Tulsa race riot
| Tulsa race riot of 1921 | |
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Buildings burning during the Tulsa race riot
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| Location | Greenwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma |
| Coordinates | 36°09′34″N 95°59′11″W / 36.1594°N 95.9864°WCoordinates: 36°09′34″N 95°59′11″W / 36.1594°N 95.9864°W |
| Date | May 31 – June 1, 1921 |
| Weapons | Guns, incendiary devices |
| Deaths | 39 officially (1921) 300 according to Red Cross then and Oklahoma Commission on Tulsa Riot Final Report (2001) |
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Non-fatal injuries
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Over 800 |
| Perpetrators | White mob and the police |
 A Find of a Lifetime. Silent film of African-American towns in Oklahoma. 1920's. Rev. S. S. Jones for the National Baptist Convention. American Heritage magazine. Retrieved September 16, 2006. |
On May 31 and June 1, 1921, a white mob started the Tulsa race riot, attacking residents and businesses of the African-American community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in what is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the history of the United States. The attack, carried out on the ground and by air, destroyed more than 35 blocks of the district, at the time the wealthiest black community in the nation. More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals and more than 6,000 black residents were arrested and detained, many for several days. The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics officially recorded 39 dead, but the American Red Cross estimated 300, a number supported by historians since then.
The riot began over a Memorial Day weekend after a young black man was accused of raping a young white female elevator operator at a commercial building. After he was taken into custody, rumors raced through the black community that he was at risk of being lynched. A group of armed African-American men rushed to the police station where the young suspect was held and a white crowd had gathered, to prevent a lynching. A confrontation developed between blacks and whites; shots were fired, and some whites and blacks were killed. As this news spread throughout the city, mob violence exploded. Thousands of whites rampaged through the black community that night and the next day, killing men and women, burning and looting stores and homes. About 10,000 blacks were left homeless, and property damage amounted to more than $1.5 million in real estate and $750,000 in personal property ($30 million in 2017). Some blacks claimed that policemen had joined the mob; others said that National Guardsmen fired a machine gun into the black community and a plane dropped sticks of dynamite. In an eyewitness account discovered in 2015, Greenwood attorney Buck Colbert Franklin described watching a dozen or more private planes drop burning balls of turpentine on Greenwood's rooftops.
Many survivors left Tulsa. Both black and white residents who stayed in the city were silent for decades about the terror, violence, and losses of this event. The riot was largely omitted from local and state histories: "The Tulsa race riot of 1921 was rarely mentioned in history books, classrooms or even in private. Blacks and whites alike grew into middle age unaware of what had taken place."
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