The Tulsa Race Massacre

In the early 1900’s, the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma was commonly referred to as the ‘Black Wall Street’. It was a predominantly African American town that was booming due to the nearby discovery of oil.

It was a wonderful place to live, work and raise a family – but that all changed on May 31, 1921. In a matter of hours, the town was burnt to ashes and its estimated that up to 300 people were murdered. Scott Ellsworth—a historian, lecturer in the University of Michigan Department of Afroamerican Studies, and the author of Death in a Promised Land and The Ground Breaking—tells the largely untold story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.