Tulsa race massacre, 100 years later

Context

31st May, 2021 is to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, in which a violent mob of Tulsa’s White residents attacked a prosperous Black neighbourhood, killing hundreds and leaving the locality in ashes.

Place of the event

• The 1921 Attack on Greenwood was one of the most significant events in Tulsa’s history. Following World War I.
• Tulsa was recognized nationally for its affluent African American community known as the Greenwood District.
• Greenwood, dubbed "Black Wall Street," boasted hotels, law offices, doctors' offices and other businesses owned and operated by Black people at the time of the massacre. Greenwood was founded in 1906 on the north side of Tulsa.
• By 1920 Greenwood had a population of more than 10,000 Black residents at a time when racial segregation was strict - and the violent white supremacist Ku Klux Klan had a robust membership in Oklahoma.
• The neighbourhood’s progress stoked resentment in the eyes of Tulsa’s White residents, and racial tensions triggered in 1921 led to it being nearly wiped out by violence.

About the massacre

• A white woman, Sarah Page, told police a Black man, Dick Rowland, grabbed her arm as they rode in an elevator in a downtown Tulsa commercial building on May 30, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• The following day, police arrested Rowland. The Tulsa Tribune reported Rowland had tried to assault Page. That evening, white Tulsans surrounded the courthouse, demanding Rowland be handed over. Black men, including World War One veterans, went to the courthouse to protect Rowland. A white man tried to disarm a Black veteran and a shot rang out, touching off further violence.
• Over the next six hours, carloads of white residents conducted "drive-by" shootings in Greenwood. Whites also looted and burned homes and businesses and dragged Blacks from their beds and beat them, according to historical accounts.
• Authorities deputized members of the mob, instructing them to shoot Black people. State National Guardsmen arrested Black people.

The toll

• The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics officially recorded 36 dead. A 2001 state commission examination of events was able to confirm 36 dead, 26 Black and 10 white. However, historians estimate the death toll may have been as high as 300.

Aftermath

• No one was ever charged for the violence.
• Some residents of Greenwood managed to rebuild, even though the city passed zoning laws after the massacre that made that difficult and insurance companies refused to cover the damage.
• Today, the sidewalk of the main boulevard, Greenwood Avenue, is studded with plaques identifying buildings as: "Destroyed 1921, rebuilt."
• Wealth, employment and health disparities remain between Blacks, who still live for the most part in north Tulsa, and whites.
• The Tulsa Historical Society & Museum has created a traveling exhibit on the history of the Greenwood Area and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre for the purpose of educating the community.