The Tulsa Race Massacre: When Black Wall Street Burned in 1921
- dthholland
- 24 hours ago
- 11 min read
In the early summer of 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a place of contradictions. It was a city on the rise, oil-rich, bustling with new money, and sharply divided by race. In the north, the Greenwood District stood as a beacon of Black prosperity. Created in the shadow of segregation, Greenwood was a community that had learned not just to survive but to thrive in its own right. It had its own shops, banks, churches, restaurants, a hospital, and two newspapers. Doctors, teachers, lawyers, and entrepreneurs all lived within its bounds, creating a self-sufficient economy where the Black dollar circulated repeatedly before ever leaving the community.
By the 1910s and 1920s, Greenwood’s main street, North Greenwood Avenue, was packed with Black-owned businesses and professional offices. The people who lived there called it “Deep Greenwood.” The rest of the country began to refer to it as “Black Wall Street.” Booker T. Washington himself had visited the area in 1905 and praised its model of Black economic independence.
But just beyond the Frisco railroad tracks, in the rest of Tulsa, a different picture emerged. White Tulsa, politically and socially dominant, watched Greenwood’s success with a mixture of discomfort and disdain. Many white Tulsans had roots in the South, and Jim Crow laws in Oklahoma—passed swiftly after statehood in 1907—were enforced to the letter. Segregation was not just customary; it was legal. Black citizens were barred from voting, serving on juries, or holding office. Public spaces were divided by race, and the state legislature ensured these divides were maintained with fresh laws and restrictions.
Even in a booming oil economy, post-World War I America was experiencing job shortages, a national recession, and a wave of labour unrest. The return of Black veterans from Europe—men who had fought for democracy overseas and now expected equal treatment at home—only intensified tensions. Their presence and their pride were often perceived as threats.
And then there was the Klan.
The Ku Klux Klan had experienced a national resurgence following the release of the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, which depicted the group as saviours of the white South. By the early 1920s, the Klan had established itself firmly in Oklahoma. Parades, cross burnings, and recruitment drives were increasingly common across the state. It’s estimated that by the end of 1921, Tulsa alone had around 3,200 Klan members—roughly 1 in 20 residents. Behind closed doors, they exerted quiet pressure on politics, policing, and the media.
In this volatile atmosphere, it took very little to ignite an explosion.
A City Divided
When Oklahoma was admitted to the Union in 1907, its lawmakers wasted no time formalising racial segregation. The first law passed by the new state legislature segregated railway coaches, and soon after, Black citizens were disenfranchised through so-called “grandfather clauses” and literacy tests. By the 1910s, Tulsa had gone further, passing local ordinances that made it illegal for Black families to live on majority-white blocks, and vice versa. Though the U.S. Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1917 (Buchanan v. Warley), enforcement in Tulsa continued unabated.
The Greenwood District developed in resistance to this segregation. Barred from patronising white establishments, Black residents built their own. They opened movie theatres, nightclubs, grocery stores, tailor shops, and law offices. Their churches, schools, and community halls were not just places of gathering—they were centres of pride, culture, and resilience.
But wealth and independence in Black hands was intolerable to many white Tulsans. What Greenwood represented, a successful, self-governing Black community, challenged the dominant narrative of white superiority. In the minds of many white citizens, it wasn’t just a neighbourhood; it was an affront.
Meanwhile, Tulsa’s white establishment capitalised on Greenwood’s labour while resenting its success. Black residents worked as maids, chauffeurs, and porters in white homes and businesses, then returned each evening to a community where their dignity was intact. This dynamic, coupled with widespread economic anxiety, created a perfect storm of envy and fear.
All it would take was a single spark.
A Spark to Tinder
That spark came on 30 May 1921.
Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old Black shoeshiner, entered the Drexel Building in downtown Tulsa to use the restroom. Because of segregation, the only “coloured” toilet available to him was on the top floor of the building, and the only way up was via a lift operated by 17-year-old Sarah Page, a white girl. What happened in that elevator remains unclear. Some said Rowland tripped and grabbed Page’s arm to steady himself. Others claimed she screamed. No physical injuries were reported. Page herself later declined to press charges.
But a nearby clerk had seen Rowland rush from the building, and Page in a state of shock. The police were called. Rumours flew. By the next day, The Tulsa Tribune ran a story with the headline: “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator.” Some say an editorial titled “To Lynch Negro Tonight” appeared in that same edition, though no surviving copy of that page has ever been found. Whether or not the editorial existed, the intent was clear: to inflame white readers.
By the afternoon of 31 May, Rowland had been arrested and was being held in the county jail. Word spread that a lynching was imminent. It had happened before, in fact, just the year before, a white suspect named Roy Belton had been taken from the jail and hanged by a mob. Many in Tulsa’s Black community feared Rowland would meet the same fate.
A group of around 25 Black men, some of them armed and many of them veterans, went to the courthouse that evening to offer help to the sheriff in protecting Rowland. The sheriff assured them Rowland was safe and persuaded them to leave.
But the white crowd gathered outside the courthouse had swollen to the hundreds. Some were openly calling for a lynching. As the night wore on, a second group of about 75 Black men returned to stand guard. This time, the confrontation escalated.
One elderly white man approached a Black veteran named O. B. Mann and demanded that he hand over his weapon. Mann refused. A shot rang out, whether it was accidental or deliberate remains unknown. But in that moment, gunfire erupted on both sides.
As one report later put it, “All hell broke loose.”
What followed wasn’t a riot. It wasn’t a spontaneous outburst of street violence. It was a coordinated and brutal attack. Over the course of the next 24 hours, white mobs armed with rifles, shotguns, and even machine guns descended upon Greenwood. They looted, burned, and killed. At least one white pilot flew a private aircraft over the district, dropping firebombs from the sky.
Greenwood would never be the same.
When Greenwood Burned
As darkness fell on 31 May 1921, the divide between Black and white Tulsa ceased to be metaphorical. It became a battleground. The initial gunfire outside the county courthouse had triggered a rush of white men—many deputised by local officials and armed with weapons looted from hardware stores and the National Guard armoury—into the streets. Once word spread that a “Negro uprising” was underway, a violent frenzy took hold. The real target, however, wasn’t the courthouse or the police. It was Greenwood.
The Frisco railroad tracks had long served as the boundary between Tulsa’s white and Black neighbourhoods. That night, they were crossed en masse by mobs bent not just on revenge, but on annihilation. White Tulsans—some in uniform, many in civilian clothes—moved street by street through Greenwood in calculated formations. They weren’t just looting; they were torching homes and businesses with terrifying efficiency. Armed with rifles, pistols, jerrycans, and makeshift incendiaries, they moved in waves, often firing indiscriminately at anyone in their path.
Greenwood’s residents were taken by surprise. The initial firefight downtown had left the community braced for conflict, but no one had anticipated the scale and intensity of the onslaught that followed. Many tried to defend their homes. World War I veterans, in particular, took up arms and fired back. But they were vastly outnumbered—some estimates put the white mob at over 2,000, and increasingly outgunned.
As the flames took hold, Greenwood descended into chaos. Some residents fled into nearby fields or the surrounding countryside. Others sought shelter in churches, schools, or the basements of friends’ homes. Families hid in cellars, ducked into drainage ditches, or crawled beneath floorboards as bullets tore through walls and windows. Survivors later recalled walking barefoot for miles through the night, their homes in ruins behind them, clutching what few belongings they could carry.
What made this attack unlike any other in American racial history was the use of aircraft. At least a dozen planes, mostly privately owned and launched from Curtiss-Southwest Field outside Tulsa, circled above the district. Eyewitnesses reported seeing men firing rifles from the cockpits, and several accounts mention homemade firebombs being dropped onto rooftops. Buck Colbert Franklin, a local Black lawyer and father of historian John Hope Franklin, later described the sky filled with the hum of engines and the air thick with smoke as “turpentine balls” fell from above. He watched buildings erupt into flames from the top down, a clear indication that the fires had started not on the ground, but from the air.
By dawn on 1 June, the devastation was near total. Thick, acrid smoke blanketed the city as entire blocks of Greenwood burned. Mount Zion Baptist Church, a centrepiece of the community and a source of immense pride, was among the first major structures to be destroyed. Its construction had only recently been completed after years of fundraising. Its loss was both symbolic and material. Schools, libraries, a hospital, and two newspapers’ offices were among the hundreds of buildings reduced to ash.
The destruction wasn’t random. Testimonies and photographs from the aftermath make it clear that this was not simply mob violence—it was organised and methodical. Businesses were looted before being set ablaze. Safe deposit boxes were emptied. Cash registers were taken. Reports describe white rioters entering homes and ordering residents into the street at gunpoint before ransacking the property. In some cases, white Tulsans even returned with vehicles to carry off furniture, pianos, and building materials. Churches were robbed of their collection plates before being torched.
The Red Cross would later count 1,256 homes destroyed and at least 215 more looted but left standing. Estimates suggest more than 35 city blocks were completely levelled. Greenwood had been, quite literally, wiped off the map.
As the fires raged, the state’s response was far from swift. Though the Oklahoma National Guard had begun mobilising the night before, its presence on the ground was minimal in the crucial early hours. When more troops arrived later on the morning of 1 June, their focus was not on stopping the violence or arresting white attackers. Instead, they set up checkpoints, enforced martial law, and began rounding up Black residents.
Thousands of Black Tulsans, some found hiding in fields or among the rubble, were detained at gunpoint and herded to various holding locations. These included the Convention Hall (now known as the Tulsa Theater), the Tulsa Fairgrounds, and McNulty Park, a local baseball stadium. Detainees were held behind barbed wire, some for days. They were fingerprinted, given ID cards, and interrogated. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter. In a cruel irony, the survivors of the massacre were treated as criminals.
In many cases, employers were required to sign affidavits to secure the release of their Black domestic workers or labourers. Those without white sponsors were kept in custody longer. The psychological toll was immense. People who had lost everything—homes, families, livelihoods—were now interned in overcrowded halls under suspicion and armed watch.
Survivors described the camps as dehumanising. Women gave birth behind canvas dividers. Children cried for their parents. Medical care was limited. Food was basic. Some who were released returned to find nothing but the charred remains of their former lives. Others never returned at all.
The response of the wider white community ranged from indifferent to celebratory. Photographs of the devastation were sold as postcards. Souvenirs were taken from the rubble. Newspapers outside Oklahoma reported on the destruction, but local authorities made little effort to acknowledge, much less atone for, what had occurred.
In the days that followed, Tulsa’s officials focused less on relief and more on damage control. When asked what had happened, the city’s leaders blamed the Black community for starting the trouble—despite all evidence to the contrary. A grand jury, convened in the aftermath, would echo this narrative, placing responsibility on “the actions of armed Negroes” while ignoring the orchestrated nature of the white assault.
Greenwood, once a thriving symbol of Black excellence and enterprise, had been reduced to rubble in less than 24 hours.
Aftermath and Silence
By midday on 1 June, martial law had been declared. The violence subsided, but Greenwood had already been decimated. More than 35 city blocks were in ruins. The death toll was impossible to confirm. Official counts put the number at 36, but eyewitnesses and later investigations suggest the true figure may have been between 100 and 300. Mass graves, rumoured to exist for decades, have only recently begun to be investigated and confirmed through modern archaeology.
In the days that followed, the city and state did little to help the survivors. Insurance companies refused to pay out claims for damages caused by the “riot”—using the term as a legal loophole. Many policies included riot clauses that excluded coverage. Lawsuits filed by Black residents were dismissed in court.
The city’s white leaders, rather than aiding Greenwood’s recovery, proposed rezoning the area for industrial use. In effect, they sought to erase what remained of Black Wall Street. It was only due to legal challenges, most notably led by attorney Buck Colbert Franklin, that these efforts were blocked, and residents were allowed to rebuild.
Even so, rebuilding was slow, and assistance was minimal. Many families spent the winter of 1921–22 living in tents provided by the Red Cross. Some survivors left Tulsa altogether. Those who stayed carried on with little support, driven by determination and the bonds of community. Churches were rebuilt first, then shops, then homes.
And then came the silence.
For decades, the Tulsa Race Massacre was barely mentioned in newspapers, history books, or classrooms. Survivors were often too traumatised—or too afraid—to speak openly. White Tulsans, many of whom had witnessed or participated in the violence, were unwilling to discuss it. A code of silence fell over the city. It would take nearly 75 years before serious efforts were made to confront the past.
Memory and Reckoning
In 1996, the Oklahoma state government established the Tulsa Race Riot Commission—later renamed the Tulsa Race Massacre Commission. Its task was to investigate the events of 1921 and make recommendations for justice and remembrance. The final report, published in 2001, confirmed what survivors had said for years: that the massacre was not a spontaneous riot but a calculated assault on a prosperous Black community.
The commission recommended reparations, scholarships, and a memorial park. While some progress was made—most notably the opening of the Greenwood Cultural Center and John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park—no financial reparations have ever been paid to survivors or their descendants.
In recent years, particularly around the centennial of the massacre in 2021, public awareness has grown. Documentaries, books, and news features have brought Greenwood’s story to a global audience. Archaeological digs have confirmed the presence of mass graves at Oaklawn Cemetery. Survivors like Viola Fletcher—who was just seven years old in 1921—testified before Congress, still asking, a century later, for justice.
Legacy of Greenwood
Despite everything, the legacy of Greenwood endures. It is a story of Black excellence, resilience, and self-determination in the face of relentless racism and violence. It’s also a cautionary tale about the consequences of silence, the dangers of racial hatred, and the cost of failing to confront uncomfortable truths.
For too long, the Tulsa Race Massacre was erased from the American memory. Today, telling the story is part of the work of repair, not just for Tulsa, but for the nation.
As Mary E. Jones Parrish, one of the massacre’s earliest chroniclers, wrote in 1922:
“I hope that this book will open the eyes of the thinking people to the impending danger of letting such conditions exist in the ‘Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.’”
It’s taken a hundred years, but at last, the world is listening.
Sources:
Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Final Report (2001)
Mary E. Jones Parrish, The Events of the Tulsa Disaster (1922)
Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (1982)
Tim Madigan, The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (2001)
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Tulsa World newspaper archives
Tulsa Historical Society & Museum (www.tulsahistory.org)
Greenwood Cultural Center (www.greenwoodculturalcenter.com)
The New York Times and Washington Post retrospective coverage (2021)
NPR, “Tulsa 1921: Reporting a Massacre” (2021)
