WEBVTT - What Was the Tulsa Massacre? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:10.720 Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. This episode deals with 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:14.240 the events of the Tulsa massacre of and while we 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.240 don't get very graphic, it is a heavy episode, especially 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:20.880 for our black listeners who maybe don't feel up for 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.079 hearing about it today. Listener discretion is advised, and take 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:29.120 care of yourself, okay. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a group of 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.400 scientists and historians is on the verge of unearthing a 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.239 chunk of the city's past that has been long buried, 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.839 and one that some people may prefer to keep that way. 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:42.720 It's the worst incident of anti black violence in American history. 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:49.520 Beginning on May thirty one, thousands of armed white Tulson's 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:53.440 invaded the black section of that booming oil town, terrorizing 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.680 its residents, looting their homes and businesses, and burning to 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.640 the ground some thirty five square blocks of the city. 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.640 Before the rampage was over, more than ten thousand black 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.800 people were left houseless, and more than six thousand were 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.000 interned in camps where they'd stay in some cases for months. 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.720 Back in June of twenty for the article this episode 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.679 is based on how stuff Works spoke with Scott Ellsworth, 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.520 a native Toulson and a professor of American history at 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.399 the University of Michigan. Ellsworth is the author of two 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.040 book Death in a Promised Land, one of the first 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.280 books to take a comprehensive historical look at the Tulsa 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:35.160 Race massacre. Ellsworth said, to this day, we don't know 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.080 how many died. Reasonable estimates range from I would say 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:43.600 forty to as high as three hundred. In October of 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.920 twenty scientists found a mass grave with about eleven coffins 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.600 during four days of digging at the city owned Oakland Cemetery. 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:56.200 A full excavation began on June one, around the events 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:01.920 a hundredth anniversary, the Tulsa Race massacre of one did not, 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.600 in a word often used to describe such events, erupt. Rather, 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.959 the city reached what now seems an inevitable breaking point. 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.240 In early Pulsa was a wash with cash from the 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.600 oil boom. The good times reached into the north section 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.600 of the city, Greenwood, in which over ten thousand black 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.880 residents thrived. That area, sometimes called the Black Wall, Street, 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.880 contained a hundred nine businesses, including hotels, a feed store, 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.359 a roller rink cleaners, mom and pop stores, and restaurants, 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.320 plus offices for doctors, dentists, and lawyers. The area had 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.440 at least five churches, to a library, a movie theater, 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.200 and a hospital. Like the rest of the city at 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:48.600 the time, Greenwood had its problems. Alcohol, even under prohibition, 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.320 was readily available. Illegal drugs were easy to find two 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.320 as we're gambling and prostitution. The city as a whole, 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:01.000 not just Greenwood, struggled with crime and punishment. Less than 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.600 a year before, an angry white mob had lynched a 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.800 black man accused of robbing and assaulting a white woman. 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:14.120 Across the United States, racial violence against black people was commonplace. Segregation, 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.959 though technically against the law, was still a fact of life, 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.160 and the fact that at least tens of thousands of 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.400 black Americans had served alongside white servicemen in World War 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.840 One didn't help, and in some cases was part of 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:31.240 rising tensions. Some white servicemen returning from the war resented 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:33.320 that their jobs had been taken over by black people 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.360 while they were gone, and some white people resented that 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.920 many returning black servicemen were demanding more equitable pay and 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.320 job opportunities. Ellsworth wrote in a two thousand one report 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.240 commissioned by these state of Oklahoma, when the massacre was 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.520 still commonly referred to as a riot. Quote. During the 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.000 weeks and months leading up to the riot, there were 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.000 more than a few white Toulsons who not only feared 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.800 that the color line was in danger of being slowly erased, 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:04.600 but believed that this was already happening. Into that explosive situation, 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.240 a black teenaged boy working as a shoeshiner had a 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.920 brief run in with a white teenaged girl operating an elevator. 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.160 The two may have been friends, there were rumors that 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.800 they were more, but a white clerk claimed that the 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.919 boy had grabbed her and the fuse was lit. The 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.560 boy was taken into custody. A group of more than 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.040 two thousand angry white people gathered on the courthouse steps, 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:33.160 some intent on lynching him, possibly promoted by an inflammatory 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.920 editorial in a white newspaper. A small group of armed 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.640 black war veterans and others squared off with them there, 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.440 and soon shots were fired. White people all over the 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.479 city began their march on the Greenwood area to tamp 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:50.960 down what many white people saw as an uprising. The 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.120 terror went on for eighteen hours into June one. The 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:58.760 atrocities too numerous to list. Families were murdered while praying 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:03.839 while fleeing, and the Tulsa Police, despite their sworn duty 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:08.080 to serve and protect, didn't assist. In fact, Tulsa police 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.120 officers helped set some fires, and an all white unit 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.000 of the National Guard joined the white invaders. Other public 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.120 officials provided guns and AMMO to the white men. The 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.920 KKK got involved, a semi functioning machine gun was used 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:26.520 on Black Pulson's airplanes dropped turpentine balls, destroying more buildings. 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.720 Despite being largely outnumbered, Black Pulson's fought to protect their 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:36.640 homes and businesses and most all of Greenwood, but in 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:40.320 the end, scores of black people and some white people too, 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.600 were killed and Greenwood was left in ruins. The exact 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.400 numbers of injured and dead, even after what's to be 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.000 uncovered in three suspected mass graves, may never be known. 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:57.719 It's still unclear looking back exactly what happened between Dick Roland, 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.880 the black shoeshiner, and Sarah Age, the white elevator operator, 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:07.320 to spark the massacre, but this is known. She refused 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:12.000 to bring charges. Roland survived the massacre and was vindicated. 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:17.600 For years, Tulsa refused to acknowledge in any meaningful way 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:22.760 what happened. In no one was ever charged or prosecuted 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.800 for the crimes that occurred during those eighteen or so hours. 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.880 Even those who grew up there, Ellsworth included, were not 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.400 taught that part of the city's history. The Tulsa Race 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:39.080 massacre became a terrible and closely held secret that began 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.320 to change with some earlier work and then Ellsworth's death 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:47.040 in a Promised Land in When members of the national 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.960 media descended on Oklahoma City after the bombing of the 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.080 Federal Building, they were informed of this other episode of 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.200 domestic terrorism in the state's history. More news accounts and 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.560 more books on the massacre followed, and in ty nineteen, 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.480 the HBO superhero series Watchman, inspired in part by the 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:10.920 events in Tulsa, enlightened many more to the story. Ellsworth 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.560 has a new book out that centers on Tulsa's decades 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:17.120 long cover up, titled The Groundbreaking An American City and 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:22.760 Its Search for Justice. It was released in May, and, 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.600 as alluded to before, in the process of all of this, 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:30.000 the terminology used to describe the event has changed for 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:32.240 many years. When it was mentioned, it was called the 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:36.640 Tulsa race riot, a term that muddies and lessons what happened. 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.720 Carlos Hill, the chair of the African American Studies Department 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.679 at the University of Oklahoma, told the publication The Tulsa 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:48.320 World in quote, what people in the community and historians 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.120 are trying to raise up is what happened in Tulsa 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.560 is a deliberate, coordinated, systematic assault on a community that 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:59.720 resulted in that community being completely destroyed. That is not 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.160 a race riot. This was a massacre. Referring to it 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:08.000 as a race riot is a euphemism. Tulsa's failure to 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.800 come to grips with its deadly past clearly has left 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:14.800 scars of its own. Ellsworth said, the city was robbed 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:18.200 of its honesty. You have entire generations growing up in 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.560 Tulsa who have never heard of this. You have people 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.240 growing up with a false reality, of false vision of 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.280 the land they were on. I mean, imagine if today, 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.200 right now, that you had young people growing up in 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.079 Manhattan who had never heard of nine eleven, that there 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:34.240 were no books to talk about nine eleven, that it's 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.720 as if it didn't exist. The Race Massacre was a 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:41.160 gigantic myth in the history of Tulsa. It was deliberately 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:46.080 buried for a long time. The full excavation will mark 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.560 another step in the long road to understanding and perhaps 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:54.160 one day, recovery. Ellsworth said, I know that this has 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.040 been a process that has been going on for a 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.240 while now. It's caused people to kind of re evaluate 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:01.520 how they look the past, how they look at their 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.320 town and what's going on. I think that's been a 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.800 liberating process for some people. It's been a very difficult 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:15.920 one for others. Today's episode is based on the article 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.559 what was the Tulsa Race Massacre and Why does it 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.120 still Haunt the City? On House to Forks dot com, 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.480 written by John Donovan. To learn more about the events 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.000 surrounding the massacre, check out the episode that we did 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.240 on one of my other shows, American Shadows. The episode 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.640 is called Divided Brain Stuff is production of by Heart 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:35.880 Radio in partnership with House to Forks dot com and 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.800 is produced by Tyler Client. Four more podcasts from my 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.840 Heart Radio visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:43.680 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,