Tulsa Race Massacre (1921): The Destruction of Greenwood

The Tulsa Race Massacre was an attack by a white mob on Greenwood, the thriving Black district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 31 May and 1 June 1921. In less than 24 hours some 35 city blocks were looted and burned, between about 75 and 300 people were killed and thousands of Black residents were left homeless. It is one of the worst episodes of racial violence in American history, and for decades it was barely mentioned in official histories.

Background: Greenwood and Jim Crow Oklahoma

Tulsa grew rapidly after oil was discovered nearby in the early 1900s. Its Black population, about 10,000 people in 1921, lived mostly in Greenwood, north of the railway tracks, because segregation laws and custom kept them out of white neighbourhoods. Oklahoma, a state since 1907, had quickly passed laws enforcing segregation and restricting Black voting.

Segregation also meant that Black residents spent their money within their own community. Greenwood Avenue developed a lively business district with grocery stores, hotels, cinemas, barbers, newspapers, churches, a hospital and the offices of doctors and lawyers. Entrepreneurs such as O. W. Gurley and J. B. Stradford built substantial properties. Later generations called this district “Black Wall Street”.

The years after the First World War were tense across the United States. In 1919 deadly racial attacks broke out in Chicago, Washington, Elaine in Arkansas and other places. Lynching was common in the South and West, and in August 1920 a white prisoner accused of murder had been taken from the Tulsa jail by a mob and lynched while police failed to intervene. Many Black veterans, having served abroad, were determined to resist such violence. These tensions were part of the long, unresolved legacy of the Reconstruction era and its collapse.

The spark: an elevator encounter

On 30 May 1921, Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old Black shoeshiner, entered an elevator in the Drexel Building in downtown Tulsa, operated by Sarah Page, a 17-year-old white woman. What happened is unclear; the most common explanation is that he stumbled or stepped on her foot and she cried out. A clerk called the police, and Rowland was arrested the next morning, 31 May.

That afternoon the Tulsa Tribune published a front-page story suggesting that Rowland had assaulted Page. Talk of a lynching spread, and by evening a white crowd of hundreds, later more than a thousand, gathered at the county courthouse where Rowland was held. Sheriff Willard McCullough refused to hand him over.

The violence of 31 May and 1 June

Fearing a lynching, groups of armed Black men, many of them veterans, went to the courthouse to offer help in protecting Rowland. On their second visit, at around 10 pm, a white man tried to disarm a Black veteran, a shot was fired and a gun battle broke out. Outnumbered, the Black men retreated towards Greenwood, and several people on both sides were killed.

During the night white rioters broke into hardware stores and pawnshops for guns and ammunition, and some were deputised by local police. Sporadic fighting continued along the edge of Greenwood. At dawn on 1 June, thousands of armed white men poured into the district. They shot residents, looted homes and set buildings on fire, block by block. Eyewitnesses reported that aeroplanes were used to fire on residents or drop incendiaries; the 2001 state commission accepted that planes were involved, though the extent of their role remains debated.

Black residents defended their homes, but they were heavily outnumbered. Many fled into the countryside. National Guard troops, some from Tulsa and more from Oklahoma City, rounded up Black residents, and Governor James B. A. Robertson declared martial law around midday on 1 June. By then most of Greenwood was in ashes. About 6,000 Black residents were held for days at the Convention Hall, the fairgrounds and a baseball park, and many were released only when a white employer vouched for them.

Death toll and destruction

The number of dead has never been firmly established. In 1921 officials listed 36 deaths, including 26 Black and 10 white people. Later research, including by the Oklahoma commission that reported in 2001, concluded that between about 75 and 300 people were killed. Many victims were buried quickly in unmarked graves.

The American Red Cross counted more than 1,200 homes burned, alongside churches, schools, a hospital, a library and most of the businesses of Greenwood Avenue. Many families spent the following winter in tents.

By the numbers

Aftermath and silence

No white person was convicted for the killings, burning or looting. A grand jury blamed the violence mainly on armed Black men, and charges against Dick Rowland were dismissed in September 1921 after Sarah Page declined to pursue the case. Insurance claims for riot damage were generally refused, and city leaders tried to use a new fire ordinance to prevent rebuilding until a court blocked it.

Greenwood residents rebuilt much of the district within a few years, largely with their own resources. However, the community later declined through segregation, economic change, urban renewal and the construction of an interstate highway through the area from the 1960s. For decades the massacre was rarely discussed in Tulsa’s white newspapers and schools.

Recognition and legacy

Interest revived from the 1970s. In 1997 the Oklahoma legislature created a commission to study the events; its 2001 report documented the destruction and recommended reparations to survivors and their descendants. The legislature responded with the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act, which funded scholarships and a memorial, but not direct payments.

The John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park opened in 2010, and the Greenwood Rising history centre opened for the centenary in 2021. In 2018 the state’s centennial commission adopted the word “massacre” in its name. From 2020 the city of Tulsa began searching for mass graves; excavations at Oaklawn Cemetery uncovered dozens of unmarked burials, and efforts to identify the remains continue. A lawsuit for reparations brought by the last known survivors was dismissed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2024.

Timeline

• 1921, 30 May: Dick Rowland and Sarah Page encounter each other in the Drexel Building elevator.
• 1921, 31 May, morning: Rowland is arrested.
• 1921, 31 May, afternoon: The Tulsa Tribune publishes its story; a crowd gathers at the courthouse.
• 1921, 31 May, about 10 pm: Shooting breaks out at the courthouse.
• 1921, 1 June, dawn: White mobs invade and burn Greenwood.
• 1921, 1 June, midday: Martial law is declared; thousands of Black residents are detained.
• 1921, September: Charges against Rowland are dismissed.
• 2001, 28 February: The Oklahoma state commission issues its final report.
• 2021, 1 June: Centenary commemorations are held in Tulsa.

Why it matters

The destruction of Greenwood showed how racial violence could wipe out decades of Black economic achievement in a single day. Its long suppression, and its recent rediscovery, have made Tulsa central to American debates about memory, justice and reparations, and the struggle for equal rights that culminated in laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.