Tulsa Race Massacre

 Jan 10, 2024, the Justice Department issued a report on the Tulsa Race Massacre, acknowledging that it was "the result not of uncontrolled mob violence, but of a coordinated, military-style attack on Greenwood: "The Tulsa Race Massacre stands out as a civil rights crime unique in its magnitude, barbarity, racist hostility and its utter annihilation of a thriving Black community,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

“In 1921, white Tulsans murdered hundreds of residents of Greenwood, burned their homes and churches, looted their belongings, and locked the survivors in internment camps. Until this day, the Justice Department has not spoken publicly about this race massacre or officially accounted for the horrific events that transpired in Tulsa. This report breaks that silence by rigorous examination and a full accounting of one of the darkest episodes of our nation’s past.

"This report lays bare new information and shows that the massacre was the result not of uncontrolled mob violence, but of a coordinated, military-style attack on Greenwood. Now, more than 100 years later, there is no living perpetrator for the Justice Department to prosecute. But the historical reckoning for the massacre continues.

"This report reflects our commitment to the pursuit of justice and truth, even in the face of insurmountable obstacles. We issue this report with recognition of the courageous survivors who continue to share their testimonies, acknowledgement of those who tragically lost their lives and appreciation for other impacted individuals and advocates who collectively push for us to never forget this tragic chapter of America’s history.”

"The report documenting the department’s findings on the Tulsa Race Massacre, examines events that occurred between on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when white Tulsans mounted a concerted effort to destroy a vibrant Black community, remembered today as Black Wall Street. During the massacre, hundreds of Black residents were murdered, their businesses and homes burned to the ground and their money and personal property stolen. Survivors were left without resources or recourse.

"In the aftermath, the City of Tulsa resisted offers of meaningful help to the victims and utterly failed to provide necessary aid or assistance, and efforts to seek justice through the courts foundered."

https://www.justice.gov/.../justice-department-announces...

"Biplanes dropped fiery turpentine bombs from the night skies onto their rooftops—the first aerial bombing of an American city in history." https://www.neh.gov/article/1921-tulsa-massacre

Wikipedia offers this:

A two-day-long white supremacist terrorist massacre took place in the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deputies and armed by city government officials,^[15] attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses. The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. The attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood—at the time, one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, colloquially known as "Black Wall Street."

More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals, and as many as 6,000 black residents of Tulsa were interned in large facilities, many of them for several days. The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics officially recorded 36 dead. The 2001 Tulsa Reparations Coalition examination of events identified 39 dead, 26 black and 13 white, based on contemporary autopsy reports, death certificates, and other records. The commission reported estimates ranging from 36 up to around 300 dead.

Sources: 

• The Nation Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 (2021; Trinity University Press ISBN 978-1595349439) 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: ISBN 978-0060929077), presents a fictionalized account of the massacre.
• Fire in Beulah (2001; Penguin Books: ISBN 978-0142000243), a novel by Rilla Askew, is set during the riot.
• The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (2001; St. Martin's Press: ISBN 978-0312272838), a nonfiction account of the massacre by Tim Madigan.
• If We Must Die (2002; TCU Press: ISBN 978-0875652627), 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. ISBN 0-618-10813-0), 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.^[220]
• "The Case for Reparations" (2014) in The Atlantic, an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates that brought more attention to the riots.^[221]
• Dreamland Burning (2017; Little, Brown and Company: ISBN 978-0316384902), 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 ISBN 978-1541581203) with text by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrations by Floyd Cooper was awarded the 2022 Caldecott Medal.