Tulsa race massacre

Greenwood was established in 1906 as a self-sufficient community where Black Americans could prosper despite Oklahoma’s harsh Jim Crow laws. By 1921, it was colloquially known as "Black Wall Street," featuring a dense concentration of affluent professionals, luxury hotels, theaters, and two newspapers. This prosperity existed in a state that had aggressively disenfranchised non-white voters and enforced strict residential segregation.

The social atmosphere was a powder keg of post-WWI tensions. Black veterans returned from Europe demanding the full citizenship they had fought for, while white residents faced an economic slump and rising unemployment. The Ku Klux Klan was resurgent, and lynchings were a frequent tool used to maintain white supremacy in the newly formed state.

On May 30, 1921, 19-year-old Dick Rowland, a Black shoeshiner, entered an elevator to use the only "colored" restroom in downtown Tulsa. A clerk heard a scream and saw Rowland run; though it is widely believed Rowland simply tripped and grabbed the arm of the white operator, Sarah Page, rumors of sexual assault spread instantly. While Page declined to press charges and the police investigation was low-key, the Tulsa Tribune published a sensationalist headline: "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in an Elevator."

The newspaper report—and a rumored editorial calling for a lynching—ignited a mob. By evening, hundreds of white residents gathered at the courthouse where Rowland was being held. Sheriff Willard McCullough, determined to prevent a lynching, barricaded his deputies on the top floor with orders to shoot anyone who tried to take the prisoner.

Fearing a repeat of previous lynchings, a group of approximately 75 armed Black men, many of them WWI veterans, arrived at the courthouse to support the sheriff. A confrontation ensued when an elderly white man tried to disarm a Black veteran. A shot was fired, sparking a "rolling gunfight" that forced the outnumbered Black defenders to retreat toward Greenwood.

Throughout the night and into June 1, white mobs—some of whom were officially deputized and armed by city officials—invaded the Greenwood District. The attackers systematically looted and burned homes and businesses. The carnage only ended when the Oklahoma National Guard imposed martial law at noon, by which time 35 square blocks of the wealthiest Black community in the U.S. had been reduced to ash.

The immediate human cost was staggering: as many as 300 people died, 800 were hospitalized, and 6,000 Black residents were interned in camps for several days. Roughly 10,000 people were left homeless. In 1921 dollars, the property damage exceeded $1.5 million in real estate and $750,000 in personal property—equivalent to nearly $40 million today.

Recovery was hampered by institutional resistance. City officials and insurance companies refused to compensate the victims for their losses. While many residents courageously rebuilt their homes by the end of 1922, the lack of capital and the psychological trauma forced many others to leave Tulsa permanently, effectively ending the era of "Black Wall Street."

For over 75 years, the massacre was largely omitted from local and national history books, and even within Tulsa, the event was rarely discussed in public. It wasn't until 1997 that the state legislature authorized a formal commission to study the event. Their 2001 report confirmed the city's complicity in the violence and recommended reparations for survivors and their descendants.

While the state has yet to provide direct financial restitution, it has established scholarships for descendants and integrated the massacre into the mandatory school curriculum as of 2020. Today, the event is recognized as one of the deadliest incidents of racial violence in American history, serving as a critical case study in the destruction of Black economic progress.