Tulsa Black Wall Street Massacre: 1921
Black business leaders of the Greenwood community of Tulsa (pictured.) The 600+ businesses of Black Wall Street included 30 grocery stores, 21 churches, 21 restaurants, two movie theaters, schools, libraries, law offices, a hospital, a bank, a post office, and a bus system. Community members also owned six private airplanes. [#34]
In the 1920s, Tulsa, Oklahoma was 12 percent Black. Most of the Black population lived in Greenwood, which was often called the “Negro Wall Street of America” because of the prominent citizens (including at least three millionaires) who accumulated wealth through the oil boom.
Unwelcome downtown, except when working, Black residents of Greenwood had established their own newspapers, theaters, cafes, stores, and professional offices.
Smoke billowing over Tulsa during the massacre, 1921
In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Black Tulsa was looted and burned by white rioters.
Governor James Robertson declared martial law and called in the Oklahoma National Guard. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took imprisoned Black residents out of the hands of vigilantes, and imprisoned all Black Tulsans not already interned.
Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days. [#35]
White rioters destroyed an estimated $200 million in Black property in today’s dollars.
To what extent was our economy designed to be fair?
To what extent was our economy designed to be fair?
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Dispossession of Land
from Indigenous Peoples:
1607 – Present Day
Wall Street Established
as an Official Trading
Post of Enslaved Peoples:
1711
Invention of the Cotton
Gin Accelerates the
Expansion of Slavery:
1794
Choctaw Nation Forced
to Abandon Ancestral
Lands for “Indian
Territory”: 1831
Lehman Brothers’
Cotton Exchange: 1858
Sharecropping and Debt
Peonage: 1870s-1940s
Prison Labor:
1870s - Present Day
Railroads and Chinese
Laborers: 1880s-1890s
Tulsa Black Wall Street Massacre: 1921
Stock Market Crashes, Ushering in the Great Depression: 1929
LA Police "Repatriate" Mexican Americans and Immigrants at La Placita Park: 1931
The Home Owners Loan Corporation Develops Redlining: 1933
Report on “Pinklining” Reveals How Wall Street Targets Women for Toxic Loans: 2016
Explosion Highlights Risks of Wall Street Chemical Plant Ownership: 2019
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