Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a group
Speaker 1: of scientists and historians is on the verge of unearthing
Speaker 1: a chunk of the city's past that has long been buried,
Speaker 1: and one that some people may prefer to keep that way.
Speaker 1: It's a potential mass grave from the worst single incident
Speaker 1: of interracial violence in American history. Beginning May thirty one,
Speaker 1: thousands of armed white Toulson's invaded the black section of
Speaker 1: the booming oil town, terrorizing its residents, looting their homes
Speaker 1: and businesses, and burning to the ground some thirty five
Speaker 1: square blocks of the city. Before the rampage was over,
Speaker 1: more than ten thousand Black people were left homeless, and
Speaker 1: more than six thousand were interned in camps, where they'd stay,
Speaker 1: in some cases for months. We spoke with Scott Ellsworth,
Speaker 1: a native Tulson and a professor of African American history
Speaker 1: at the University of Michigan. Ellsworth is the author of
Speaker 1: the nine and eighty two book Death in a Promised Land,
Speaker 1: one of the first books to take a comprehensive and
Speaker 1: historical look at the Tulsa race massacre, previously mystically called
Speaker 1: the Tulsa Race Riot of ninety one. He said, to
Speaker 1: this day, we don't know how many died. Reasonable estimates
Speaker 1: range from I would say forty too as high as
Speaker 1: three hundred. When the unmarked but suspected mass grave in
Speaker 1: a Tulsa cemetery is excavated in July, it may provide
Speaker 1: a few answers to exactly what happened over those two days.
Speaker 1: In it will be for many a literal reopening of
Speaker 1: a wound that's festered within the city for nearly a century.
Speaker 1: The Tulsa Race Massacre of nine one did not, in
Speaker 1: a word often used to describe such events, erupt. The
Speaker 1: city simply reached what now seems an inevitable breaking point.
Speaker 1: In early Tulsa was a wash with cash from the
Speaker 1: oil boom. The good fortune reached into the north section
Speaker 1: of the city, mostly populated by Black Americans. That area,
Speaker 1: later to be known as the Black Wall Street, contained
Speaker 1: a hundred ninety one businesses, including hotels, a feed store,
Speaker 1: a roller, ink cleaners, mom and pop stores, and restaurants,
Speaker 1: plus offices for doctors, dentists, and lawyers. The area had
Speaker 1: at least five churches too, a library, a movie theater,
Speaker 1: and a hospital. Like the rest of the city at
Speaker 1: that time, the black area also known as Greenwood had
Speaker 1: its problems. Alcohol, even under prohibition, was readily available. Illegal
Speaker 1: drugs were easy to find too, as we're gambling and prostitution.
Speaker 1: The whole city, not just Greenwood, struggled with crime and
Speaker 1: with lawless punishment. Less than a year before, a white
Speaker 1: teenager accused of murder was taken from his jail cell
Speaker 1: and lynched by a white mob. The police did little
Speaker 1: to protect him, and racial violence against black people was commonplace,
Speaker 1: even though thousands of black Americans had just returned from
Speaker 1: fighting in World War One. Jim Crow laws and pervasive
Speaker 1: racist attitudes meant that a quality remained nothing more than
Speaker 1: a dream for black Americans, and many white Americans wanted
Speaker 1: to keep it that way. Ellsworth wrote in a two
Speaker 1: thousand one report commissioned by the state of Oklahoma on
Speaker 1: the then called riot that quote. During the weeks and
Speaker 1: months leading up to the riot, there were more than
Speaker 1: a few white Toulson's who not only feared the color
Speaker 1: line was in danger of being slowly erased, but believed
Speaker 1: that this was already happening. So into that explosive milieu,
Speaker 1: a black teenaged boy working as a shoeshiner had a
Speaker 1: brief run in with a white teenaged girl operating an elevator,
Speaker 1: and the fuse was lit. The boy was taken into custody.
Speaker 1: A group of more than two thousand angry white people,
Speaker 1: some intent on lynching him, possibly prompted by an inflammatory
Speaker 1: editorial in a white run newspaper, gathered on the courthouse steps.
Speaker 1: Some armed black war veterans and others squared off with
Speaker 1: them there, and soon shots were fired. White people from
Speaker 1: all over the city began their march on the Greenwood
Speaker 1: area to tamp down what many white people saw as
Speaker 1: an uprising. There are stories of black citizens being murdered
Speaker 1: in their homes, interrupted in their evening prayers. The terror
Speaker 1: went on for eighteen hours into June one. Despite their
Speaker 1: sworn duty to serve and protect, neither Tulsa Police nor
Speaker 1: any other government agency assisted the black population. Instead, Tulsa
Speaker 1: police officers helped set some fires, and an all white
Speaker 1: unit of the National Guard joined the invaders. Other public
Speaker 1: officials provided guns and AMMO to white men. The KKK
Speaker 1: got involved. A semi functioning machine gun was used on
Speaker 1: Black Tulson's, and some reports indicate that airplanes dropped homemade
Speaker 1: fire starters. Despite being largely outnumbered, Black Toulson's fought to
Speaker 1: protect their homes and businesses, and most of all, Greenwood,
Speaker 1: but in the end, scores of black people and some
Speaker 1: white people were killed and Greenwood was left in ruins.
Speaker 1: The exact numbers of injured and dead, even after what's
Speaker 1: to be uncovered in three suspected mass graves, may never
Speaker 1: be known. It's still unclear exactly what happened between the
Speaker 1: black shoeshine boy Dick Rowland and the white elevator girl
Speaker 1: Sarah Page to spark the massacre, though one thing is known.
Speaker 1: She refused to bring charges. Roland was vindicated. For years,
Speaker 1: Tulsa refused to acknowledge in any meaningful way what had
Speaker 1: happened in ninety one. Nobody has ever been charged or
Speaker 1: prosecuted for the crimes that occurred during those eighteen or
Speaker 1: so hours. Even those who grew up there, Ellsworth included,
Speaker 1: were not taught that part of the city's history. The
Speaker 1: Tulsa race massacre became a terrible and closely held secret
Speaker 1: that began to change with Ellsworth's death in a Promised
Speaker 1: Land and some earlier work. Then in nine when members
Speaker 1: of the national media descended on Oklahoma City after the
Speaker 1: bombing of the federal building, they were informed of this
Speaker 1: other more terrible episode of domestic terrorism in the state's history.
Speaker 1: More news accounts and more books of the massacre followed,
Speaker 1: and in twenty nineteen, the HBO comic book superhero series Watchman,
Speaker 1: inspired in part by Tulsa, enlightened many more to the story.
Speaker 1: But Tulsa's failed efforts to come to grips with its
Speaker 1: deadly past has left scars. Ellsworth said, the city was
Speaker 1: robbed of its honesty. You have entire generations growing up
Speaker 1: in Tulsa who have never heard of this. You have
Speaker 1: people growing up with a false reality, a false vision
Speaker 1: of the land they were on. I mean, imagine if today,
Speaker 1: right now, that you had young people growing up in
Speaker 1: Manhattan who had never heard of nine eleven, that there
Speaker 1: were no books to talk about nine eleven. That it's
Speaker 1: as if it didn't exist. The Race massacre was a
Speaker 1: gigantic myth in the history of Tulsa. It was deliberately
Speaker 1: buried for a long time. With the unearthing of one
Speaker 1: of at least three suspected mass graves in Tulsa. Next
Speaker 1: month will mark another step in the long road to
Speaker 1: understanding and perhaps one day, recovery. Ellsworth said, I know
Speaker 1: that this has been a process that has been going
Speaker 1: on for a while now. It's caused people to kind
Speaker 1: of re evaluate how they look at the past, how
Speaker 1: they look at their town, and what's going on. I
Speaker 1: think that's been a liberating process for some people. It's
Speaker 1: been a very difficult one for others. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. For
Speaker 1: more on this and lots of other topics, visit how
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