Tulsa race massacre

Many black families spent the winter of 1921–1922 in tents as they worked to rebuild. Charles Page was commended for his philanthropic efforts in the wake of the riot in the assistance of 'destitute blacks'.

A group of influential white developers persuaded the city to pass a fire ordinance that would have prohibited many black people from rebuilding in Greenwood. Their intention was to redevelop Greenwood for more business and industrial use and force black people further to the edge of the city for residences. The case was litigated and appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court by Buck Colbert Franklin, where the ordinance was ruled unconstitutional. Most of the promised funding was never raised for the black residents, and they struggled to rebuild after the violence. Willows, the regional director of the Red Cross, noted this in his report, explaining his slow initial progress to facilitate the rehabilitation of the refugees. The fire code was officially intended to prevent another tragedy by banning wooden frame construction houses in place of previously burnt homes. A concession was granted to allow temporary wooden frame dwellings while a new building, which would meet the more restrictive fire code, was being constructed. This was quickly halted as residents within two weeks had started to erect full-sized wooden frame dwellings in contravention of the agreement. It took a further two-month delay to secure the court decision to reinstate the previous fire code. Willows heavily criticized the Tulsa city officials for interfering with his efforts, for their role in the Public Welfare Committee, which first sought to rezone the "burned area" as industrial, and for constructing a union station in its place with no consideration for the refugees. Then he criticized them again for the dissolution of the Public Welfare Committee in favor of the formation of the Reconstruction Committee, which failed to formulate a single plan, leaving the displaced residents prohibited from beginning reconstruction efforts for several months.

Tulsa Union Depot

Despite the Red Cross's best efforts to assist with the reconstruction of Greenwood's residential area, the considerably altered present-day layout of the district and its surrounding neighborhoods, as well as the extensive redevelopment of Greenwood by people unaffiliated with the neighborhood prior to the riot, stand as proof that the Red Cross relief efforts had limited success.

Tulsa's main industries at the time of the riot were banking (BOK Financial Corporation), administrative (PennWell, Oklahoma Natural Gas Company), and petroleum engineering services (Skelly Oil), earning Tulsa the title of "Oil Capital of the World". Joshua Cosden is also regarded as a founder of the city, having constructed the tallest building in Tulsa, the Cosden Building. The construction of the Cosden Building and Union Depot was overseen by the Manhattan Construction Company, which was based in Tulsa. Francis Rooney is the great-grandson and beneficiary of the estate of Laurence H. Rooney, founder of the Manhattan Construction Company.

City planners immediately saw the fire that destroyed homes and businesses across Greenwood as a fortunate event for advancing their objectives, meanwhile showing a disregard for the welfare of affected residents. Plans were made to rezone 'The Burned Area' for industrial use. The Tulsa Daily World reported that the mayor and city commissioners expressed that, "a large industrial section will be found desirable in causing a wider separation between negroes and whites." The reconstruction committee organized a forum to discuss their proposal with community leaders and stakeholders. Naming, among others, O.W. Gurley, Rev. H.T.F. Johnson, and Barney Cleaver as participants in the forum, it was reported that all members were in agreement with the plan to redevelop the burned district as an industrial section and agreed that the proposed union station project was desirable. "...not a note of dissension was expressed." The article states that these community leaders would again meet at the First Baptist Church in the following days. The Black Dispatch describes the content of the following meeting at the First Baptist Church. The reconstruction committee had intended to have the black landholders sign over their property to a holding company managed by black representatives on behalf of the city. The properties were then to be turned over to a white appraisal committee, which would pay residents for the residentially zoned land at the lower industrial zoned value in advance of the rezoning. Professor J.W. Hughes addressed the white reconstruction committee members in opposition to their proposition, coining a slogan that would come to galvanize the community, "I'm going to hold what I have until I get What I've lost."

Construction of the Tulsa Union Depot, a large central rail hub connecting three major railroads, began in Greenwood less than two years after the riot. Prior to the riot, construction had already been underway for a smaller rail hub nearby. However, in the aftermath of the riot, land on which homes and businesses had been destroyed by the fires suddenly became available, allowing for a larger train depot near the heart of the city to be built in Greenwood instead.

1921 grand jury investigation

Allegations of corruption

The Tulsa Police Department, in the words of Chief Chuck Jordan, "did not do their job then, y'know, they just didn't". Parrish, an African-American citizen of Tulsa, summarized the lawlessness in Oklahoma as a contributing factor in 1922 as, "if ... it were not for the profitable alliance of politics and vice or professional crime, the tiny spark which is the beginning of all these outrages would be promptly extinguished." Clark, a prominent Oklahoma historian and law professor, completed his doctoral dissertation in law on the subject of lawlessness in Oklahoma specifically on this period of time and how lawlessness had led to the rise of the second KKK, in order to illustrate the need for effective law enforcement and a functional judiciary.

John A. Gustafson

thumb|The Chicago Whip newspaper 30 July 1921 with a photo of Tulsa Police Chief John A. Gustafson

Chief of Police John A. Gustafson was the subject of an investigation. Official proceedings began on June 6, 1921. He was prosecuted on multiple counts: refusing to enforce prohibition, refusing to enforce anti-prostitution laws; operating a stolen automobile-laundering racket and allowing known automobile thieves to escape justice, for the purpose of extorting the citizens of Tulsa for rewards relating to their return; repurposing vehicles for his own use or sale; operating a fake detective agency for the purpose of billing the city of Tulsa for investigative duties he was already being paid for as chief of police; failing to enforce gun laws; and failure to take action during the riots.

The attorney general of Oklahoma received numerous letters alleging members of the police force had conspired with members of the justice system to threaten witnesses in corruption trials stemming from the Grand Jury investigations. In the letters, various members of the public requested the presence of the state attorney general at the trial. An assistant of the attorney general replied to one such letter by stating that their budget was too stretched to respond and recommending instead that the citizens of Tulsa simply vote for new officers.

Gustafson was found to have a long history of fraud pre-dating his membership in the Tulsa Police Department. His previous partner in his detective agency, Phil Kirk, had been convicted of blackmail. Gustafson's fake detective agency ran up high billings on the police account. Investigators noted that many blackmail letters had been sent to members of the community from the agency. One particularly disturbing case involved the frequent rape, by her father, of an 11-year-old girl who had since become pregnant. Instead of prosecuting, they sent a "Blackhand letter". On July 30, 1921, out of five counts of an indictment, Gustafson was found guilty of two counts: negligence for failing to stop the riot (which resulted in dismissal from police force), and conspiracy for freeing automobile thieves and collecting rewards (which resulted in a jail sentence).

Breaking the silence

Three days after the massacre, President Warren G. Harding spoke at the all-black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He declared, "Despite the demagogues, the idea of our oneness as Americans has risen superior to every appeal to mere class and group. And so, I wish it might be in this matter of our national problem of races." Speaking directly about the events in Tulsa, he said, "God grant that, in the soberness, the fairness, and the justice of this country, we never see another spectacle like it."

There were no convictions for any of the charges related to violence. There were decades of silence about the terror, violence, and losses of this event. The riot was largely omitted from local, state, and national histories: "The Tulsa race riot of 1921 was rarely mentioned in history books, classrooms, or even in private. Black and white people alike grew into middle age, unaware of what had taken place." It was not recognized in the Tulsa Tribune feature of "Fifteen Years Ago Today" or "Twenty-five Years Ago Today". A 2017 report detailing the history of the Tulsa Fire Department from 1897 until the date of publication makes no mention of the 1921 massacre.

Several people tried to document the events, gather photographs, and record the names of the dead and injured. Mary Elizabeth Jones Parrish, a young black teacher and journalist from Rochester, New York, was hired by the Inter-racial Commission to write an account of the riot. Parrish was a survivor, and she wrote about her experiences, collected other accounts, gathered photographs and compiled "a partial roster of property losses in the African American community". She published these in Events of the Tulsa Disaster, in 1922. It was the first book to be published about the riot. The first academic account was a master's thesis written in 1946 by Loren L. Gill, a veteran of World War II, but the thesis did not circulate beyond the University of Tulsa.

In 1971, a small group of survivors gathered for a memorial service at Mount Zion Baptist Church with black and white people in attendance. That same year, the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce decided to commemorate the riot, but when they read the accounts and saw photos gathered by Ed Wheeler, host of a radio history program, detailing the specifics of the riot, they refused to publish them. He then took his information to the two major newspapers in Tulsa, both of which also refused to run his story. His article, "Profile of a Race Riot" By April 2024, Viola Ford Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle were the only two remaining survivors with memory of the Tulsa race massacre. Fletcher and Randle were still reported as the two last remaining survivors with memory of the event by November 2025 as well. Fletcher later died on November 24, 2025. thus making Randle now the last remaining Tulsa race massacre survivor with memory of the event.

Olivia Hooker

Olivia Hooker was born on February 12, 1915, in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Her family was one of the many families affected by the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 when she was only six years old. Her family's home in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma was broken into by a group of white men with torches and was torn apart. Many of her family's belongings were destroyed. One item that Hooker recalled was her sister's piano. She remembered hearing a group of white men whacking into the piano as she and her four other siblings hid under the dining room table, which their mother covered with a tablecloth. Her father owned a store in Tulsa, which she recalled was absolutely destroyed and only one safe was left standing. The only reason it was left standing was that it was too big and heavy to be destroyed or stolen. Hooker also remembered vividly her schoolhouse being destroyed and blown up with dynamite. After the massacre, Hooker and her family moved to Topeka, Kansas to rebuild their lives. Hooker recalled her mother telling her, "don't spend your time agonizing over the past." With a new fresh start in Topeka, Kansas, Hooker was the first African American woman to join the Coast Guard (in February 1945). After leaving the Coast Guard, Hooker went on to earn her master's degree in psychology from Teacher's College, Columbia University. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Rochester. Hooker went on to have multiple jobs with her degree in psychology, mostly basing her work on the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. Olivia Hooker retired from work at the age of 87. She died at the age of 103 on November 21, 2018, in her home in New York.

Eldoris McCondichie

Eldoris McCondichie was born on September 1, 1911, in Tyler, Texas. She was four years old when she and her family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the Greenwood district. Her family was part of the working class. Her father had worked in a field and her mother did housework. On May 31, 1921, McCondichie was nine years old. She remembered being frantically awakened by her mother. She remembered her mother saying, "the white people are killing the colored people." McCondichie and her family evacuated their Tulsa home to find refuge up north from the massacre. McCondichie described how "airplanes were raining down bullets", and how no one had enough time to even put clothes on and evacuate their homes. She recalled seeing women walking on the railroad track with no shoes in their nightgowns. She remembered finding shelter in a chicken coop during the riots to protect herself from machine gun fire. After McCondichie and her family evacuated Tulsa, they found refuge in a farmer's home overnight. Her family traveled to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, where they stayed for about 2–3 days until they knew it was safe to return home. Upon returning to Tulsa, Eldoris described what was left of the Greenwood district as "war-torn". She recalled many businesses and homes were burnt to the ground. Her family slowly rebuilt their lives in Tulsa and never left, referring to it as their "forever home". Eldoris was married to Arthur McCodichie for 67 years and had four children; two sons and two daughters. She died on September 12, 2010, several days after celebrating her 99th birthday. Her final resting place is in the Crownhill Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

George Monroe

George Monroe was five years old during the attack on the Greenwood district. He claimed some images could never leave his mind. He remembered seeing people getting shot and his own curtains being set on fire by a mob of white men. He also recalled hiding under a bed with his older sister, when a rioter stepped on his finger, causing his sister to throw her hand over his mouth to prevent the men from hearing his screams. George Monroe lived out the rest of his life in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He became a musician, owner of a Tulsa nightclub, and the first black man in Tulsa to sell Coca-Cola. George Monroe died in 2001.

Mary E. Jones Parrish

Mary Elizabeth Jones Parrish (1892–1972) was born in 1892 in Yazoo City, Mississippi. She moved to Tulsa around 1919 and worked teaching typing and shorthand at a branch of the YMCA. Parrish was reading in her home when the Tulsa race massacre began on the evening of May 31, 1921. Parrish's daughter, Florence Mary, called the young journalist and teacher to the window. "Mother," she said, "I see men with guns." The two eventually fled into the night under a hail of bullets. Mary Parrish wrote a first-person account and collected eye-witness statements from dozens of others and published them immediately following the tragedy under the title The Events of the Tulsa Disaster. Parrish documented the magnitude of the loss of human life and property at the hands of white vigilantes. Parrish hoped that her book would "open the eyes of the thinking people to the impending danger of letting such conditions exist and in the 'Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.' A new edition was published in 2021 by Trinity University Press under the title, The Nation Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. The new edition includes a new afterword by Anneliese M. Bruner, Parrish's great-granddaughter. The New York Times called Parrish's "a story of survival... remains relevant a century later" while The New Yorker called it "The first and most visceral long-form account of how Greenwood residents experienced the massacre."

Lessie Benningfield ("Mother Randle")

Lessie Benningfield, also known as Mother Randle, was born in Morris, Oklahoma on November 10, 1914. Her parents were farmers; she had three sisters and a brother. Benningfield does not recall much due to her young age during the massacre. She remembers a mob of white men barging into her home and then destroying her family's house. She has memories of feelings of intense fear while trying to evacuate her home and get somewhere safe with her family. She spent the rest of her childhood and young adulthood in Tulsa and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School. Benningfield is now a part of an active lawsuit with the Greenwood Advocates, which is a team of human and civil rights lawyers fighting for justice for victims and their families. Benningfield states she still has nightmares of seeing the piles of dead bodies she saw during the massacre. For her 106th birthday, which took place in 2020, the community raised thousands of dollars for her to remodel her home. Since then, she has been interviewed several times and remained in the public eye during the 2021 centennial anniversary of the massacre at the age of 107.

After the death of Viola Fletcher in November 2025, Lessie Benningfield became the last known living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, and is now years old.

Hal Singer

Hal Singer was born on October 8, 1919, in Tulsa, Oklahoma to two working-class parents. His mother worked in a wealthy white resident's home as a cook and his father worked producing oil rigging tools. Singer was 18 months old when the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 took place. A white woman, for whom his mother worked, put his family on a train to Kansas City during the massacre so the Singer family would have a safe place to wait it out. Up to the day of his passing, Singer recalled how forever grateful he was for the woman's kindness. When his family returned to their home, it was burnt to the ground. They had to rebuild their whole lives again from scratch. However, they stayed in Tulsa in the Greenwood district all through his childhood. As a young boy, Singer hung out by the rail tracks and invited jazz bands to come over and have some of his mother's cooking. This helped him in the long run as he became an iconic saxophonist of his generation. Singer went on to play with and for Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, and Billie Holiday. He was married for over 50 years to his wife Arlette Singer. On August 18, 2020, just months before his 101st birthday, he died in Chatou, a suburb of Paris, France.

Essie Lee Johnson Beck

Essie Johnson (1916–2006) was five years old when the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 took place. Her family evacuated their Tulsa home in the early hours of May 31. Beck remembers her parents making her and her siblings stay away from the windows because there were active shooters targeting the windows of homes. She describes the feelings of fright and confusion. Her family had to evacuate their home since almost all homes were being burnt to the ground in her neighborhood. Her mother took Beck and her four other siblings and started running to find shelter elsewhere. Beck recalls watching airplanes above her dropping bombs onto the roof of houses causing them to catch on fire. Her mother was trying to get her and her siblings to Golden Gate Park. Beck's father stayed behind to help as much as possible and to assist injured people. Beck recalls once they got to Golden Gate Park, they hid behind trees. Beck and her family soon after that found shelter in churches and school basements for the remaining days. Once they were cleared to go back, their home was burnt to the ground. Beck recalls having to live in a tent on the dirt waiting for their house to be rebuilt. She describes the whole experience to be awful.

Vernice Simms

Vernice Simms was seventeen years old when the Massacre took place. She lived in the Greenwood district with her family as she attended Booker T. Washington High School, where she was preparing for her prom. Simms remembers vividly being in her backyard when bullets started raining down and everyone was cautioned to get into the house as quickly as possible. As the riots and massacre progressed, Simms and her family found refuge at a white family's home, where they were safe from the massacre. When they returned to their Greenwood home, everything was burnt to the ground. Simms and her family had to live in a tent. She recalls Booker T. Washington High School being turned into a hospital for the wounded. Simms volunteered at the hospital where she fed and gave water to people who were injured during the massacre. While her house was being rebuilt by her father, she finished high school in Oklahoma City. Afterward, Simms studied at Langston University. After she graduated from university, she came home to see her house finally rebuilt. She recalls never getting any money from insurance or the government to help. Simms described the events as devastating and scary.

Lena Eloise Taylor Butler

Eloise Taylor was nineteen years old and she lived in Greenwood when the Massacre took place. She was the daughter of the famed Horace Greeley Beecher Taylor, better known as "Peg Leg" Taylor. According to Taylor's great-granddaughter, who has passed on Eloise's story, Eloise witnessed some of the first gunfighting of the Massacre. She recounts how Peg Leg Taylor "fought his way to" Eloise and helped her escape into the woods north of the city, where they then lay and hid while White rioters continued to hunt down and kill other survivors around them. "...they found some of the people that were out there in the woods laying on their stomach—Lord help these people!—and they just shot 'em. Right there on the ground where they lay. I'm talking about kids...women. They didn't care. Old people. People who had breastfed them. They didn't give a damn. They killed 'em right there on the ground..." Eloise was reportedly so terrified that when "...finally her daddy told her to 'get up...get up and c'mon,' she said [in order] for them to move, he had to hurt her. She said he had to hurt her to make her stand up." Eloise and her father then walked several miles to a nearby town, where they "got help, got warm, got clothes, got food, and moved on", and where they also "decided that they would never talk about it again". Eloise finally opened up to her great-granddaughters about her experience in 1997, only a few short years before she died in 2000 at the age of 98. The commission had originally been called the "Tulsa Race Riot Commission", but in November 2018, the name was changed to "Tulsa Race Massacre Commission". The commission conducted interviews and heard testimony in order to thoroughly document the causes and damages.

The commission delivered its final report on February 21, 2001. The report recommended actions for substantial restitution to the black residents, listed below in order of priority:

Post-commission actions

Search for mass graves

The Tulsa Race Massacre Commission arranged for archaeological, non-invasive ground surveys of Newblock Park, Oaklawn Cemetery, and Booker T. Washington Cemetery, which were identified as possible locations for mass graves of black victims of the violence. Oral histories, other sources and timing suggested that whites would have buried blacks at the first two locations; black people were said to have buried black victims at the third location after the riot was over. The people who were buried at Washington Cemetery, which is reserved for black people, were probably thought to be those victims who had died of their wounds after the riot had ended, since it was the most distant suspected burial location from downtown.

Investigations of the three potential mass grave sites were performed in 1997 and 1998. Even though the total area of all three of these locations could not be surveyed, preliminary data suggested that they contained no mass graves. In 1999, an eyewitness who had seen whites burying black victims at Oaklawn Cemetery was found. A team investigated the potential area with more equipment. In the end, searches for mass graves were made with the aid of technology that included ground-penetrating radar, followed by core sampling. The experts' report, presented to the Commission in December 2000, could not substantiate claims of mass graves in Oaklawn Cemetery, Washington Cemetery, or Newblock Park. Mayor G. T. Bynum calls it "a murder investigation". After input from the public, officials from the Oklahoma Archeological Survey used three subsurface scanning techniques to survey Newblock Park, Oaklawn Cemetery, and an area known as The Canes along the Arkansas River. The Oklahoma Archeological Survey subsequently announced that they were discontinuing search efforts at Newblock Park after not finding any evidence of graves. On December 17, 2019, the team of forensic archaeologists announced that they had found anomalies consistent with that of human-dug pits beneath the ground at Oaklawn Cemetery and the ground where the Interstate 244 bridge crosses the Arkansas River. They announced that the anomalies are likely candidates for mass graves, but further radar surveys and physical excavations of the sites are needed. Researchers secured permission to perform "limited excavations" from the city and as a result, they will be able to determine what the contents of these sites are, beginning in April 2020, and while they do not expect to dig up any human remains, they asserted that if they find any human remains in the course of their excavations, they will treat them with the proper respect. An initial dig at a suspected area of the Oaklawn Cemetery in July 2020 found no human remains.

On October 21, 2020, a forensic team said that it had unearthed 11 coffins in Oaklawn Cemetery; records and research suggested that as many as 18 victims would be found. The forensic team will need to do more work in order to determine if the coffins contain the remains of massacre victims. As stated by Kary Stackelbeck, a state archaeologist, the remains will not be moved until they can be properly exhumed because their deterioration needs to be prevented. She also stated that the site where the remains were discovered "constitutes a mass grave.... We have a high degree of confidence that this is one of the locations we were looking for. But we have to remain cautious because we have not done anything to expose the human remains beyond those that have been encountered." The team planned to exhume the remains in June 2021. Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield later planned to analyze the remains in order to determine if they are the remains of people who were killed in the 1921 massacre. In June 2021, after scientists resumed work at the site, 35 coffins were recovered from the mass grave. The remains of 19 people were taken to an on-site science lab. Officials stated that they have completed a preliminary analysis of nine of those human remains.

Stackelbeck announced in September 2023 a completed survey identified 59 gravesites, 57 of which were previously undiscovered. Seven sets of remains were recovered, each found in simple wooden boxes. C. L. Daniel was the first victim identified in July 2024 from the remains exhumed. He was a World War I veteran from Georgia who was a resident of Utah. By August 3, 2024, remains believed to be two additional victims of the riot were found. By August 16, 2024, the remains of eleven riot victims had been recovered from Oaklawn Cemetery.

Reconciliation

In March 2001, each of the 118 known survivors of the riot still alive at the time, the youngest of whom was 85, was given a gold-plated medal bearing the state seal, as had been approved by bi-partisan state leaders. The Tulsa Reparations Coalition, sponsored by the Center for Racial Justice, Inc., was formed on April 7, 2001, to obtain restitution for the damages suffered by Tulsa's black community, as recommended by the Oklahoma Commission.

On June 1, 2001, Governor Frank Keating signed the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act into law. The act acknowledged that the event occurred but failed to deliver any substantial reparations to the victims or their descendants. In spite of the commission's recommendation for reparations in their report on the riot, the Oklahoma state legislature did not agree that reparations were appropriate and thus did not include them in the reconciliation act. The act provided for the following:

More than 300 college scholarships for descendants of Greenwood residents;
Creation of a memorial to those who died in the riot. A park with statues was dedicated as John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park on October 27, 2010, named in honor of the notable African-American historian from Tulsa; and
Economic development in Greenwood.

Survivors' lawsuit

Five survivors, represented by a legal team that included Johnnie Cochran and Charles Ogletree, filed suit against the city of Tulsa and the state of Oklahoma (Alexander, et al. v. Oklahoma, et al.) in February 2003, based on the findings of the 2001 report. Ogletree said the state and city should compensate the victims and their families "to honor their admitted obligations as detailed in the commission's report". The federal district and appellate courts dismissed the suit on the grounds that a recommendation was not an "admitted obligation" and noting the statute of limitations had been exceeded on the 80-year-old case. The state requires that civil rights cases be filed within two years of the event. For that reason, the court did not rule on the issues. The Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the appeal.

In April 2007, Ogletree appealed to the U.S. Congress to pass a bill extending the statute of limitations for the case, given the state and city's accountability for the destruction and the long suppression of material about it. The bill was introduced by John Conyers of Michigan and heard by the Judiciary Committee of the House but it did not pass, because of concerns about ex post facto legislation.

John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park

A park was developed in 2010 in the Greenwood area as a memorial to victims of the riot. In October 2010, the park was named for noted historian John Hope Franklin, who was born and raised in Tulsa. He became known as a historian of the South. The park includes three statues of figures by sculptor Ed Dwight, representing Hostility, Humiliation and Hope.

Renewed calls for restitution

An extensive curriculum on the event was provided to Oklahoma school districts in 2020.

On May 29, 2020, the eve of the 99th anniversary of the event and the onset of the George Floyd protests, Human Rights Watch released a report titled "The Case for Reparations in Tulsa, Oklahoma: A Human Rights Argument", demanding reparations for survivors and descendants of the violence because the economic impact of the massacre is still visible as illustrated by the high poverty rates and lower life expectancies in north Tulsa. Several documentary projects were also announced at this time with plans to release them on the 100th anniversary of the event, including Black Wall Street by Dream Hampton, and another documentary by Salima Koroma.

In September 2020, a 105-year old survivor of the massacre, Viola Fletcher, filed a lawsuit with two other survivors against the city for reparations caused by damages to the city's black businesses.

In 2021, Oklahoma librarians persuaded the Library of Congress to change the official subject headings, which place limits on the terms that people are allowed to use whenever they conduct searches for some of the information, for the event from "riot" to "massacre".

On May 19, 2021, survivors Fletcher, then 107; her 100-year-old brother, Hughes Van Ellis; and 106-year old Lessie Benningfield Randle testified about their experiences during the massacre and their reparations lawsuit before a House Judiciary subcommittee. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in July 2023, but in November 2023, their lawyers appealed that decision to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

On June 12, 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of the lawsuit, effectively concluding the suit. The Court dismissed the lawsuit stating that although the grievances submitted by the plaintiffs were legitimate, they concluded that Oklahoma's public nuisance statute did not apply to them. Their testimony of the three survivors coincided with pending resolutions before the U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees that propose federal recognition of the centennial of the massacre on May 31 and June 1.

In September 2024, the Department of Justice opened a federal review of the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. The report was released on January 10, 2025, which found that "the massacre was the result not of uncontrolled mob violence, but of a coordinated, military-style attack on Greenwood".

Tulsa's ongoing Beyond Apology Commission is tasked with improving economic mobility and the building of inter-generational wealth for survivors of the massacre and was reported by The New York Times to be planning new housing benefits in January 2025.

On June 2, 2025, Tulsa mayor Monroe Nichols announced a $105 million private trust to benefit descendants of the massacre's victims.

House Bill 1775

In 2021, Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed Oklahoma House Bill 1775 into law. The bill is typically referred to as a ban on critical race theory. The bill has created confusion for educators regarding classroom content about the Tulsa race massacre. When asked about the impact of the bill on instruction around the massacre, State School Superintendent Ryan Walters said, "I'd say you'd be judgmental of the issue of the action, of the content of the character of the individual, but let's not tie it to the skin color and say that the skin color determined that." In response to criticism of his remarks, Walters said that he was "referring to individuals who carried out the crime … They had evil, racist intentions and murdered people … They didn't act that way because they were white, they acted that way because they were racist", and that students "should be able to learn that history". Walters' confusing responses illustrate the ambiguity of the bill's language resulting in concerns for educators as the stakes are high for violating the statute. The future of education on this topic remains unclear, as the bill is facing several legal challenges.

President Biden's 2021 visit

thumb|President Biden speaks at a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre

On June 1, 2021, the 100th anniversary of the massacre, President Joe Biden visited the area, the first sitting president to do so, and during his visit, he made a speech in which he stated, "Some injustices are so heinous, so horrific, so grievous, they cannot be buried, no matter how hard people try." Biden toured the Greenwood Cultural Center and met with survivors Viola Fletcher, Hughes Van Ellis, and Lessie Benningfield Randle.

Tulsa Historical Society and Museum

thumb|Tulsa Race Massacre: Traveling Panels

The Tulsa Historical Society and Museum offer a virtual exhibit of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 that is open at all times during the day and is free of charge to the public. This online exhibit offers many photos, audio recordings, documents, and resources that cannot be found anywhere else. It also offers a traveling exhibit consisting of 4 panels regarding the Tulsa Race Massacre that are allowed to travel to locations within the Tulsa Metropolitan Area. The main goal of the panels is to educate the community.

Present-day Black Wall Street

thumb|A drive through the present-day Greenwood District (March 2021)

Black Wall Street can still be found today under the Historical Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, it took about 10 years to rebuild the district. The historical Vernon AME Church is the only building standing today that is a part of the last remaining structure of the 1921 massacre.

The residents of the Greenwood district try to keep the memory of the Tulsa Race Massacre prominent within the community. Today, many memorials stand out of respect for the memory of what was once Black Wall Street. Many investigations are still underway in the Greenwood District in the hope that more unmarked graves can be found and more victims of the Massacre can be identified.

In popular culture

Literature

The Nation Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 (2021; Trinity University Press ) by Mary E. Jones Parrish, previously titled The Events of the Tulsa Disaster (1923, self-published), eyewitness accounts that were compiled by a woman who survived the massacre.
Magic City (1998; HarperCollins: ), presents a fictionalized account of the massacre.
Fire in Beulah (2001; Penguin Books: ), a novel by Rilla Askew, is set during the riot.
The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (2001; Thomas Dunne Books: ), a nonfiction account of the massacre by Tim Madigan.
If We Must Die (2002; TCU Press: ), a novel about Tulsa's 1921 Greenwood Riot by Pat Carr. A poem with the same name was published by Claude McKay in 1919 and it is about the Red Summer race riots.
Tulsa Burning (2002), a book by Anna Myers, is a novel for middle-grade readers set during the riot.
Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy (2003;) Mariner Books. , a nonfiction account of the massacre by James S. Hirsch
Big Mama Speaks (2011), Hannibal B. Johnson's one-woman play featuring Vanessa Harris-Adams and remembrances and reminiscences of the Black Wall Street.
"The Case for Reparations" (2014) in The Atlantic, an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates that brought more attention to the riots.
Dreamland Burning (2017; Little, Brown and Company: ), a novel by Jennifer Latham that interweaves the events in Tulsa in 1921 with their modern consequences.
The Tulsa massacre gives the backstory for Bitter Root, an Eisner Award winning comic series by David F. Walker, Chuck Brown, and Sanford Greene.
Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre (2021; Carolrhoda Books ) with text by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrations by Floyd Cooper was awarded the 2022 Caldecott Medal.

Film and television

Going back to T-Town (1993), a documentary directed by Samuel D. Pollard and Joyce Vaughn, released as Episode 12, Season 5 of American Experience, a TV series on PBS
The Tulsa Lynching of 1921: A Hidden Story (2000), a documentary directed by Michael Wilkerson, was first released on Cinemax in 2000.
Before They Die (2008), a documentary by Reggie Turner, endorsed by the Tulsa Project, chronicling the lives of the last survivors of the Tulsa Race Riot and their quest for justice from both the city and the state.
Hate Crimes in the Heartland (2014), a documentary by Rachel Lyon and Bavand Karim that provides an in-depth examination of the riot.
Watchmen (2019), a TV series on HBO, based on the characters in the graphic novel with the same name. The producer of the series, Damon Lindelof, was inspired to open the pilot episode with depictions of the riots and base the series on racial tensions after he read Coates' article about them. Many aspects of the series' plot center on the legacy of the graphic novel and the massacre in an alternate timeline in the present day in Tulsa, where racial conflict remains high. Due to its popularity, Watchmen was considered the first exposé of the Tulsa race massacre via the entertainment industry because its history was not widely discussed and it had never been depicted in that way before.
Lovecraft Country (2020), a TV series on HBO, based on the 2016 novel with the same title. In episode 9, titled "Rewind 1921", its main characters Atticus "Tic" Freeman, his father Montrose Freeman, and Letitia "Leti" Lewis travel back in time to the night of the massacre in order to retrieve a spell book (which was burned in the fictional reality on that night) and use it to save the life of a family member.
In the television 2021 version of The Equalizer, Season 2 episode 10, titled "Legacy", tells a fictionalized story of a family whose home was destroyed during the Tulsa race massacre and who had a painting of a member stolen by a white family that would later become tycoons in the shipping industry. The main character, Robyn McCall, is asked to retrieve the painting for an elderly survivor of the events.
In Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (2021), civil rights lawyer Jeffery Robinson visits the Greenwood District of Tulsa and speaks with residents about the massacre. In a conversation at Oaklawn Cemetery with Rev. Dr. Robert Turner and Chief Egunwale F. Amusan (who serves as the President of the African Ancestral Society), Robinson asks, "What is the most reasonable estimate of how many people died?" Amusan replies, "You're looking at 4,000 people that you cannot account for."
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), a film directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the 2017 book of the same name by David Grann, features footage of the massacre.

Music and art

Graham Nash's song, "Dirty Little Secret" from his 2002 album Songs for Survivors is about the Tulsa race massacre.
Scorched Earth (2006), a work of art on canvas by Mark Bradford, on display at The Broad museum
Race Riot Suite (2011), a jazz suite by Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, released by Kinnara Records, was recorded at Tulsa's Church Studio
Bob Dylan's song "Murder Most Foul" on his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways has the line "Take me back to Tulsa to the scene of the crime"
The Gap Band, which was formed in Tulsa, was named after Greenwood, Archer, and Pine streets in remembrance of the Tulsa race massacre. A long-standing rumor claimed that their 1982 song "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" was inspired by the aerial bombing during the massacre, but this was debunked by frontman and songwriter Charlie Wilson.
Steph Simon, an African American rapper from Tulsa, uses the history of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre as a regular motif across his discography.

References

Bibliography

"[T]the best account of the 1921 Tulsa riot, which drew wide acclaim from historians and others". –
Full text.
Madigan, Tim. The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001.

External links

Facts and Links for "The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921", Subliminal.org
"1921 Tulsa Race Massacre", Tulsa Historical Society. Archived copy: "Tulsa Race Riot"
"Tulsa Race Riot: Photographs from the Beryl Ford Collection", Tulsa City County Library: African American Resource Center
Tulsa Race Massacre Collection at Oklahoma State University
Parrish, Mary E Jones "Events of the Tulsa Disaster" 1922 (PDF File)