The night of May 31, 1921, should have been like any other for the residents of Greenwood, a bustling and proud neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Children would have been finishing their homework by gaslight, shopkeepers closing their businesses with the satisfaction of a day’s earnings, and neighbors chatting on porches under the warm spring air. Greenwood was more than a neighborhood; it was a beacon. Nicknamed “Black Wall Street,” it was the culmination of dreams forged in the crucible of post-slavery America — a thriving Black community built by grit, intellect, and shared purpose. But as twilight gave way to darkness that night, Greenwood would become a battlefield. What followed was not a riot, but a massacre — an organized, state-sanctioned act of racial terrorism that left hundreds of Black Americans dead, thousands homeless, and an entire community in ruins.
To understand the gravity of what happened in Tulsa, one must first understand what was destroyed. Greenwood wasn’t just a neighborhood; it was an economic marvel. At a time when segregation laws barred African Americans from participating in many aspects of public life, Greenwood flourished independently. It was home to doctors, lawyers, educators, entrepreneurs — people who, against the odds, carved out a place of success and self-reliance. There were more than 300 Black-owned businesses, including grocery stores, barber shops, beauty salons, movie theaters, a hospital, a library, schools, and churches. The average dollar reportedly circulated within the community over 30 times before leaving. To many, Greenwood represented the promise of Black prosperity in the face of American apartheid. It was a community built on ambition, love, and the steadfast belief that hard work could provide a better future.
Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old Black shoeshiner, likely never imagined he would become the accidental spark that would ignite one of the worst racial atrocities in American history. On May 30, 1921, he entered the Drexel Building, which housed a segregated elevator operated by Sarah Page, a 17-year-old white girl. Accounts vary about what happened in that elevator — some say Rowland tripped and grabbed Page to steady himself, others suggest a romantic connection. What is clear is that Sarah Page screamed, and Dick Rowland fled. The police were called, but Page later declined to press charges. Unfortunately, by then, the rumor mill had already twisted the narrative into something monstrous.
By the next morning, inflammatory articles in Tulsa newspapers framed the incident as an attempted assault, stoking the flames of racial animosity. A white mob soon gathered at the courthouse where Rowland was being held, demanding vigilante justice. In response, a small group of Black World War I veterans, aware of the lynchings that had become all too common, arrived to protect Rowland. Their presence infuriated the white mob, and a shot was fired — whether by accident or intent, it didn’t matter. What followed was a chaos that quickly escalated into all-out war.
The night sky of May 31 lit up not with fireworks, but with gunfire and flames. White rioters, many of whom were deputized by city officials and given weapons, stormed into Greenwood with murderous intent. They looted homes and businesses, set buildings ablaze, and shot Black residents in the streets. The violence was not random — it was strategic. Airplanes, possibly from the nearby Curtiss-Southwest Field, were seen dropping incendiary devices and shooting at fleeing residents. The local police and National Guard did little to stop the carnage; in some cases, they actively participated. The sound of church bells, gunshots, and the roar of fire engines filled the air, not in rescue, but as a twisted symphony of destruction.
By the afternoon of June 1, Greenwood lay in ruins. Thirty-five square blocks of Black-owned property had been reduced to ashes. Nearly 300 people — possibly more — were dead, though many bodies were never recovered. Over 10,000 Black residents were left homeless, many of them rounded up and placed in internment-style camps, forced to carry identification tags and denied the right to move freely unless vouched for by a white employer. Some survivors hid for days in surrounding fields, traumatized, without food or water, waiting for the horror to end.
The human cost was incalculable. Families were torn apart, lives destroyed, generations of wealth erased overnight. The trauma rippled through time, affecting descendants who grew up not only with the economic scars of the massacre but also with the deafening silence that followed. For decades, survivors were shamed into silence. The city of Tulsa, the state of Oklahoma, and even the federal government largely ignored the massacre. There were no arrests, no convictions, no reparations. Insurance companies refused to pay claims for damages caused by what they labeled a “riot,” thus shielding themselves from responsibility. Survivors were left to rebuild from nothing, many without even the comfort of public acknowledgment.
Despite this, the spirit of Greenwood refused to die. In the face of institutional neglect, survivors began rebuilding almost immediately, erecting temporary homes and restarting businesses from the rubble. But it was not the same. The shadow of fear and the bitter taste of betrayal lingered. Though some buildings returned, Black Wall Street never again reached its pre-1921 heights. Worse still, the massacre was effectively erased from history. Schoolchildren in Tulsa, even those living within walking distance of Greenwood, grew up unaware of what had happened. The whitewashing of the massacre was so thorough that it wasn’t until the late 1990s that it began to enter public discourse in a meaningful way.
The resurgence of interest came not from institutions but from individuals — descendants, activists, and scholars who refused to let the truth die. Survivors like Viola Fletcher, who was seven years old at the time of the massacre, began to tell their stories publicly, often in their twilight years. Fletcher, now over 100 years old, testified before Congress in 2021, stating, “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams.”
The power of these testimonies cannot be overstated. They forced a reckoning. In 2001, the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot published a detailed report confirming much of what survivors had long said. The commission recommended reparations — direct payments to survivors and their descendants, as well as investment in the Greenwood area. But in typical American fashion, these recommendations have yet to be fully realized. Lawsuits are ongoing. Promises are made. Time moves forward, but justice still feels elusive.
In recent years, symbolic gestures have attempted to bridge the chasm. In 2021, to mark the massacre’s centennial, President Joe Biden visited Tulsa, becoming the first sitting president to do so. He called the massacre what it was: a massacre, not a riot. He acknowledged the federal government’s complicity in allowing such atrocities to happen and spoke of the need to reckon with the legacy of systemic racism. Streets have been renamed, memorials erected, and history textbooks updated. But while acknowledgment is essential, it is not justice.
Justice means restitution. It means investing in the descendants of those who built Black Wall Street, giving them the opportunities stolen from their ancestors. It means economic development that prioritizes Black voices, Black ownership, and community-led initiatives. It means education, not just about the massacre, but about the broader systems that enabled it — redlining, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, and the structural inequalities that continue to define American life.
But beyond justice, there is a deeper yearning — for healing. The Greenwood Cultural Center and the new Greenwood Rising museum are more than historical exhibits; they are sacred spaces. They hold the grief, pride, rage, and resilience of a people who refused to be erased. Walking through their halls is not just a history lesson; it is a communion with the past. Every photograph, every artifact, every name etched in stone is a defiant declaration: We were here. We built something beautiful. And they tried to take it from us.
There is a line between remembering and reliving. For many descendants, the trauma of the Tulsa Race Massacre is not history — it is inheritance. Some carry the pain in stories passed down at dinner tables, others in deeds to land that was never returned, still others in the gnawing sense of lost possibility. But they also carry something else — the fire that built Greenwood in the first place. A refusal to yield. A commitment to community. A belief in the power of what could be.
The Tulsa Race Massacre is not just a Black story; it is an American story. It reveals the nation’s darkest tendencies — to suppress, to deny, to destroy what it cannot control — but also its capacity for truth-telling, resilience, and redemption. Every year, as commemorations are held and new voices are added to the chorus demanding justice, we are reminded that healing is not a passive act. It requires confrontation, accountability, and the courage to imagine a different future.
May 31 and June 1, 1921, will always be days of sorrow, but they must also be days of resolve. As the generations pass, as the voices of survivors grow fainter, we are tasked with carrying their legacy forward — not just in words, but in actions. To rebuild, to remember, and to never let silence settle where truth should live. The ashes of Greenwood may have once choked the skies of Tulsa, but from those ashes, a legacy of pride, resistance, and hope still rises.