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EXPERIENCE  THE SPIRIT OF GREENWOOD

This isn't your usual history tour. You'll take a one-of-a-kind and informative tour of Tulsa's historic Greenwood neighborhood. You'll explore the streets of what was once one of America's wealthiest Black neighborhoods before being destroyed by the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. When you book the extended tour, you will visit areas with historical significance to the events of 1921. You will see the influence of "Urban Renewal" on the area in the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, we'll talk about initiatives to restore respect, repair, and reparation to the Historic Greenwood District. Join us for a memorable, educational experience. The Real Black Wall Street Tour is the only tour company owned and run by black descendants of the Tulsa massacre.

Don't forget to order your copy of the book America's Black Wall Street .

TOUR THE REAL BLACK WALL STREET

1-hour tour, 2-hour tour, 25+ group tours.

A unique guided tour of the area known as "Deep Greenwood." A stop-and-talk walking tour that lasts around 1 hour, this tour gives you an intimate look at what was once known as the Promised Land. This includes insight into the events of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. 

Note: We are not a service of the Greenwood Cultural Center. However; we fully support the  Historic Institution. Go to the FAQ section to answer most questions.

This 2 hour + Tour includes extended dialogue. The first hour we will walk two blocks of Greenwood visiting  important markers. The second hour we will travel the Greenwood Greenwood District and view significant sites relative to the rise and fall of the Historic Greenwood District. 

A custom group experience for parties of 25 or more. 1-hour and 2-hour options are available. Please contact us for tour options, and availability for your customer experience. 

BOOK YOUR TOUR

All tours are booked on a by-appointment-only basis. Please fill out the form below and one of our expert guides will contact you to arrange your tour. If you have questions you would like to address before you book your tour, please send us an email at [email protected] or text us at (918) 829-4213.

THANK YOU! WE WILL REACH OUT TO YOU SOON WITH MORE DETAILS AND AVAILABILITY. 

MICHAEL D. GREEN

The Chief is very knowledgeable in the subject of Black Wall Street. His tour was very informative and you feel as though you are getting insider information. I would recommend this tour to any interested in the history of The Greenwood District of Tulsa. 

I could truly go on and on about everything we learned on this tour but I really think it’s something everyone should prioritize as far as places to visit in Tulsa. 

SEN. CORY BOOKER

I felt the pain as i touched the scarred and charred bricks of a great community. A community that thrived. We are here because of the folks that never gave up on the dream of America.

KAY KINGSMAN

The Best 2 hour Tour In America 

By doing the guided Greenwood Black Wall Street tour, you get all of the deeper insight and personal connection. So if you’re hesitating on the guided tour because you don’t usually like group tours or going at someone else’s pace – let me tell ya. As someone who hates both group things with strangers AND going at someone else’s pace, the guided tour was AMAZING.

JOANN BROWN

This was the most informative tour.  It was on my bucket list since early 2000 when I first heard of this massacre. We were anxious to find out what was left out of history books and Chief delivered.  Our tour was almost 4 hours. I highly recommend booking the full tour.

FRANNY THE TRAVELER

The best treatment I received was through my tour guide, Chief, from The Real Black Wall Street Tour . He gave me a personalized 1:1 tour of Black Wall Street, which included driving around to understand the scope of how large the Black community was prior to the Massacre. Chief recommended many Black-owned spots to check out.  community.

TESTIMONIALS

Agnes groonwald, meet the owner.

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Chief Egunwale Amusan was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a descendant of 3 survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. Chief Amusan is the author of " America's Black Wall Street ", The Untold Story of Broken Treaties, Black Resistance, Political Fear, and Sacred Ground. Amusan is the Executive Producer of the groundbreaking documentary " Oaklawn " which takes a deep dive into the 1921 mass graves investigation. Amusan is featured in the award-winning WNYC studios podcast Blindspot (Tulsa Burning), as well as the Emmy Award Winning documentary "Dreamland"

Chief Amusan developed an extensive digital version of The Real Black Wall Street Tour for National Geographic's  "2892 Miles To Go  Tulsa." 

Chief is the owner of The Real Black Wall Street Tour LLC. This  family-run business is committed to telling the history of Greenwood from the perspective of its descendants and survivors.  

tulsa massacre tour

tulsa massacre tour

Greenwood Rising: the Tulsa Massacre Museum Honors Black Wall Street

tulsa massacre tour

Step into the dark room, and you’re transported back a century to a moment of horror. Families huddle in terror as roaming gangs of armed men attack their neighborhood, setting fire to homes and businesses, shooting indiscriminately into crowds, and even dropping dynamite from a plane.

When the violence subsided, Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood, the so-called Black Wall Street, was left a smoldering ruin. Survivors were placed in detention camps and ordered to clear the clutter. The neighborhood, once home to banks, restaurants, theaters and the nation’s largest Black-owned hotel, the J.B. Stradford, had been destroyed.

Tulsa massacre museum

As devastating as it was, it’s only recently that people have begun to hear about Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Massacre, which occurred on May 31 and June 1, 1921. For most of the last century, it wasn’t taught in Oklahoma schools, let alone anywhere else. Awareness has come thanks to a 2001 state commission report that documented the incident, and, it must be admitted, the HBO series Watchmen , which featured the dark moment of U.S. history in 2019. Even now researchers are still finding the graves of victims.

Greenwood neighborhood Tulsa

Tulsa Massacre museum

The story, told at the new Tulsa Massacre museum, is shocking—an estimated 300 dead, the first aerial bombing of a U.S. city, the machine-gunning of homes, and the destruction of an entire neighborhood leading to more than $200 million of damage based on current values. Although many residents had insurance, officials altered laws so that claims would not be paid.

Vernon A.M.E church, Tulsa

The museum, called  Greenwood Rising , gathers the shards of the story, showing what was lost in the eruption of racial violence—and what the Black community was able to retain. Using multi-media screens and projections, it puts visitors in the streets of Greenwood, both during its heyday, and then at its destruction. The final of the museum’s eight spaces, the “Journey to Reconciliation,” urges visitors to visualize how Greenwood, and the greater community, might heal as it moves forward.

The 11,000-square-foot museum brings new life to the heart of the Greenwood. A few blocks away, visitors can pause for reflection at the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park , which honors the famed historian, a Black Tulsa native, and features statues commemorating the massacre. A new “Pathway to Hope,” with art and community photos, connects the park to Greenwood, where visitors find Black Wall Street gift shops, a community center, and the historic Vernon Chapel AME church, built after the massacre.

For civil rights travelers, Tulsa makes an important mid-way stop between the Brown v. Board of Education site in Topeka, Kansas, and the Little Rock Central High School visitors center in Arkansas.

Innovative exhibits

The museum, which opened in 2021 on the 100 th anniversary of the massacre, uses a story-telling approach to bring visitors into the narrative. The exhibits are designed by the Local Projects design studio, which also created the displays at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Visitors start with a short inspiring video based on Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise,” which sets the tone for the visit. Then comes an introduction to Greenwood through a clever re-creation of a 1920s neighborhood barber shop. As guests sit in barber chairs, they can watch three Black barbers, depicted as holograms, describe how Greenwood rose to prominence after its founding in 1906.

Greenwood Rising Museum, Tulsa

Next, the museum tells how Blacks came to Tulsa, and the challenges they faced. The room, called the “Arc of Oppression,” outlines how government and history systemically oppressed Black Americans. Recognizing that some displays, like slave shackles, a photo of a lynching and a Ku Klux Klan robe, may be too intense for visitors, the museum’s designed with an “emotional exit” to offer a path out of the room.

The massacre was not unprecedented. In the years leading up to the attack, mob violence against Black communities had swept the country. One of the first incidents occurred in Wilmington, N.C., in 1898. The killings and destruction seemed to reach a peak during the “Red Summer” of 1919, when mobs in more than three dozen U.S. cities attacked Black communities.

Then came Tulsa.

Greenwood Rising Museum, Tulsa

When visitors enter the heart of the massacre, they’re taken to Memorial Day weekend, 1921. The violence, we’re told, was prompted when a 19-year-old black man, a shoe shiner named Dick Rowland, was arrested for assaulting a woman, Sarah Page, 17, who was working as an elevator operator. Reports vary, but it’s likely it was an accident. He may have bumped into the teenager or stepped on her foot, causing her to scream. Nonetheless, the encounter was reported in the newspaper, and Rowland was arrested for rape.

Fearing a lynching, an armed group of men, many of them Black World War I veterans, rushed to the jail to protect him. They met a group of white men, and a confrontation began. (Rowland was never charged with a crime, and is believed to have escaped Tulsa safely.)

The white posse grew to a mob of an estimated 2,000, and descended on Greenwood, burning and looting buildings. Included in the mob were many men who had been deputized that evening by the Tulsa police to attack Greenwood. Black residents, who were trying to protect their community, were rounded up by police and the National Guard, which had been mobilized.

Visitors witness the violence on large projection screens that show homes devoured in flames. Narration based on oral histories describe the terror. By the next morning, most of Greenwood had been destroyed, and was under martial law. The commission report said the damage included one dozen churches, five hotels, 31 restaurants, four drug stores, eight doctor’s offices, more than two dozen grocery stores, and the Black public library. But the damage was greater: a community had been destroyed.

The final rooms may come as a surprise. Greenwood, we learned, did bounce back from the massacre, and continued to thrive through the 1950s. As in so many communities, it was the construction of a highway, Interstate 244, that ultimately split the neighborhood in two, and largely destroyed it. Locals say the so-called urban renewal was actually “urban removal.”

Around Greenwood

tulsa massacre tour

After visiting the museum, take time to explore the adjacent blocks of Greenwood Avenue, and patronize the Black-owned gift shops and restaurants.

Check out the Greenwood Cultural Center , which often runs special programs and exhibits.

A clever walking tour, accessed through the Greenwood Rising XR (extended reality) iPhone app (or Google Play ) lets you use your cellphone to see what Greenwood looked like during its heyday, re-creating buildings, crowds and newsstands that once lined the streets.

You can book a guided tour through the REAL Black Wall Street Tour for $15 per person, or sign up for Tulsa Tours’ Art Deco and Greenwood Tour , a two-hour tour costing $50, which includes the history of Black Wall Street. The John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation also provides Greenwood tours. You can also virtually revisit Greenwood during its heyday through this innovative New York Times virtual re-creation of the neighborhood .

While strolling Greenwood, look down at the sidewalk for plaques memorializing Black-owned business destroyed in the massacre. They’re reminiscent of the “ stumbling stones ” found in Germany and around the world, that mark the homes of Holocaust victims.

Walking north, look for murals and street art on both sides of the Interstate underpass, and head toward Vernon AME church, which was built after the massacre.  Then walk another block to the OSU-Tulsa campus, where you’ll find a graphic mural incorporated into the sign welcoming visitors to the university, which once was the heart of Black Wall Street.

Tulsa travel information

You’ll find several Black-owned restaurants on Greenwood Avenue, within a block of the museum, including Black Wall Street Liquid Lounge coffee shop; Wanda J’s Next Generation Southern food restaurant;

Stutt's Bar-B-Q Tulsa

For an authentic taste of old-school Tulsa, try the historic Stutt’s House of Barbecue. Its still run by 80-year-old Almead Hill Stutts, who uses family recipes from her childhood in Mississippi.

For a taste of an Old West favorite, chicken-fried steak, try Tally’s Good Food Café on old Route 66.

You can find soul food in Tulsa at Evelyn’s , owned by the same woman who owns Wanda J’s in Greenwood. Open for breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday.

Taste Oklahoma’s take on Tex-Mex at El Rancho Grande .

Fairfield Inn and Suites Downtown offers a tranquil setting just a few blocks from the Greenwood neighborhood.

The Ambassador Hotel Tulsa, Autograph Collection is a full-service business hotel that sometimes offers bargain rates on weekends.

Related Posts

John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park remembers the Tulsa massacre

John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park remembers the Tulsa massacre

JohnHopeFranklinLogo.png

Please observe our new park hours for the winter months. The park will continue to be open year-round, during the winter months we will close the gates at 6:00pm. Thank you.

Winter Hours: 8:00am – 6 :00pm

GUIDED TOURS

Guided tours are available for the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park, Greenwood Cultural Center, Ellis Walker Woods Memorial, Vernon A.M.E. Church, Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Standpipe Hill, & the Historic Greenwood Business District.

Scheduled tours are available on the following days and times:

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 9:00am – 12:00pm 1:00pm – 3:00pm

Saturday 10:00am – 1:00pm

You will not be able to enter the buildings during the tour. In the event of inclement weather, tours are subject to be rescheduled.  

John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park

Reconciliation Park is the long-awaited result of the 2001 Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. It me morializes the Tulsa Race Riot, called the worst civic disturbance in American history. The Park also tells the story of African Americans’ role in building Oklahoma and thus begins the lo ng-delayed rendering of the full account of Oklahoma’s history.

Greenwood Cultural Center​

A tour of historic Greenwood must be gin at the Greenwood Cultural Center. The building’s most valuable contribution is an impressive collection of historic black and white photos of the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, newspaper articles from around the world, and an additional collection of black and white photos. Photos of Indian Territory, Oklahoma statehood, Black Wall Street, 1921 Tulsa Race Riot/Massacre during,  and the rebuilding of the Greenwood District are on permanent display.  An exhibition of the Survivors speaks of their memory of the Race Massacre can be found in the Goodwin-Chappelle Gallery. These images give visitors an enlightened view of our historically significant contributions by these early pioneers.

Ellis Walker Woods Memorial

The Ellis Walker Woods Memorial honors the first principal of Tulsa's Booker T. Washington High School. A labor of love for more than 30 years, the conception, fundraising, and construction of the memorial was guided by a dedicated committee of Booker T. Washington alumni and supporters. The memorial was dedicated on August 16, 2019. 

The Historic Vernon A.M.E. Church

The historic Vernon A.M.E. Church is the only standing black-owned structure from the Historic Black Wall Street era and the only edifice that remains from the worst race massacre in American history. To this day, Vernon A.M.E. Church remains a visual reminder of the Massacre and the reconstruction process. 

Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Mt. Zion Baptist Church was founded in 1909 under the leadership of Rev. Sandy Lyons. The original site of the church was a one-room framed schoolhouse. Mt. Zion had just opened its new church and held its first service on April 4, 1921. Because it was the newest building in the neighborhood, rioters burned it down on June 1, 1921 during the Race Massacre.

Standpipe Hill / Sunset Hill

White rioters used the high elevation of Standpipe Hill to fire down upon the Greenwood District with a machine gun and ridd led the church tower with its devastating fire. Deadly firefights erupted at the site of an old clay pit off of Standpipe Hill and along the northern edge of Sunset Hill.  As mobs poured into the southern end of the African-American district, as many as six airplanes, manned by whites, appeared overhead, firing on fleeing blacks and perhaps, in some cases, dropping explosives.

Historic Greenwood Business District

Perhaps nowhere else in America is there a single thoroughfare which registers such significance to the African-American diaspora as Greenwood Ave, “Negro Wall Street” known for its prominence and progress during the early 20th century. By 1921, Tulsa’s African American population had grown to almost 11,000 residence and encompassed a bustling 35 square block of businesses and residential structures. Greenwood was bordered by the Frisco railroad yards to the south, by Lansing Street and the Midland Valley tracks to the east and by Standpipe and Sunset hills to the west. The section line, now known as Pine Street had for many years been the northernmost boundary of the African-American community. 

What we know about President Biden's visit to Tulsa

President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Oklahoma Tuesday, the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

The attack on Tulsa's Greenwood District took place on May 31 and June, 1, 1921. Mobs of white residents attacked, set aflame, and looted the Greenwood District, otherwise known as "Black Wall Street". The district drew its name from being one of the wealthiest communities for Black people at the time.

The number of those who were killed in the assault has been estimated to be as high as 300 people. The two-day event left thousands more homeless, wiped out generational wealth for an entire community , and was often left out of the curriculum in Oklahoma schools.

Here's what we know about Biden's plan to visit the city to mark the centennial event.

When is Biden coming to Tulsa?

President Joe Biden is scheduled to arrive at Tulsa International Airport at 12:50 p.m. Tuesday. 

Joe Biden to tour Greenwood Cultural Center

From the airport, Biden will travel to visit the Greenwood Cultural Center.

Joining the President there will be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge, Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice, and Senior Advisor to the President Cedric Richmond.

'We can not even talk about justice without reparations' : Tulsa should apologize, make 'tangible amends' for race massacre, four city council members say

Dedicated in 1995, the Greenwood Cultural Center hosts exhibits and events showcasing the community's heritage. Most recently, it served as a venue for several events during the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival this past weekend.

You can watch a live stream of his tour here:

Tulsa Race Massacre survivors to meet Biden

Three known survivors of the attack on Black Wall Street will meet with President Biden. They include Viola “Mother” Fletcher, 107, and Lessie Benningfield “Mother” Randle, 106, and Hughes Van Ellis, 100.

Coming home to 'nothing left': An illustrated history of the Tulsa Race Massacre

The three have taken part in a variety of events marking the tragedy's anniversary, but not those organized by the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission.

The two parties reached an impasse over a request for funds for the survivors and for improvements toward Greenwood and North Tulsa communities.

The three survivors, who testified before a Congressional subcommittee in May, are also involved in a landmark reparations lawsuit against the city of Tulsa and other entities.

From Black Wall Street to George Floyd: The echoes of trauma shape Black Americans' reality

What time is Biden's speech today?

Following his tour and meeting with survivors, Biden is scheduled to give remarks at 3:15 p.m.

You can watch a live stream of his speech here then:

Following the remarks, he is scheduled to depart Tulsa at 4:50 p.m. according to the White House.

Dig deeper: New exhibit uses AI to allow Tulsa Race Massacre survivors to speak truth

Biden issues proclamation for massacre to be 'a day of remembrance'

A day before his scheduled visit to Tulsa, Biden issued a proclamation stating the "federal government must reckon with and acknowledge the role that it has played in stripping wealth and opportunity from Black communities."

Here's the president's proclamation in full:

One hundred years ago, a violent white supremacist mob raided, firebombed, and destroyed approximately 35 square blocks of the thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Families and children were murdered in cold blood. Homes, businesses, and churches were burned. In all, as many as 300 Black Americans were killed, and nearly 10,000 were left destitute and homeless. Today, on this solemn centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, I call on the American people to reflect on the deep roots of racial terror in our Nation and recommit to the work of rooting out systemic racism across our country. Before the Tulsa Race Massacre, Greenwood was a thriving Black community that had grown into a proud economic and cultural hub. At its center was Greenwood Avenue, commonly known as Black Wall Street. Many of Greenwood’s 10,000 residents were Black sharecroppers who fled racial violence after the Civil War. In the decades following the Civil War and Reconstruction, Greenwood became a place where Black Americans were able to make a new start and secure economic progress despite the continued pain of institutional and overt racism. The community was home to a growing number of prominent Black entrepreneurs as well as working-class Black families who shared a commitment to social activism and economic opportunity. As Greenwood grew, Greenwood Avenue teemed with successful Black-owned businesses, including restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, and offices for doctors, lawyers, and dentists. The community also maintained its own school system, post office, a savings and loan institution, hospital, and bus and taxi service. Despite rising Jim Crow systems and the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan, Greenwood’s economic prosperity grew, as did its citizens’ demands for equal rights. This made the community a source of pride for many Black Americans. It also made the neighborhood and its families a target of white supremacists. In 2 days, a violent mob tore down the hard-fought success of Black Wall Street that had taken more than a decade to build. In the years that followed, the destruction caused by the mob was followed by laws and policies that made recovery nearly impossible. In the aftermath of the attack, local ordinances were passed requiring new construction standards that were prohibitively expensive, meaning many Black families could not rebuild. Later, Greenwood was redlined by mortgage companies and deemed “hazardous” by the Federal Government so that Black homeowners could not access home loans or credit on equal terms. And in later decades, Federal investment, including Federal highway construction, tore down and cut off parts of the community. The attack on Black families and Black wealth in Greenwood persisted across generations. The Federal Government must reckon with and acknowledge the role that it has played in stripping wealth and opportunity from Black communities. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to acknowledging the role Federal policy played in Greenwood and other Black communities and addressing longstanding racial inequities through historic investments in the economic security of children and families, programs to provide capital for small businesses in economically disadvantaged areas, including minority-owned businesses, and ensuring that infrastructure projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity and environmental justice, and promote affordable access. A century later, the fear and pain from the devastation of Greenwood is still felt. As Viola Fletcher, a 107-year-old survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre courageously testified before the Congress recently, “I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home. I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams. I have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot.” With this proclamation, I commit to the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, including Viola Fletcher, Hughes Van Ellis, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, the descendants of victims, and to this Nation that we will never forget.  We honor the legacy of the Greenwood community, and of Black Wall Street, by reaffirming our commitment to advance racial justice through the whole of our government, and working to root out systemic racism from our laws, our policies, and our hearts.  NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 31, 2021, a Day of Remembrance: 100 Years After The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. I call upon the people of the United States to commemorate the tremendous loss of life and security that occurred over those 2 days in 1921, to celebrate the bravery and resilience of those who survived and sought to rebuild their lives again, and commit together to eradicate systemic racism and help to rebuild communities and lives that have been destroyed by it. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.                              JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
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The Tulsa Race Massacre

100 years later, a survivor's story of the tulsa race massacre.

On May 31, 1921, a group of white locals launched an attack on a thriving Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla. The Tulsa Race Massacre was one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

On May 31, 1921, almost exactly 100 years ago, a group of white residents launched an attack on a thriving Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla. Beginning that evening and continuing into the following day, white mobs stormed into Black homes and schools and businesses. The Tulsa Race Massacre was one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. Today we revisit a story from Radio Diaries, the story of a witness to that day. She was 6 years old at the time of the massacre.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

OLIVIA HOOKER: My name is Olivia J. Hooker.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

HOOKER: The Black part of Tulsa, it was a neighborhood where you could be treated with respect. My father had a very nice store - Samuel D. Hooker and Son. It was the store that didn't carry shoddy things. They had Arrow shirts, Kuppenheimer suits, Florsheim shoes and Stetson hats. And those were all good names in those days.

It was May 31, 1921. At first, we saw a bunch of men with those big pine torches come through the backyard. And I remember our mother put us under the table. She took the longest tablecloth she had to cover four children and told us not to say a word. It was a horrifying thing for a little girl who's only 6 years old - trying to remember to keep quiet, so they wouldn't know we were there. As those marauders came into the house, they were trying to destroy anything that they could find. They took a huge axe and started whacking at my sister Aileen's beloved piano - whack, whack, whack. It was a good piano, and they thought that was something we shouldn't have.

HOOKER: When they left, they went on, you know, to do more damage to people who lived beside us and down the hill. They tried to destroy every Black business, school and church. Our school, Dunbar School, was blasted with dynamite. And my father's store was destroyed. I mean, there was nothing left but one big safe. It was so big they couldn't carry it away, so they had to leave it in the middle of the rubble.

To me, I guess the most shocking thing was seeing people to whom you had never done anything to irritate who just took it upon themselves to destroy your property because they didn't want you to have those things, and they were teaching you a lesson. Those were all new ideas to me. But I guess that's part of the growing-up process.

After the riot, we didn't stay in Tulsa. We moved to Topeka. Our parents tried to tell us, don't spend your time agonizing over the past. They encouraged us to look forward and think how you could make things better. I think things can get better. But maybe it won't be in a hurry.

CHANG: In the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, more than a thousand homes and businesses were destroyed, and it's estimated that as many as 300 people were killed. Olivia Hooker went on to become the first African American woman to join the U.S. Coast Guard, and she helped form the Tulsa Race Riot Commission in 1997. She died in 2018, just six months after this story originally aired. She was 103 years old.

Last week, three more survivors testified before a congressional subcommittee that's considering reparations for survivors of the massacre and their descendants. This story was produced by Nellie Gilles, with help from Sarah Kate Kramer and Joe Richman. It was edited by Deborah George and Ben Shapiro. You can hear an extended version on the Radio Diaries podcast.

Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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100 years after Tulsa Race Massacre, the damage remains

This photo provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa shows the ruins of Dunbar Elementary School and the Masonic Hall in the aftermath of the June 1, 1921, Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

This photo provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa shows the ruins of Dunbar Elementary School and the Masonic Hall in the aftermath of the June 1, 1921, Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

Descendants of Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Ernestine Alpha Gibbs sit together during an interview in Tulsa, Okla., on Sunday, April 11, 2021. From left are her daughter, Carolyn Roberts; granddaughter-in-law, Tracy Gibbs; great-grandson, LeRoy Gibbs III, and grandson LeRoy Gibbs II. LeRoy II credits his grandmother, who not only built wealth and passed it on, but also showed succeeding generations how it was done. It was a lesson that few descendants of the victims of the race massacre had an opportunity to learn. “The perseverance of it is what she tried to pass on to me,” said LeRoy Gibbs II. “We were fortunate that we had Ernestine and LeRoy … They built their business.” (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

In this undated photo provided by Carolyn Roberts of the Gibbs family in April 2021, Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Ernestine Alpha Gibbs holds one of her grandchildren, DeShayla Roberts, two decades earlier. (Courtesy Carolyn Roberts via AP)

This photo provided by Carolyn Roberts of the Gibbs family shows Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Ernestine Alpha Gibbs in her 1923 high school graduation photo in Tulsa, Okla. (Courtesy Carolyn Roberts via AP)

LeRoy “Tripp” Gibbs III, center, 12-year-old great-grandson of Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Ernestine Alpha Gibbs, speaks during an interview with family members in Tulsa, Okla., on Sunday, April 11, 2021. With him are his parents, Tracy and LeRoy Gibbs II. LeRoy II credits his grandmother, who not only built wealth and passed it on, but also showed succeeding generations how it was done. It was a lesson that few descendants of the victims of the race massacre had an opportunity to learn. “The perseverance of it is what she tried to pass on to me,” said LeRoy Gibbs II. AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Carolyn Roberts, daughter of Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Ernestine Alpha Gibbs, holds family photos of the Gibbs family business during an interview in Tulsa, Okla., on Sunday, April 11, 2021. Roberts said although her parents lived with the trauma of the massacre, it never hindered their work ethic: “They survived the whole thing and bounced back.” (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

This photo provided by Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa shows crowds of people watching fires during the June 1, 1921, Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

In this photo provided by Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa, two armed men in walk away from burning buildings as others walk in the opposite direction during the June 1, 1921, Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

In this photo provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa, a group of Black men are marched past the corner of 2nd and Main Streets in Tulsa, Okla., under armed guard during the Tulsa Race Massacre on June 1, 1921. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

With the Historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church at foreground left, Interstate 244 cuts through the middle of historic Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Okla., on Monday, May 24, 2021. Over 18 hours, between May 31 and June 1, 1921 whites vastly outnumbering the Black militia carried out a scorched-earth campaign against the Greenwood neighborhood. Nearly every structure in Greenwood, the fabled Black Wall Street, was flattened - aside from Vernon AME. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

The Rev. Robert Turner, pastor of the Historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church, conducts a service at the church in Tulsa, Okla., on Sunday, April 11, 2021. Speaking about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, he says, “What happened in Tulsa wasn’t just unique to Tulsa. This happened all over the country. It was just that Tulsa was the largest. It damaged our community. And we haven’t rebounded since. I think it’s past time that justice be done to atone for that.” (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

The Rev. Robert Turner, pastor of the Historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church, speaks during an interview at the church in Tulsa, Okla., on Sunday, April 11, 2021. Speaking about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, he says, “What happened in Tulsa wasn’t just unique to Tulsa. This happened all over the country. It was just that Tulsa was the largest. It damaged our community. And we haven’t rebounded since. I think it’s past time that justice be done to atone for that.” (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

In this photo provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa, the Mt. Zion Baptist Church burns in Tulsa, Okla. during the Tulsa Race Massacre of June 1, 1921. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

Chief Egunwale Amusan, stands in front of the Mabel B. Little Heritage House while leading a Black Wall Street tour in Tulsa, Okla., on Monday, April 12, 2021. “I’ve read every book, every document, every court record that you can possibly think of that tells the story of what happened in 1921,” Amusan told the tour group. “But none of them did real justice. This is sacred land, but it’s also a crime scene.” (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

James Goodwin, owner of the Oklahoma Eagle newspaper, speaks during an interview Wednesday, April 14, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. “Greenwood proved that if you had assets, you could accumulate wealth. ... It was not a matter of intelligence, that the Black man was inferior to white men. It disproved the whole idea that racial superiority was a fact of life.” The Black newspaper was established in Tulsa a year after the massacre. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

James Goodwin, owner of the Oklahoma Eagle newspaper, pauses during an interview Wednesday, April 14, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. “Greenwood proved that if you had assets, you could accumulate wealth. ... It was not a matter of intelligence, that the Black man was inferior to white men. It disproved the whole idea that racial superiority was a fact of life.” The Black newspaper was established in Tulsa a year after the massacre. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

This photo provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa shows an unidentified man standing alone amid the ruins of what is described as his home in Tulsa, Okla., in the aftermath of the June, 1, 1921, Tulsa Race Massacre. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

Javohn Perry, left, of Seattle, and her cousin, Danielle Johnson, right, of Beggs, Okla., walk past a mural commemorating Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Okla., on Monday, April 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

A sculpture commemorating the Tulsa Race Massacre stands in John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park in Tulsa, Okla., on Wednesday, April 14, 2021, with new construction in the background. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

A sculpture commemorating the Tulsa Race Massacre stands in John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park in Tulsa, Okla., on Wednesday, April 14, 2021. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

A sculpture commemorating the Tulsa Race Massacre stands in John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park in Tulsa, Okla., Wednesday, April 14, 2021, with new construction in the background. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

This photo provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa shows an African American woman and girl sitting on a porch swing, both dressed in coats and hats, by the side of a house. Provenance is unknown; however, it is believed that these photos were taken in Tulsa, Okla. prior to the Tulsa Race Massacre. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

This postcard provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa shows fires burning during the Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla. on June 1, 1921. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

In this photo provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa, the Mt. Zion Baptist Church burns during the Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla., on June 1, 1921. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

This postcard provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa shows a truck parked in front of the Convention Hall, with a man whose condition is unknown, lying on the bed of the truck, and two others sit to either side. A man in civilian attire stands guard over them during the Tulsa Race Massacre June 1, 1921, in Tulsa, Okla. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

This photo provided by the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa shows a crowd watching the Mt. Zion Baptist Church burn during the June 1, 1921, Tulsa Race Massacre in Tulsa, Okla. (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa via AP)

A graduation photo and the high school diploma of Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Ernestine Alpha Gibbs are pictured during an interview with her descendants, Sunday, April 11, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

The high school and college diplomas of Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Ernestine Alpha Gibbs (born Weathers) are pictured during an interview with her descendants, Sunday, April 11, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

A sculpture in John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park is pictured Wednesday, April 14, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Workers move equipment into position at Oaklawn Cemetery prior to a test excavation in the search for possible mass graves from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. (Mike Simons/Tulsa World via AP)

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TULSA, Okla. (AP) — On a recent Sunday, Ernestine Alpha Gibbs returned to Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Not her body. She had left this Earth 18 years ago, at age 100. But on this day, three generations of her family brought Ernestine’s keepsakes back to this place which meant so much to her. A place that was, like their matriarch, a survivor of a long-ago atrocity.

Albums containing black-and-white photos of the grocery business that has employed generations of Gibbses. VHS cassette tapes of Ernestine reflecting on her life. Ernestine’s high school and college diplomas, displayed in not-so-well-aged leather covers.

The diplomas were a point of pride. After her community was leveled by white rioters in 1921 -- after the gunfire, the arson, the pillaging -- the high school sophomore temporarily fled Tulsa with her family. “I thought I would never, ever, ever come back,” she said in a 1994 home video.

But she did, and somehow found a happy ending.

“Even though the riot took away a lot, we still graduated,” she said, a smile spreading across her face. “So, we must have stayed here and we must have done all right after that.”

Not that the Gibbs family had it easy. And not that Black Tulsa ever really recovered from the devastation that took place 100 years ago, when nearly every structure in Greenwood, the fabled Black Wall Street, was flattened -- aside from Vernon AME.

Sections of Ernestine Alpha Gibbs’ personal account of the Tulsa Race Massacre read by her daughter, Carolyn Roberts.

The Tulsa Race Massacre is just one of the starkest examples of how Black wealth has been sapped, again and again, by racism and racist violence -- forcing generation after generation to start from scratch while shouldering the burdens of being Black in America.

All in the shadow of a Black paradise lost.

“Greenwood proved that if you had assets, you could accumulate wealth,” said Jim Goodwin, publisher of the Oklahoma Eagle, the local Black newspaper established in Tulsa a year after the massacre.

“It was not a matter of intelligence, that the Black man was inferior to white men. It disproved the whole idea that racial superiority was a fact of life.”

Prior to the massacre, only a couple of generations removed from slavery, unfettered Black prosperity in America was urban legend. But Tulsa’s Greenwood district was far from a myth.

Many Black residents took jobs working for families on the white side of Tulsa, and some lived in detached servant quarters on weekdays. Others were shoeshine boys, chauffeurs, doormen, bellhops or maids at high-rise hotels, banks and office towers in downtown Tulsa, where white men who amassed wealth in the oil industry were kings.

But down on Black Wall Street — derided by whites as “Little Africa” or “N——-town” — Black workers spent their earnings in a bustling, booming city within a city. Black-owned grocery stores, soda fountains, cafés, barbershops, a movie theater, music venues, cigar and billiard parlors, tailors and dry cleaners, rooming houses and rental properties: Greenwood had it.

According to a 2001 report of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, the Greenwood district also had 15 doctors, a chiropractor, two dentists, three lawyers, a library, two schools, a hospital, and two Black publishers printing newspapers for north Tulsans.

Tensions between Tulsa’s Black and white populations inflamed when, on May 31, 1921, the white-owned Tulsa Tribune published a sensationalized report describing an alleged assault on Sarah Page, a 17-year-old white girl working as an elevator operator, by Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old Black shoeshine.

“Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator,” read the Tribune’s headline. The paper’s editor, Richard Lloyd Jones, had previously run a story extolling the Ku Klux Klan for hewing to the principle of “supremacy of the white race in social, political and governmental affairs of the nation.”

Rowland was arrested. A white mob gathered outside of the jail. Word that some in the mob intended to kidnap and lynch Rowland made it to Greenwood, where two dozen Black men had armed themselves and arrived at the jail to aid the sheriff in protecting the prisoner.

Their offer was rebuffed and they were sent away. But following a separate deadly clash between the lynch mob and the Greenwood men, white Tulsans took the sight of angry, armed Black men as evidence of an imminent Black uprising.

There were those who said that what followed was not as spontaneous as it seemed -- that the mob intended to drive Black people out of the city entirely, or at least to drive them further away from the city’s white enclaves.

Over 18 hours, between May 31 and June 1, whites vastly outnumbering the Black militia carried out a scorched-earth campaign against Greenwood. Some witnesses claimed they saw and heard airplanes overhead firebombing and shooting at businesses, homes and people in the Black district.

More than 35 city blocks were leveled, an estimated 191 businesses were destroyed, and roughly 10,000 Black residents were displaced from the neighborhood where they’d lived, learned, played, worked and prospered.

Although the state declared the massacre death toll to be only 36 people, most historians and experts who have studied the event estimate the death toll to be between 75 and 300. Victims were buried in unmarked graves that, to this day, are being sought for proper burial.

The toll on the Black middle class and Black merchants is clear. According to massacre survivor Mary Jones Parrish’s 1922 book, R. T. Bridgewater, a Black doctor, returned to his home to find his high-end furniture piled in the street.

“My safe had been broken open, all of the money stolen,” Bridgewater said. “I lost 17 houses that paid me an average of over $425 per month.”

Tulsa Star publisher Andrew J. Smitherman lost everything, except for the metal printing presses that didn’t melt in the fires at his newspaper’s offices. Today, some of his descendants wonder what could have been, if the mob had never destroyed the Smitherman family business.

“We’d be like the Murdochs or the Johnson family, you know, Bob Johnson who had BET,” said Raven Majia Williams, a descendant of Smitherman’s, who is writing a book about his influence on Black Democratic politics of his time.

“My great-grandfather was in a perfect position to become a media mogul,” Williams said. “Black businesses were able to exist because they could advertise in his newspaper.”

Smitherman moved on to Buffalo, New York, where he opened another newspaper. It was a struggle; eventually, after his death in 1961, the Empire Star went under.

“It wasn’t a very large office, so I’d often see the bills,” said his grandson, William Dozier, who worked there as a boy. “Many of them were marked past due. We didn’t make a lot of money. He wasn’t able to pass any money down to his daughters, although he loved them dearly.”

After the fires in Greenwood were extinguished, the bodies buried in unmarked mass graves, and the survivors scattered, insurance companies denied most Black victims’ loss claims totaling an estimated $1.8 million. That’s $27.3 million in today’s currency.

Over the years, the effects of the massacre took different shapes. Rebuilding in Greenwood began as soon as 1922 and continued through 1925, briefly bringing back some of Black Wall Street.

Then, urban renewal in the 1950s forced many Black businesses to relocate further into north Tulsa. Next came racial desegregation that allowed Black customers to shop for goods and services beyond the Black community, financially harming the existing Black-owned business base. That was followed by economic downturns, and the construction of a noisy highway that cuts right through the middle of historic Greenwood.

Chief Egunwale Amusan, president of the African Ancestral Society in Tulsa, regularly gives tours around what’s left. Greenwood was much more than what people hear in casual stories about it, he recently told a small tour group as they turned onto Greenwood Avenue in the direction of Archer Avenue.

Interstate 244 dissects the neighborhood like a Berlin wall. But it is easy for visitors to miss the engraved metal markers at their feet, indicating the location of a business destroyed in the massacre and whether it had ever reopened.

“H. Johnson Rooms, 314 North Greenwood, Destroyed 1921, Reopened,” reads one marker.

“I’ve read every book, every document, every court record that you can possibly think of that tells the story of what happened in 1921,” Amusan told the tour group in mid-April. “But none of them did real justice. This is sacred land, but it’s also a crime scene.”

No white person has ever been imprisoned for taking part in the massacre, and no Black survivor or descendant has been justly compensated for who and what they lost.

“What happened in Tulsa wasn’t just unique to Tulsa,” said the Rev. Robert Turner, the pastor of Vernon AME Church. “This happened all over the country. It was just that Tulsa was the largest. It damaged our community. And we haven’t rebounded since. I think it’s past time that justice be done to atone for that.”

Some Black-owned businesses operate today at Greenwood and Archer avenues. But it’s indeed a shadow of what has been described in books and seen in century-old photographs of Greenwood in its heyday.

A $30 million history center and museum, Greenwood Rising, will honor the legacy of Black Wall Street with exhibits depicting the district before and after the massacre, according to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission. But critics have said the museum falls far short of delivering justice or paying reparations to living survivors and their descendants.

Tulsa’s 1921 Black population of 10,000 grew to roughly 70,500 in 2019, according to a U.S. Census Bureau estimate; the median household income for Tulsa’s Black households was an estimated $30,955 in 2019, compared to $55,278 for white households. In a city of an estimated 401,760 people, close to a third of Tulsans living below the poverty line in 2019 were Black, while 12% were white.

The disparities are no coincidence, local elected leaders often acknowledge. The inequalities also show up in business ownership demographics and educational attainment.

Attempts to force Tulsa and the state of Oklahoma to take some accountability for their role in the massacre suffered a major blow in 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear survivors’ and victim descendants’ appeal of a lower federal court ruling. The courts had tossed out a civil lawsuit because, justices held, the plaintiffs had waited too long after the massacre to file it.

Now, a few living massacre survivors —106-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle, 107-year-old Viola Fletcher, and 100-year-old Hughes Van Ellis — along with other victims’ descendants are suing for reparations. The defendants include the local chamber of commerce, the city development authority and the county sheriff’s department.

“Every time I think about the men and women that we’ve worked with, and knowing that they died without justice, it just crushes me,” said Damario Solomon-Simmons, a native Tulsan who is a lead attorney on the lawsuit and founder of the Justice for Greenwood Foundation.

“They all believed that once the conspiracy of silence was pierced, and the world found out about the destruction, the death, the looting, the raping, the maiming, (and) the wealth that was stolen … that they would get justice, that they would have gotten reparations.” Solomon-Simmons said.

The lawsuit, which is brought under Oklahoma’s public nuisance statute, seeks to establish a victim’s compensation fund paid for by the defendants. It also demands payment of outstanding insurance policies claims that date back the massacre.

Republican Mayor G.T. Bynum, who is white (Tulsa has never had a Black mayor), does not support paying reparations to massacre survivors and victims’ descendants. Bynum said such a use of taxpayers’ money would be unfair to Tulsans today.

“You’d be financially punishing this generation of Tulsans for something that criminals did a hundred years ago,” Bynum said. “There are a lot of other areas of focus, when you talk about reparations. People talk about acknowledging the disparity that exists, and recognizing that there is work to do in addressing those disparities and making this city one of greater equality.”

State Sen. Kevin Matthews, who is Black and chairs the massacre centennial commission, said no discussion of reparations can happen without reconciliation and healing. He believes the Greenwood Rising history center, planned for his legislative district, is a start.

“We talked to people in the community,” Matthews said. “We wanted the story told first. So this is my first step, and I do agree that reparations should happen. Part of reparations is to repair the damage of even how the story was told.”

Among the treasured keepsakes that came home to Vernon AME was a certificate of recent vintage that recognized Ernestine Gibbs as a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

But for Gibbs and her family, the real pride is not in survival. It is in surmounting disaster, and in carrying on a legacy of Black entrepreneurial spirit that their ancestors exemplified before and after the massacre.

After graduating from Langston University, Ernestine married LeRoy Gibbs. Even as she taught in the Tulsa school system for 40 years, Ernestine and her husband opened a poultry and fish market in the rebuilt Greenwood in the 1940s. They sold turkeys to order during the holidays.

Carolyn Roberts, Ernestine’s daughter, said although her parents lived with the trauma of the massacre, it never hindered their work ethic: “They survived the whole thing and bounced back.”

Urban renewal in the late 1950s forced LeRoy and Ernestine to move Gibbs Fish & Poultry Market further into north Tulsa. The family purchased a shopping center, expanded the grocery market and operated other businesses there until they could no longer sustain it.

The shopping center briefly left family hands, but it fell into disrepair under a new owner, who later lost it to foreclosure. Grandson LeRoy Gibbs II and his wife, Tracy, repurchased the center in 2015 and revived it as the Gibbs Next Generation Center. The hope is that the following generation -- including LeRoy “Tripp” Gibbs III, now 12 -- will carry it on.

LeRoy II credits his grandmother, who not only built wealth and passed it on, but also showed succeeding generations how it was done. It was a lesson that few descendants of the victims of the race massacre had an opportunity to learn.

“The perseverance of it is what she tried to pass on to me,” said LeRoy Gibbs II. “We were fortunate that we had Ernestine and LeRoy. … They built their business.”

Morrison is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison .

AARON MORRISON

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Tulsa Race Massacre

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 31, 2023 | Original: March 8, 2018

Tulsa Race Riot

During the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred over 18 hours from May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked residents, homes and businesses in the predominantly Black Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event remains one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history, and, for a period, remained one of the least-known: News reports were largely squelched, despite the fact that hundreds of people were killed and thousands left homeless.

Tulsa's Black Wall Street

In much of the country, the years following World War I saw a spike in racial tensions, including the resurgence of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan , numerous lynchings and other acts of racially motivated violence, as well as efforts by African Americans to prevent such attacks on their communities.

By 1921, fueled by oil money, Tulsa was a growing, prosperous city with a population of more than 100,000 people. But crime rates were high, and vigilante justice of all kinds wasn’t uncommon.

Tulsa was also a highly segregated city: Most of the city’s 10,000 Black residents lived in a neighborhood called Greenwood, which included a thriving business district sometimes referred to as the Black Wall Street.

What Caused the Tulsa Race Massacre?

On May 30, 1921, a young Black teenager named Dick Rowland entered an elevator at the Drexel Building, an office building on South Main Street. At some point after that, the young white elevator operator, Sarah Page, screamed; Rowland fled the scene. The police were called, and the next morning they arrested Rowland.

By that time, rumors of what supposedly happened on that elevator had circulated through the city’s white community. A front-page story in the Tulsa Tribune that afternoon reported that police had arrested Rowland for sexually assaulting Page.

As evening fell, an angry white mob was gathering outside the courthouse, demanding the sheriff hand over Rowland. Sheriff Willard McCullough refused, and his men barricaded the top floor to protect the Black teenager.

Around 9 p.m., a group of about 25 armed Black men—including many World War I veterans—went to the courthouse to offer help guarding Rowland. After the sheriff turned them away, some of the white mob tried unsuccessfully to break into the National Guard armory nearby.

With rumors still flying of a possible lynching, a group of around 75 armed Black men returned to the courthouse shortly after 10 pm, where they were met by some 1,500 white men, some of whom also carried weapons.

tulsa massacre tour

HISTORY Vault: The Night Tulsa Burned

By 1921, Tulsa’s Greenwood area was one of America's most affluent all-Black communities. But on June 1, in what became known as the Tulsa Race Massacre, white mobs set it on fire, destroying homes and businesses and leaving dozens dead.

Greenwood Burns

After shots were fired and chaos broke out, the outnumbered group of Black men retreated to Greenwood.

Over the next several hours, groups of white Tulsans—some of whom were deputized and given weapons by city officials—committed numerous acts of violence against Black people, including shooting an unarmed man in a movie theater.

The false belief that a large-scale insurrection among Black Tulsans was underway, including reinforcements from nearby towns and cities with large African American populations, fueled the growing hysteria.

As dawn broke on June 1, thousands of white citizens poured into the Greenwood District, looting and burning homes and businesses over an area of 35 city blocks. Firefighters who arrived to help put out fires later testified that rioters had threatened them with guns and forced them to leave.

According to a later Red Cross estimate, some 1,256 houses were burned; 215 others were looted but not torched. Two newspapers, a school, a library, a hospital, churches, hotels, stores and many other Black-owned businesses were among the buildings destroyed or damaged by fire.

By the time the National Guard arrived and Governor J. B. A. Robertson had declared martial law shortly before noon, the riot had effectively ended. Though guardsmen helped put out fires, they also imprisoned many Black Tulsans, and by June 2 some 6,000 people were under armed guard at the local fairgrounds.

Aftermath of the Tulsa Race Massacre

In the hours after the Tulsa Race Massacre, all charges against Dick Rowland were dropped. The police concluded that Rowland had most likely stumbled into Page, or stepped on her foot. Kept safely under guard in the jail during the riot, he left Tulsa the next morning and reportedly never returned.

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.

Even by low estimates, the Tulsa Race Massacre stood as one of the deadliest riots in U.S. history, behind only the New York Draft Riots of 1863, which killed at least 119 people.

In the years to come, as Black Tulsans worked to rebuild their ruined homes and businesses, segregation in the city only increased, and Oklahoma’s newly established branch of the KKK grew in strength.

News Blackout

For decades, there were no public ceremonies, memorials for the dead or any efforts to commemorate the events of May 31-June 1, 1921. Instead, there was a deliberate effort to cover them up.

The Tulsa Tribune removed the front-page story of May 31 that sparked the chaos from its bound volumes, and scholars later discovered that police and state militia archives about the riot were missing as well. As a result, until recently the Tulsa Race Massacre was rarely mentioned in history books, taught in schools or even talked about.

Scholars began to delve deeper into the story of the riot in the 1970s, after its 50th anniversary had passed. In 1996, on the riot’s 75th anniversary, a service was held at the Mount Zion Baptist Church, which rioters had burned to the ground, and a memorial was placed in front of Greenwood Cultural Center.

Tulsa Race Riot Commission Established, Renamed

The following year, after an official state government commission was created to investigate the Tulsa Race Riot, scientists and historians began looking into long-ago stories, including numerous victims buried in unmarked graves.

In 2001, the report of the Race Riot Commission concluded that between 100 and 300 people were killed and more than 8,000 people made homeless over those 18 hours in 1921.

A bill in the Oklahoma State Senate requiring that all Oklahoma high schools teach the Tulsa Race Riot failed to pass in 2012, with its opponents claiming schools were already teaching their students about the riot.

Tulsa Race Riots

According to the State Department of Education, it has required the topic in Oklahoma history classes since 2000 and U.S. history classes since 2004, and the incident has been included in Oklahoma history books since 2009.

In November 2018, the 1921 Race Riot Commission was officially renamed the 1921 Race Massacre Commission.

 “Although the dialogue about the reasons and effects of the terms riot vs. massacre are very important and encouraged," said  Oklahoma State Senator Kevin Matthews, "the feelings and interpretation of those who experienced this devastation as well as current area residents and historical scholars have led us to more appropriately change the name to the 1921 Race Massacre Commission.”

James S. Hirsch, Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy ( New York : Houghton Mifflin, 2002). Scott Ellsworth, “Tulsa Race Riot,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture . 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, Tulsa Historical Society & Museum . Nour Habib, “Teachers talk about how black history is being taught in Oklahoma schools today,” Tulsa World (February 24, 2015). Sam Howe Verhovek, “75 Years Later, Tulsa Confronts Its Race Riot,” New York Times (May 31, 1996).

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Telling the Story of the Tulsa Massacre

An array of TV documentaries mark the centennial of one of America’s deadliest outbreaks of racist violence.

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By Mike Hale

The Tulsa race massacre of June 1, 1921, has gone from virtually unknown to emblematic with impressive speed, propelled by the national reckoning with racism and specifically with sanctioned violence against Black Americans. That awareness is reflected in the spate of new television documentaries on the occasion of the massacre’s 100th anniversary.

“Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre” (Sunday on History), “Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street” (Monday on CNN) and “Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten” (Monday on PBS) tell overlapping stories of the horrific day when a white mob stormed through the prosperous Greenwood District of Tulsa , Okla. Triggered by a confrontation between white men planning a lynching and Black men intent on stopping it, the 16-hour spasm of violence left 100 to 300 people dead and most of Greenwood, including more than 1,250 houses, burned to the ground.

All three sketch the history of Black settlement in Oklahoma, where more than 40 Black towns existed in the early 20th century, and the singular success of Greenwood. Each carries the story into the present, covering the excavations carried out in 2020 looking for mass graves of massacre victims. Certain scenes and interview subjects are uniformly present: the historian Hannibal Johnson; “The Bobby Eaton Show” on KBOB 89.9 FM; the Rev. Dr. Robert Turner giving a tour of the basement of the Vernon A.M.E. Church, the only part that survived the conflagration.

But each has its own style and emphasis, its own approach to the unthinkable material. The PBS film is journalistic, built around the reporting of The Washington Post’s DeNeen L. Brown, who appears onscreen, and narrated by NPR’s Michel Martin. It spends a little less time on the past and more on the continuing issues of race in Tulsa, including educational disparities and the protests following the police killing of Terence Crutcher , an unarmed Black man, in 2016. In the nature of the contemporary newspaper feature, it’s a touch sanctimonious. It ends with Johnson, looking uncomfortable, delivering a nominally hopeful sound bite: “We’re not there yet, we’re working on it.”

The CNN and History films both give fuller accounts of the history, and of the timeline of June 1. “Tulsa Burning,” directed by the veteran documentarians Stanley Nelson and Marco Williams, is the most polished and evocative piece of filmmaking, and the most focused thematically, using footage of the excavations as a narrative line and making the strongest link between the massacre and contemporary police shootings.

“Dreamland,” directed by Salima Koroma (and with LeBron James as an executive producer), gives the most thorough presentation of the history. It’s more forthright, for instance, on the way that Native American enslavement of Black people paradoxically led to their owning more land in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma.

That uncomfortable connection is just one of the ironies that echo through the Tulsa history. All three films note that segregation — and the economic self-reliance it produced — made the relative prosperity of Greenwood possible, in turn making the neighborhood and its residents the inevitable targets of white jealousy and rage. And a half-century later, after the neighborhood had been rebuilt, its economy was ravaged again, this time by the effects of integration.

Perhaps the saddest paradox, in the life of Tulsa and in the structures of the films, is that the only real “up” in the story — its closest thing to a happy ending — is the discovery of a mass grave in a cemetery in Greenwood last October. (The remains have not been definitely identified as those of massacre victims, and the PBS film makes the point that people who died in the influenza pandemic of 1918 were sometimes buried in mass graves.)

One thing that none of the films is able to provide, except in clips from a living-history project, is testimony from survivors. For that, it is worth seeking out the 1993 PBS documentary “Goin’ Back to T-Town,” which was told entirely in the voices of massacre survivors and their contemporaries and descendants; it’s available at pbs.org.

Even that film lacked something that is startling, but not at all surprising, in its absence: the voice of anyone who admits a connection to the perpetrators of the massacre, none of whom are identified and none of whom were ever punished.

Typically, this is where I would answer the “If you were to watch one of these films” question, but not this time. If you want to know about Tulsa, and everything it represents, watch all three. We can all afford the four and a half hours.

MORE on the Tulsa Massacre

Other programs tied to the centennial of the Tulsa massacre include “Tulsa 1921: An American Tragedy” (CBS, Monday); “The Legacy of Black Wall Street” (OWN, Tuesday); “Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer” (National Geographic, June 18).

Mike Hale is a television critic. He also writes about online video, film and media. He came to The Times in 1995 and worked as an editor in Sports, Arts & Leisure and Weekend Arts before becoming a critic in 2009. More about Mike Hale

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Tulsa marks 100 years since massacre with somber ceremonies, demands for reparations

TULSA, Okla. — The traffic on Interstate 244 rumbled the ground as a crowd of about 200 gathered between the highway and the historic Vernon AME Church on Monday to commemorate the day a century ago that the church was nearly destroyed.

The Rev. Robert Turner, who serves as pastor of the church — one of the only structures to partly survive the race massacre in Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood in which a white mob killed hundreds of Black residents in 1921 — dedicated a prayer wall to the massacre's victims.

"This is the largest crime scene in America that has never been investigated," he said.

Turner's address, alongside other religious leaders, was part of a series of ceremonies marking the centennial of the massacre in a community once known as Black Wall Street , which is getting new national attention.

Even though the anniversary is a somber one, many here said they are determined to celebrate the culture and community that Black Tulsans built — while using this moment to demand reparations for all that has been taken from them.

Image: Viola Fletcher, survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre

Mayor G.T. Bynum, standing on the sidewalk along Greenwood Avenue to watch Monday's commemoration, told NBC News it was important to him that the city engage in a fair process to determine the future of Greenwood, where much of the land is now owned by the city. The city has faced criticism for not prioritizing the massacre's survivors and their descendants in the redevelopment of Greenwood.

"Whatever happens needs to be a community-driven effort," Bynum said. "It’s incredibly important to us that whatever we end up seeing happen here, that the community has pride in it, just like the community had pride in Black Wall Street."

Monday's commemoration began with a solemn ceremony in which half a dozen large jars, each labeled "Unknown" to represent the victims of the massacre whose names were not recorded, were filled with soil by speakers and attendees.

"We like to think about the soil, the land, as one of the only really tangible reminders of what has happened," said Kiara Boone, deputy director of community education at the Equal Justice Initiative, a racial justice organization. "The terrain of Tulsa has changed in 100 years, but the resilience, the power, the love of this community has remained consistent."

By Monday afternoon, most of the booths selling art and memorabilia had gone, as the rain intensified. But a crowd still gathered underneath the awnings of Greenwood’s businesses, and more people lined up under the interstate overpass to get a plate full of barbecue. Among them was Harold Dorsey, who came back to Tulsa, where he had spent many years of his life, for the centennial.

IMAGE: Hughes Van Ellis, 100, Lessie Benningfield Randle, 106, and Viola Fletcher, 107

Dorsey, who is Black, recalled how the Greenwood of his childhood in the 1960s thrived before the highway choked much of it out. Money could change hands in the neighborhood a dozen times, he said, because everything you needed was within walking distance. “Things were just on the go, on the move. You could come down here and see just about anybody and everyone you wanted to, and there were theaters right over there,” he said. “It was kind of like family.”

You can’t ignore what the highways did to Greenwood, Dorsey said, and he worries that it won't be possible for the neighborhood to return to what it once was. Dorsey said there are a lot of young Black entrepreneurs in Tulsa who would want to build businesses here — if the city gives them the opportunity. “It will take a lot more investment," he said.

Image: 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

A couple hundred people gathered at Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street in the chilly night air for a vigil to commemorate the moment 100 years before from the moment a white mob pillaged the prosperous Black neighborhood, murdering hundreds of people and displacing thousands more. The violence stretched into the next day, culminating in the looting of Black homes, with armed white mobs rounding up survivors and placing them in an internment camp.

At 10:30 p.m. Monday, the street lamps on the block went dark as a gentle chorus of “hallelujah” that spread through the crowd turned into one of “Greenwood rising.” The rain continued to trickle down, as it had for most of the day, causing many to turn to the person next to them for help keeping their light going.

Linda Parker Hall grew up in Greenwood in the 1950s and 60s. Standing on the corner, Hall said the sense of community and resourcefulness in the neighborhood during that time was really special. She wants to see continuous business growth here today, as well as affordable housing. But she’s less certain that it will come from the government, local or federal.

“We can’t wait for the government to do it for us, we’re going to have to do ourselves ourselves,” she said. “When Tulsa was destroyed, who put it back together?”

President Joe Biden will visit Tuesday , the day that officially marks the centennial. While Biden's visit is not expected to be public, he will tour the Greenwood Cultural Center across the street from Vernon AME Church.

On Monday, Biden signed a White House proclamation declaring a day of remembrance, which called upon Americans to remember those who were killed as well as those who survived, and to "commit together to eradicate systemic racism and help to rebuild communities and lives that have been destroyed by it."

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and musician John Legend had been scheduled to headline a "Remember and Rise" event Monday, but it was canceled because of a disagreement between the event's organizers and representatives of massacre survivors and their descendants over funding for reparations.

IMAGE: Nehemiah Frank teaches his cousin David McIntye II about the Tulsa massacre

A state commission in 2001 found that the damages to Greenwood in 1921 would equal nearly $30 million. However, no reparations have been paid to survivors or their descendants, and no people or entities have been held criminally liable. That has left many here skeptical that anything will change in Tulsa , a city that remains largely segregated.

"The proof is in the pudding," said Guy Troupe, co-owner of the Black Wall Street Liquid Lounge, a coffee shop south of the one remaining block of businesses in historic Greenwood, on Friday. "What matters is what happens six months, a year, two years from now," he said, referring to the discussions about equity and reparations.

Like many others here, Troupe sees how little input the descendants of Greenwood have in the future of the land. He is among many asking Tulsa's leaders to acknowledge the city's culpability in the massacre and the subsequent decades of redlining and urban renewal that destroyed the strong community and businesses Black residents had rebuilt. As the city redevelops Greenwood's vacant lots and buildings, Troupe is also among many residents asking that the city take this history into account when deciding who can lease the land it now owns in Greenwood.

IMAGE: Commemoration of the Tulsa Race Massacre

Monica Smith, 59, a Black resident, said she had little expectation that the city of Tulsa would commit to make Greenwood prosperous again.

"They need to stand by their word," she said.

Smith said she came out to Greenwood on Saturday to show her support for Black pride and organizing. "This is amazing," she said before she joined in a chant of "I love being Black!"

Graham Lee Brewer reported from Tulsa; Elizabeth Chuck reported from New York.

tulsa massacre tour

Graham Lee Brewer is a national reporter for NBC News. He is a member of the Cherokee Nation, based in Norman, Oklahoma.

tulsa massacre tour

Elizabeth Chuck is a reporter for NBC News who focuses on health and mental health, particularly issues that affect women and children.

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Step into Tulsa history in eight exhibit galleries

History happens everyday! There are always more Tulsa stories to share and new artifacts and images for visitors to enjoy. Exhibits rotate frequently so be sure to return often to learn more about Tulsa’s unique history.

Behind the Veil: Tulsa in the Twenties

Opening February 2024

Take a peek behind the veil and discover the culture, economy, and environment of Tulsa in the 1920s.

Oklahoma Impressions: Tulsa’s Artistic Heritage

October 2023 - October 2024

From subject matter to material to the city the artists called home, this exhibit is a small sampling of Tulsa's artistic heritage. 

Take a Bow: 50 Years of the American Theatre Company

Opening June 2023

For over 50 years, the American Theatre Company has produced high quality theatre productions.

Constructing Tulsa

Open through February 2024

This exhibit is a photographic exploration of how the city grew and developed from founding to present day.

A Century Later: Greenwood & the Tulsa Race Massacre

In the 100 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Greenwood community and Tulsa as a whole have been through many changes. This exhibit examines the history of Greenwood both before and after 1921 and provides information and images of the Massacre.

ChronoTulsa: Timeline of Tulsa History

This exhibit provides a historical overview of Tulsa’s rich history. The timeline begins with the arrival of the Creek Indians who settled Tulsa in the 1830s and then covers many historically significant events and time periods that have affected the city’s development and helped shape the Tulsa of today.

Life of a House: History of the Travis Mansion

A series of photographs tells the history of the mansion the Historical Society now calls home. Images and information trace the changes in the structure from the early years when the Travis Family lived in the house through the purchase and recent renovation by THS.

TRIBUNE: The Story of a Newspaper

In 1919, Richard Lloyd Jones, Sr., moved his family from Wisconsin to Tulsa to purchase and operate The Tulsa Tribune newspaper. This exhibit highlights the Tribune’s story through the years as well as the three generations of the Lloyd Jones family that published the paper until its end in 1992.

Past Exhibits

Since the Tulsa Historical Society & Museum opened in its current location in 2005, staff have curated more than 130 exhibits both at the museum and other sites around Tulsa. This page provides an opportunity to explore many of those previous exhibitions.

The current exhibition schedule has been generously sponsored by:

Mervin Bovaird Foundation Mary K. Chapman Foundation E.L. & Thelma Gaylord Foundation The Gelvin Foundation Merkel Family Foundation James D. & Cathryn M. Moore Foundation The Oxley Foundation Charles & Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation A.R. & Mary Louise Tandy Foundation Robert S. & Helen Grey Trippett Foundation

IMAGES

  1. Tulsa Race Massacre Tour

    tulsa massacre tour

  2. Telling the Story of the Tulsa Massacre

    tulsa massacre tour

  3. Remembering the Tulsa Massacre 100 Years Later

    tulsa massacre tour

  4. Greenwood Rising: the Tulsa Massacre Museum Honors Black Wall Street

    tulsa massacre tour

  5. Reflecting on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre

    tulsa massacre tour

  6. 3 Documentaries You Should Watch About The Tulsa Race Massacre

    tulsa massacre tour

COMMENTS

  1. Black Wall Street Tour & Tulsa Race Massacre

    Greenwood & Black Wall Street Tour. In 1921 an attack on Black Tulsa was so atrocious that city leaders tried to hide the truth. For decades. The Tulsa Race Massacre was the most destructive racial violence in U.S. history, but was not the end of Black Wall Street — heart of the Black-owned Greenwood neighborhood.

  2. Greenwood

    You'll explore the streets of what was once one of America's wealthiest Black neighborhoods before being destroyed by the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. When you book the extended tour, you will visit areas with historical significance to the events of 1921. You will see the influence of "Urban Renewal" on the area in the 1960s and 1970s.

  3. Greenwood Rising

    A state-of-the-art history center located at the heart of Tulsa's Greenwood District honoring the legacy of Black Wall Street before and after the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. Welcome About Our Team Pathway to Hope Latest News Contact Visit Greenwood Rising Experience Greenwood Virtual Experience Support the Work

  4. What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed

    What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed. By Yuliya Parshina-Kottas , Anjali Singhvi , Audra D. S. Burch , Troy Griggs , Mika Gröndahl , Lingdong Huang, Tim Wallace , Jeremy White and Josh Williams ...

  5. Greenwood Rising

    Group tours must be booked at least 14 days in advance. If you have already filled out the Group Request Form, please do not submit a duplicate request. ... Tulsa, OK, 74120, United States (539) 867-3173 [email protected]. Hours. Mon Closed. Tue 10am - 7pm. Wed 10am - 7pm. Thu 10am - 7pm. Fri 10am - 7pm. Sat 10am - 7pm.

  6. Greenwood Rising: the Tulsa Massacre Museum Honors Black Wall Street

    The story, told at the new Tulsa Massacre museum, is shocking—an estimated 300 dead, the first aerial bombing of a U.S. city, the machine-gunning of homes, ... You can book a guided tour through the REAL Black Wall Street Tour for $15 per person, or sign up for Tulsa Tours' Art Deco and Greenwood Tour, ...

  7. Greenwood Rising

    The Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission engaged Local Projects to develop and execute an experience design for the history center located at the heart of Tulsa's Greenwood District. Beginning with a series of onsite workshops and interviews in Tulsa in July 2019, the team worked in close collaboration with the Greenwood Rising project ...

  8. Guided Tours

    A tour of historic Greenwood must be gin at the Greenwood Cultural Center. The building's most valuable contribution is an impressive collection of historic black and white photos of the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, newspaper articles from around the world, and an additional collection of black and white photos.

  9. Reconstructing the Neighborhood Burned in the Tulsa Massacre

    This week, journalists at The New York Times published the interactive article "What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed," a 3-D virtual tour of that neighborhood, Greenwood, where the atrocity ...

  10. Tulsa Race Massacre events: Updates as Black Wall Street remembered

    1:12. Survivors, dignitaries, state residents and people from all walks of life will gather in Tulsa over the next week to commemorate the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre on Black Wall Street. The Oklahoman will be providing live updates from Tulsa over the next several days. Check back to this article often to get the latest information ...

  11. Biden in Tulsa to visit Tulsa Race Massacre survivors; what we know

    0:00. 2:58. President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Oklahoma Tuesday, the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The attack on Tulsa's Greenwood District took place on May 31 and June, 1, 1921. Mobs of white residents attacked, set aflame, and looted the Greenwood District, otherwise known as "Black Wall Street".

  12. 100 Years Later, A Survivor's Story Of The Tulsa Race Massacre

    The Tulsa Race Massacre was one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history. AILSA CHANG, HOST: On May 31, 1921, almost exactly 100 years ago, a group of white residents launched an ...

  13. What to Know About the Tulsa Greenwood Massacre

    On May 30, 1921, the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Okla., was a thriving Black community: a rarity in an era of lynchings, segregation and a rapidly growing Ku Klux Klan. By sunrise on June 2 ...

  14. 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

    In June 1921, a series of events nearly destroyed the entire Greenwood area. Following World War I, Tulsa was recognized nationally for its affluent African American community known as the Greenwood District. This thriving business district and surrounding residential area was referred to as "Black Wall Street.".

  15. Tulsa race massacre

    The Tulsa race massacre, also known as the Tulsa race riot or the Black Wall Street massacre, was a two-day-long white supremacist terrorist ... Greenwood was a district in Tulsa that was organized in 1906 following Booker T. Washington's 1905 tour of Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Oklahoma.

  16. Tulsa Race Massacre, 100 years later: Why it happened and why it's

    Vernon AME Church with a plaque commemorating the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, in Tulsa, Okla., on May 21st, 2021. Christopher Creese / for NBC News.

  17. 100 years after Tulsa Race Massacre, the damage remains

    Chief Egunwale Amusan, stands in front of the Mabel B. Little Heritage House while leading a Black Wall Street tour in Tulsa, Okla., on Monday, April 12, 2021. "I've read every book, every document, every court record that you can possibly think of that tells the story of what happened in 1921," Amusan told the tour group.

  18. Tulsa Race Massacre Traveling Exhibit

    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. The panels may be checked out for display in schools, libraries, and other similar organizations. All requests to borrow the exhibit will be submitted to the ...

  19. Tulsa Race Massacre

    During the Tulsa Race Massacre, a white mob attacked residents, homes and businesses in the predominantly Black Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma over 18 hours on May 31-June 1, 1921. The ...

  20. Telling the Story of the Tulsa Massacre

    The Tulsa race massacre of June 1, ... "The Bobby Eaton Show" on KBOB 89.9 FM; the Rev. Dr. Robert Turner giving a tour of the basement of the Vernon A.M.E. Church, the only part that survived ...

  21. Tulsa marks 100 years since massacre with somber ceremonies, demands

    A soil dedication at Stone Hill on the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Oklahoma on Monday. Lawrence Bryant / Reuters. A couple hundred people gathered at Greenwood Avenue and ...

  22. Exhibits

    A Century Later: Greenwood & the Tulsa Race Massacre. Ongoing. In the 100 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Greenwood community and Tulsa as a whole have been through many changes. This exhibit examines the history of Greenwood both before and after 1921 and provides information and images of the Massacre.

  23. Tulsa Race Massacre survivor, 109, to speak at SIUE

    Tulsa Race Massacre survivor, 109, to speak at SIUE. Smoke rises from the Greenwood District as a result of fires burning during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. In the early morning hours of June 1 ...

  24. First Alert 4 and St. Louis Public Radio Feature Recent SIUE Visit by

    Mar 21 2024 First Alert 4 and St. Louis Public Radio Feature Recent SIUE Visit by Oldest Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre; Mar 19 2024 SIUE WE CARE Clinic Introduces Mobile Health Unit during Health Fair, Co-hosted with East St. Louis Kappa Alpha Psi Alumni ; Mar 19 2024 SIUE Program Featuring Oldest Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre Featured in St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  25. Jurassic Quest At Tulsa's Expo Square Offers Interactive Dinosaur

    Jurassic Quest is from Friday, March 22nd through Sunday, March 24th. The hours are Friday: 12-8 p.m., Saturday: 9 a.m.-8 p.m., and Sunday: 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Tickets range in price from $19 to $36 and ...