Death in a Promised Land: the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921

[struggle4progress]

Scott Ellsworth
with intro by John Hope Franklin
LSU Press 1982
159pp

A very short and informative history with context of the destruction of "the black Wall Street" in Tulsa OK at the end of May 1921

The riot was apparently precipitated by a newspaper report of the imminent lynching of a young black man who had allegedly assaulted a young white woman in an elevator -- although somewhat later the case seems to have been dropped because she simply declined to press charges. Within a day or so, white vigilantes rampaged through the segregated black quarter and burned it down, while the authorities meanwhile (perhaps in the interest of "public safety&quot arrested and detained en masse almost the entire black community. Afterwards, the city establishment loudly promised to rebuild the devastated neighborhoods, refusing all outside aid on the grounds that the good citizens of Tulsa felt responsible for the damages and so would make good -- although the official plan sees to have been to convert the burned territory into an industrial district with a new central train station for the city

[bobbieinok]

1. IIRC Ellsworth was 1st to study Tulsa Race Riot

Some critical initial newspaper material is missing.

Nothing about riot in Tulsa histories, taught in Tulsa schools, in national books about black history.

Franklin's family lived in Tulsa at the time; his father moved family immediately after riot.

IMO riot only got attention in OK after article in a Smithsonian publication and some stories in out-of-state newspapers.

[bobbieinok]

2. Hope people are reading about this book

Another book you might find interesting is Black WallStreet. It's by a black lawyer in Tulsa.

There's apparently a museum or such about the Race Riot at the black Cultural Center in Tulsa. Everyone (black and white alike) is encouraged to place their and their family's recollections there.