This year, May 31st marks the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Some choose to lessen the horror by calling it a riot. However, it was a two day massacre of African-Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A white mob attacked and killed black residents and black business owners in the Greenwood District of Tulsa known as Black Wall Street. Tulsa was a highly segregated city in 1921. Black Wall Street was a thriving area where black people lived and owned businesses serving its black population. Therefore, their dollar circulation stayed within the community. Black Wall Street and the Greenwood District was attacked and hundreds of African-Americans were killed or injured in the race massacre.
The first African-Americans arrived in what would be Tulsa during the Native American or Indian Removal Act when the U.S. government forced the American Indians west. Likewise, blacks who were enslaved by Native Americans were forced to relocate with the Indian tribes. Tulsa area was originally part of Indian Territory. The tribes who supported the Confederacy in the Civil War were forced to concede land and other concessions in Oklahoma as part of their loss of the Civil War. Before Oklahoma was a state, it was part Indian Territory and part Oklahoma Territory. Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory merged when it was admitted to the union and became a state in 1907. At the time of the massacre in 1921, Oklahoma was a young state full of racial tension, segregation, and distrust between the societies residing within the state.
The Tulsa Race Massacre started as usual by a lie of an “assault” against a white woman by a black man. A nineteen year-old black teenage male tripped while entering an elevator. To avoid falling, he grabbed the arm of the elevator operator, a young white teenager. She screamed. A white male store clerk saw this and reported the “assault” to the police. The press sensationalized the event which assisted in stoking the already existing fears, hatred, and jealousy of whites in Tulsa. The black teen was arrested and an armed white mob threatened to lynch him.
The African-American community arrived armed to protect the teen. Fights broke out and a shot was fired. There were deaths and injuries on both sides. When news of the disruption hit the city, whites armed themselves and rushed into Greenwood. The black community was overpowered. Whites opened fire, some reportedly with machine guns. They looted and burned black businesses and homes. They proceeded to arrest and kill African-Americans. Some white men were deputized by the local sheriff giving them the authority to commit crimes deemed justifiable. The National Guard arrived. Blacks were arrested defending themselves and their property. Additionally, some eyewitnesses reported seeing private airplanes flying over the area firing guns and dropping dynamite on Greenwood. By all accounts, Greenwood was destroyed and blacks were massacred. Those who weren’t killed were seriously injured or jailed. Some blacks were successful in fleeing the city, however, many were not.
Afterwards, the white officials did what they always do. They erased it from history. Records vanished. Bodies were buried in unmarked graves. Newspaper archives were destroyed. It was never taught in history classes. Even African-Americans who remained were fearful to speak of the event. Furthermore, insurance companies did not pay property or life insurance claims presented by blacks. As such, blacks were homeless and slept in tents while trying to rebuild homes without reimbursement. Later, the case against the black man teen was dropped after the white teen wrote a letter stating she did not want to prosecute. However, the Ku Klux Klan used the event as a recruiting tool, making the Tulsa chapter at the time, one of the largest in the country.