How the Tulsa Race Massacre Began | Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre | History

How the Tul­sa Race Mas­sacre Began | Tul­sa Burn­ing: The 1921 Race Mas­sacre | History



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The dead­liest race mas­sacre in Amer­i­can His­to­ry start­ed with two peo­ple. Find out the ori­gins of this trag­ic event in this His­to­ry spe­cial, “Tul­sa Burn­ing: The 1921 Race Massacre.”

Out now from HISTORY & WNYC Stu­dios is the pod­cast series Blindspot: Tul­sa Burning. 

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Exec­u­tive pro­duced by NBA super­star and phil­an­thropist Rus­sell West­brook, and direct­ed by Peabody and Emmy-Award® win­ning direc­tor Stan­ley Nel­son (“Free­dom Rid­ers”) and Peabody and duPont-Award win­ner Mar­co Williams (“Two Towns of Jasper”), the doc­u­men­tary com­mem­o­rates the 100th anniver­sary of the hor­rif­ic Tul­sa Race Mas­sacre of 1921, one of the worst acts of racial vio­lence in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, and calls atten­tion to the pre­vi­ous­ly ignored but nec­es­sary repair of a town once devastated.

In the 1920s, the Green­wood Dis­trict of Tul­sa, Okla­homa, also known as Black Wall Street, was one of the most pros­per­ous African Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties in the Unit­ed States. Filled with boom­ing busi­ness­es and thriv­ing entre­pre­neurs, the dis­trict served as a mec­ca of Black inge­nu­ity and promise, until the evening of May 31, 1921, which marked the start of the dev­as­tat­ing Tul­sa Race Mas­sacre. More than thir­ty-five city blocks were burned to the ground and hun­dreds of Black city dwellers were killed. The Tul­sa Race Mas­sacre of 1921 is one of the most trag­ic moments in our nation’s his­to­ry, yet this har­row­ing event is large­ly unknown to many Amer­i­cans. It is an often-over­looked sto­ry that needs to be told.

“Tul­sa Burn­ing: The 1921 Race Mas­sacre” takes an in-depth, sober­ing look at the trag­ic events of a cen­tu­ry ago and focus­es on a spe­cif­ic peri­od, from the birth of Black Wall Street, to its cat­a­stroph­ic down­fall over the course of two bloody days, and final­ly the fall­out and recon­struc­tion. The doc­u­men­tary also fol­lows the city’s cur­rent-day grave exca­va­tion efforts at Oak­lawn Ceme­tery where numer­ous unmarked coffins of vic­tims who were killed and buried dur­ing the mas­sacre have been recov­ered. It will also fea­ture rare archival footage and imagery from the time, cou­pled with com­men­tary and inter­views from numer­ous his­to­ri­ans, city lead­ers, and activists, includ­ing the Tul­sa His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety & Muse­um, the John Hope Franklin Cen­ter for Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, the Tul­sa Race Mas­sacre Cen­ten­ni­al Com­mis­sion and the His­toric Ver­non A.M.E. Church, among others.

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