Attacking the Dream: 7 major race massacres in US history
6. Tulsa – 1921
On May 31, 1921, a white mob violently attacked the black Tulsa, Oklahoma, neighborhood of Greenwood, which included a prominent business district called “Black Wall Street.”
Intense clashes occurred across Greenwood into the next day, with more than 1,200 houses destroyed and an official death toll of 36 people, most of whom were African American.
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According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, the Tulsa race massacre was “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.”
“By the time the violence ended, the city had been placed under martial law, thousands of Tulsans were being held under armed guard, and the state's second-largest African American community had been burned to the ground,” stated the historical society.
In 2020, a 105-year-old survivor of the riot named Lessie Benningfield Randle, a local church, and others filed a lawsuit against Tulsa, seeking reparations for the tragedy. The case was dismissed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court last year.
