The Tulsa Race Massacre, also known as the Tulsa Race Riot is one of the most destructive and violent racial massacres in the United States. Many people were killed, and homes, businesses, and schools were destroyed.
The Incident
The massacre occurred in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, also known as “Black Wall Street” for its flourishing African American businesses and schools. On May 30th, 1921, a 19 year old African American shoeshiner named Dick Rowland was forced to use a segregated bathroom due to the laws during this time. The bathroom was located on the top floor. As he entered the elevator, he encountered Sarah Page, a 17 year old white elevator operator. Workers heard a scream from the elevator, and accounts saw Rowland fleeing. Police arrived on the scene where Page had accused Rowland of assault. The next day, Rowland was arrested. The next day, The Tusla Tribune, a white operated paper, quickly published a headline about the incident.
The news painted Rowland as a dangerous aggressor, which angered many of the white people reading. Some accounts say there was even an editorial calling for a lynch mob. After his arrest, Rowland was kept in the Tulsa County Courthouse. Mobs of armed white men started piling in front of the courthouse. Local Black residents, concerned about Rowland’s health and well-being, armed themselves and made their way down to the courthouse. As the white mobs demanded officers hand Rowland into their custody, the tension between the two groups escalated. It is estimated that there were over 1,000 people in the white mob and about 75 armed Black men at the courthouse.
As tension grew, a white man from the mob tried to disarm a Black man, and shots were fired. After the first shot, chaos broke out. Both groups let off gunfire, leaving many injured or dead. The white mobs turned their anger towards the Greenwood District. As the Black men went back to defend their community, the white mob grew to over 5,000 people. White mobs looted businesses, set houses and schools on fire, and killed many of those who lived in the community. They took Black families out of their homes at gunpoint and killed them. They attached dead bodies to the back of their cars and dragged them around the district. Entire blocks of the Greenwood District were turned to rubble. Many people were forced to leave their homes. By June 1st, 1921, over 1,200 homes were destroyed, many businesses were burned, and an estimated total of 300 Black residents were killed. Survivors were left homeless and forced to live in refugee camps.
“I was only 5 years old when the Tulsa riot occurred, but I remember the awful feeling of not having a home to go to. For our house, which my parents owned, was burned down. We lost everything in that riot. There was so much grief in our family. Everywhere we looked in our Greenwood District, there was nothing but ashes, ashes, ashes!”
Archie Jason Franklin
Bodies lay on the floor as Tulsa is destroyed.
Image is for public use
The Investigation
Just like America’s greatest sin, officials tried to cover up the events that had occurred. Many death certificates and records were unfinished and meager. Efforts to investigate the massacre started in the 1990s, but now over 100 years later, Tulsa holds an investigation called the 1921 Graves Investigation with widespread attention to honor and support victims. This investigation dives deeper into what happened during the Tulsa Race Massacre by having experts from all over the world try to recover the bodies of those who were murdered during the massacre. Officials have found dozens of bodies located in the Oaklawn Cemetery, persistent with the way mass burial methods were used after the killings.
The Memorial
The Tulsa Race Massacre Memorial was created by the city of Tulsa and the Greenwood District. It was shown off on November 12th, 2024, in the Oaklawn Cemetery. The gravestone design was set to not only honor all of the victims, recovered or not, of this tragedy but also to educate those about the massacre and acknowledge that there are efforts to put those who were killed to rest. For many years, the massacre was hidden from history books, and those who did survive were silenced. The memorial sparks a widespread discussion about systemic racism in the United States and symbolizes coming together to bring those who faced unspeakable things in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The gravestone reads:
“Recovery & Remembrance 1921 Mass Graves Investigation: On May 31st, 1921, a white mob seized upon Tulsa’s Black community in a fit of rage and murderous violence spanning two days. when the dust settled, the Greenwood District, fondly known as “Black Wall Street,” lay in total ruin. More than a thousand homes and businesses destroyed, scores of lines lost, and the hopes and dreams of thousands temporarily dashed. Even as the ashes still smoldered, Black Tulsans began rebuilding. The indomitable human spirit prevailed, and Black Wall Street prospered for decades thereafter, only to be slowed by “progress”- integration and urban renewal-beginning in the 1960s. Both factors contributed to a precipitous economic downturn. In the 1990s, Representative Don Ross sponsored legislation creating the Oklahoma Commission to study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. The commission’s 2001 final report detailed the discovery of eighteen death certificates dated June 1st, 1921, thought to be tied to persons killed in the massacre and secretly buried at Oaklawn Cemetery near downtown. The commission began an archaeological exploration at Oaklawn Cemetery but stopped short of completion. Tulsa mayor G.T. Bynum vowed to continue the unfinished work of the commission. In 2018, he commenced the first city-funded search for persons thought to be massacre victims buried in Oaklawn Cemetery. Special thanks to the technical experts and massacre descendants who led the work and helped ensure the sacred character of the search. With respect to any remains, Mayor Bynum bowed to establish identities (through DNA testing), reunite families, and facilitate a proper reinterment. Upon excruciation and exhumation, sets of remains have been identified as possibly belonging to massacre victims, with final determinations pending. May the victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre find rest. May we remember and honor this place. Oaklawn Cemetery, as hallowed ground, may we continue to heal from the historical racial trauma of our shared past that this site evokes.”
Conclusion
The memorial is a very important symbol of remembrance and acknowledgment. As this memorial goes up, we the people, can start facing the harsh past of our country. We can educate ourselves on how to stop such an occurrence from happening again. Tulsa is paving the way for reflecting on our history and calling for justice in today’s time, allowing those who left this world through violence to finally have a peaceful resting area.
Works Cited
Halliburton, R. (1972). The Tulsa Race War of 1921. Journal of Black Studies, 2(3), 333–357. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2783722
Hill, K. K., & Simon, D. (2021). Photographing the Tulsa Massacre: A Conversation with Karlos K. Hill. World Literature Today, 95(2), 64–66. https://doi.org/10.7588/worllitetoda.95.2.0064
Messer, C. M., Shriver, T. E., & Adams, A. E. (2018). The Destruction of Black Wall Street: Tulsa’s 1921 Riot and the Eradication of Accumulated Wealth. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 77(3/4), 789–819. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45129337
Vieira, M. (2020). Tulsa’s forgotten massacre. The World Today, 76(4), 39. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48750992
https://www.tulsalibrary.org/1921-tulsa-race-massacre
https://timelessmoon.getarchive.net/amp/media/the-racial-riot-in-tulsa-oklahoma-e47f7a
https://runitback.substack.com/p/018-a-way-with-words
https://apnews.com/article/tulsa-massacre-mass-graves-memorial-2c4b73c4358a57927f0c5ac8d76ab189
https://timelessmoon.getarchive.net/amp/media/the-racial-riot-in-tulsa-oklahoma-08fbca
