The Tulsa Race Massacre 100 Years Later
The 100th anniversary of The Tulsa Race Massacre is an important warning about the dangers of whitewashing history.
In 1921, a white mob massacred hundreds of black citizens with military weapons and burned “Black Wall Street” to the ground in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This and other shocking mob attacks against black people have been covered up for decades and excluded from school books. By Filibustering the January 6 Commission, Republicans are attempting to cover up their support of Trump’s racist lies and conspiracy theories that resulted in a violent mob attacking our Capitol.
By Taylor Ardrey
For hours, just after Memorial Day in 1921, a white mob rioted in a thriving Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma known as "Black Wall Street." They looted businesses, set homes ablaze, and fired at Black residents in the district of Greenwood. The aftermath of the massacre left thousands of Black Americans displaced and an estimated 300 people died.
The Tulsa Race Massacre is "one of the biggest skeletons" in America's history, Scott Ellsworth, a historian, and author, told Insider. It was "covered up for a long time," he said
The aftermath of the Tulsa Race Massacre, during which mobs of white residents attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 1921. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images