Volume 14 , Issue 47

1921 Tulsa - Burning of Greenwood District (Black Wall Street)

Have you heard about the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 when the Greenwood Avenue (Black Wall Street) was burned down? We found the following information concerning the Tulsa Race Riot online at Oklahoma Historical Society's, Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture. Some would say, "It was the single worst incident of racial violence in American history."



On May 30, 1921 a young black man named Dick Rowland (an African American shoe shiner), while entering an elevator, stepped on Sarah Page's shoe, causing her to scream. Sarah Page was a white elevator operator, in the Drexel Building. Dick Rowland was arrested, but never charged with a crime.

During the course of eighteen horrible hours on May 31 and June 1, 1921, more than one thousand homes and businesses were destroyed. The city of Tulsa had been placed under martial law, thousands of Tulsans were being held under armed guard, and Oklahoma's second largest African American community (Greenwood District) had been burned to the ground.

Newly rich from oil Tulsa, was a Ku Klux Klan town. In the post World War I years the Tulsa Tribune published several accounts that intensified public reaction to several unfolding events. It was an editorial on May 31, 1921, published in the Tulsa Tribune that inflamed racial tensions, causing the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 to erupt on June 1. It was this May 31, 1921 editorial, titled "To Lynch Negro Tonight" that caused early evening lynch talk on the streets of Tulsa. Talk soon turned to action.

The white mob was surprised when they were met by several dozen armed black men, dressed in their World War I uniforms. This led to a racist three day destruction of the black neighborhood of Greenwood. The Red Cross reported 300 mostly dead black people. Following the shooting of several African-Americans on June 1, 1921, the white mob systematically burned a thirty-five square block area of Greenwood. Schools, churches, businesses, and homes were burned. The estimated property loss reached above $2.3 million. The estimated death tolls of African-Americans were in the hundreds. White vigilantes arrested thousands of African-Americans and held them for no apparent reasons. Approximately 4,300 African-Americans were left homeless, and Greenwood was left in smoke and ashes.

Over 6,000 black people, were round up and held in the convention center and fairgrounds, as long as eight days. The homeless were shuttled into a tent city, where typhoid and malnutrition took over. Blacks were allowed out of the convention center, with a tag, with an employers name. Thousands fled the city.

Several events followed the 1921 riots. Governor Robertson declared martial law, and the National Guardsmen established law and order, while mayor Evans converted the primary schools and a church into emergency hospitals. The Red Cross used the high school as its headquarters to support the residents of Greenwood. Sarah Page, the alleged white female who was allegedly assaulted by Dick Rowland left, Tulsa, Oklahoma The police chief was indicted and charged.

Greenwood never regained its prominence as a Black Wall Street after it was destroyed by vigilante racist white mobs.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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