre.
• He reflected on American history curriculums in schools, and the lack of education around the massacre.
• He said schools should "stop the battle to whitewash curriculums to avoid discomfort for students."

Actor Tom Hanks is urging people to revisit America's racist past and learn about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.

In a New York Times column published on Friday, Hanks reflected on American history curriculums in schools, and the lack of education around the Tulsa race massacre in which a white mob burned down the Black neighborhood of Greenwood, known at the time as "Black Wall Street."

"Many students like me were told that the lynching of Black Americans was tragic but not that these public murders were commonplace and often lauded by local papers and law enforcement," he wrote. "Should our schools now teach the truth about Tulsa? Yes, and they should also stop the battle to whitewash curriculums to avoid discomfort for students."

Hanks went on to say that he had only learned of the Tulsa massacre last year.

"History was mostly written by white people about white people like me, while the history of Black people - including the horrors of Tulsa - was too often left out," adding that "repeated violence" on Black Americans is often "systematically ignored" by white educators.

He called the omission of the Tulsa massacre in education a "teachable moment squandered."

"America's history is messy but knowing that makes us a wiser and stronger people," he wrote. "1921 is the truth, a portal to our shared, paradoxical history.