'Black Wall Street': The history of the wealthy Black community and the massacre perpetrated there 100 years ago
TULSA, OKLAHOMA - JUNE 18: The Black Wall Street Massacre memorial is shown June 18, 2020 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Black Wall Street Massacre happened in 1921 and was one of the worst race riots in the history of the United States where more than 35 square blocks of a predominantly black neighborhood were destroyed in two days of rioting leaving between 150-300 people dead. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

This week, the nation's eyes will turn to Tulsa, Oklahoma as the city commemorates the 100th anniversary of one of its most tragic and shameful events, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. In attendance will be President Joe Biden, as well as politician Stacey Abrams and musician John Legend. A century ago, thousands of Black Tulsa residents had built a self-sustaining community that supported hundreds of Black-owned businesses. It was known as "Black Wall Street." This summer marks the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, a tragic event perpetrated on Black Wall Street that has been described as "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history." The incident, which is estimated to have claimed the lives of as many as 300 people (the vast majority being Black), devastated a neighborhood that had grown over the previous 15 years to become one of the wealthiest enclaves for Black Americans in the country. Still, for many Americans, the June 1, 1921 massacre and the history of Tulsa's "Black Wall Street" neighborhood represented a gap in their knowledge of American history, at least until recently. In fact, when a depiction of the massacre appeared in the opening scenes of 2019's "Watchmen", a popular fictional HBO series that debuted in October and drew from the real-life events of 1921, many viewers reported that they initially believed they were witnessing fictional events. Another fictional HBO show, "Lovecraft Country," also drew from the real-life massacre for a 2020 episode, further stoking the national conversation about an event that had once been seemingly ignored by history. Historians say the history of "Black Wall Street" and the massacre that occurred there (much like the Juneteenth holiday) have generally not been taught in U.S. schools over the past century, even in Oklahoma, where the racist incident was only added to statewide school curriculums in February 2020. Here's a look at how Tulsa's Greenwood District grew to become a haven for Black entrepreneurs at the beginning of the 20th century — and how 24 hours of racist violence destroyed much of what thousands of Black residents had built there, only for that tragic event and the people it affected to be unjustly ignored by history, for the most part, for decades afterward.

Entrepreneur O.W. Gurley and the founding of 'Black Wall Street'

A black and white photograph of the Greenwood district in Tulsa, OK, with residents walking by shopfronts, before 1921. Source: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Families of Anita Williams Christopher and David Owen Williams

By 1921, Tulsa's Greenwood District was one of the wealthiest Black communities in the U.S. and a center of Black wealth. The community of roughly 10,000 residents was thriving and supported Black-owned banks, restaurants, hotels, grocery stores and luxury shops, along with offices for Black lawyers and doctors. Because Tulsa was still very much racially segregated at the time, the Black residents mostly patronized Black-owned businesses, which helped the community thrive. In fact, the community was so self-sustaining that it's now estimated that every dollar spent in the Greenwood District circulated within the neighborhood and its businesses at least 36 times, according to historians. The district's success actually inspired Black author and orator Booker T. Washington to coin its nickname, which he originally called "Negro Wall Street," but which later became known as "Black Wall Street," according to the Greenwood Cultural Center. That being said, the Greenwood District was far from a utopia. Even though many Black residents owned successful businesses and lived in relative luxury, historian Scott Ellsworth has pointed out that many others were poor and lived in "shanties and shacks."

The Tulsa massacre

Historians note that many of the Greenwood District's Black residents had moved to the area to escape the virulent racism of the Deep South. However, while Greenwood's "Black Wall Street" was a self-sustaining enclave for Tulsa's Black community, it was also only blocks away from predominantly white neighborhoods that remained unwelcoming to their Black neighbors. What's more, racist violence was on the rise in the U.S. at the time. Just two years before the Tulsa Massacre, the nation endured the Red Summer of 1919, when at least 25 riots and incidents of mob violence erupted in major cities across the U.S., killing hundreds of people, most of whom were Black. Those pre-existing racial tensions set the stage for a bloody day of racist violence that erupted over a nearly 24-hour period, ending June 1, 1921, after an armed white mob descended on the Greenwood District. The mob attacked black residents and businesses in the neighborhood, leaving 35 city blocks "in charred ruins," according to the Tulsa Historical Society. In the skirmishes, as many as 300 people (mostly Black) were killed and hundreds more were injured, while thousands of Tulsa's black residents lost their homes and businesses. The violence had been sparked by an incident in the preceding days involving a young African-American shoe-shiner named Dick Rowland, who rode in an elevator operated by a young white woman named Sarah Page. While reports of exactly what happened in the elevator vary, it is widely believed that Rowland accidentally came into contact with Page (perhaps stepping on her foot, or tripping and falling into her, according to different reports), causing her to scream. One witness who heard the scream called the police, who eventually arrested Rowland on May 31. Meanwhile, after a Tulsa Tribune newspaper article falsely claimed that Rowland had assaulted Page, rumors about the incident ran wildly and some accounts even falsely claimed he had raped the woman, according to The New York Times. (Local law enforcement later admonished the Tribune for publishing an "untrue account" that helped to incite the violence, according to the Tulsa World.) Tulsa's Black residents, fearing that Rowland would be lynched by an angry mob (a horrifically regular occurrence that's estimated to have happened thousands of times in the U.S. during the Jim Crow Era) after he received threats on his life, gathered in front of the city's courthouse where he was being held. A confrontation broke out between black and white groups at the courthouse, both of which were armed, resulting in shots being fired. After that initial skirmish, Black residents retreated to the Greenwood District, while groups of white vigilantes reportedly spread throughout Tulsa attacking any Black people they encountered, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. On the morning of June 1, a mob of over a thousand white people overran the affluent Black neighborhood, attacking and shooting residents. The white mob looted and burned most of the neighborhood, firing on residents who tried to defend themselves but were outgunned by the attackers, some of whom reportedly had machine guns, surviving eyewitnesses later reported. Some survivors even said that the attackers flew over the area in private airplanes, from which they shot at Black residents and dropped firebombs on buildings.

Billowing Smoke during Tulsa Race Massacre, Alvin C. Krupnick Co., June 1921. Universal History Archive | Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The Oklahoma Historical Society reports that the violence trailed off later in the morning, upon the arrival of troops from the National Guard, though much of the neighborhood was already in ruins by that point. However, other reports suggest that the National Guard and the Tulsa police arrested Black residents instead of their attackers, and that some troops even joined in the attack, according to The New York Times. In the end, more than 1,200 homes were reportedly burned, leaving most of the Greenwood District's 10,000 residents homeless. Over 6,000 of them were rounded up into internment camps by the local government and forced to live in tents, in some cases for months after the massacre. In 2019, archaeologists in Tulsa discovered what they believed to be one site likely used as a mass grave to bury many of those who died in the massacre.

Smoldering Ruins of African American's Homes following the Tulsa Massacre, USA, Alvin C. Krupnick Co., June 1921. Universal History Archive | Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Meanwhile, Rowland was eventually exonerated, but an all-white grand jury decided not to charge any white residents in the wake of the violence, which mostly blamed on Black residents, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. For many years after the massacre, there was some argument over whether the incident should be referred to as a massacre or a "riot." Early reports referred to the incident as the "Tulsa Race Riot," with the Tulsa Historical Society noting that such terminology may have been used for insurance purposes, as a riot would not have required insurance companies to pay out benefits to Black residents whose homes and businesses were burned.

The Greenwood District after the massacre