Tulsa Timeline
GREENWOOD
a subdued history
June 1921
Obliterated Residential Street Engulfed in Smoke and Smoldering Debris Mass Destruction
The immediate aftermath of the violence was a scene of carnage. Fires were burning over an area of 35 square blocks as the fighting evolved into a massacre due to the dynamics of the situation in which the white population had superior numbers and also controlled all the "legal" aspects of the situation. Police officers complicated the situation by handing out weapons to white rioters while firefighters were blocked by the mob from putting out any of the fires that had been started. Additionally, witness accounts stated that airplanes were used in aerial assaults where white people dropped dynamite and firebombs on the black population of Greenwood while firing at them with rifles. Additional witness statements claim that dead African American bodies were loaded onto pick up trucks and either dumped into the Arkansas River or buried in mass graves.
●  Back  |  Next  ●
Sources
[1] Brown, D. (2021, February 04). Red Summer: When Racist Mobs Ruled. How a Pandemic of Racial Terror Led to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. American Experience. PBS.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/t-town-red-summer-racist-mobs/
[2] Burch, R., Reid, R., & Ferguson, K. (Producers). (2021). Tulsa Race Massacre: 100 Years Later [Video]. PBS.
https://www.pbs.org/video/tulsa-race-massacre-100-years-later-vdv9tx
[3] Silvers, J., Brown, D., & Stover, E. (Producers). (2021). Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten [Video]. PBS.
https://www.pbs.org/video/episode-1-zew2v8
[4] PBS News. (2024, June 12). Oklahoma’s Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit from Last 2 Survivors of Tulsa Race Massacre Seeking Reparations.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/oklahomas-supreme-court-dismisses-lawsuit-from-last-2-survivors-of-tulsa-race-massacre-seeking-reparations
PBS.org