The Falling City- The Tulsa Race Massacre
September 27, 2020
The falling city
Greenwood city was originally a land where Native Americans were forced to settle in 1906. However, after the civil war many African Americans who were former slaves settled there as well. Greenwood was the first town that black people took over and made their own. Oklahoma was the foundation of where the African American success began to happen. In the article Tulsa’s ‘Black Wall Street’ Flourished as a Self-Contained Hub in Early 1900s it explains, “Between 1865 and 1920, African Americans founded more than 50 black townships in the state.” This indicates that there were over hundreds of black owned businesses. For the first time, African Americans were flourishing. They were gaining independence. This quickly caught everyone’s attention including the white residents because they underestimated the success of black people. Due to this, something that was supposed to be good and beneficial quickly went down hill.
Tulsa Race Massacre
The Tulsa Race Massacre is one of the most severe incidents of racial violence in U.S history. The massacre left somewhere between 30 and 300 people dead, mostly African Americans, and destroyed Tulsa’s successful black neighborhood of Greenwood, Known as the “Black Wall Street.” This took place in Oklahoma. Nobody was informed about this The Tulsa Race Massacre until 1990. There was a lot of segregation and a lot of African Americans got into many situations where they didn’t have the right to speak or have any freedom. One situation where a young African Shoe shiner, Rowland, was accused of assaulting a white elevator operator named Sarah Page in the elevator of a building in downtown Tulsa. Rowland got held. Mobs of African Americans and Whites came to meet Rowland where he was held. The Africans Americans were protecting Rowland from the White protester. The white protester then died and caused the mob of White people to get angry. That’s when the Tulsa Race Massacre was thus ignited.




The Tulsa Race Massacre left many people devastated and confused on what to do after all that happened. African Americans were doubted just because of their skin color. I hope that more people could understand that talking about African Americans is not only about what the White people did to us, but also the achievements that we have brought on to this world to show the people that we are capable. This topic was talked about because the school always focuses on what white people did to the Africans and that they were looked at as weak people and had no power. Instead, we should also include the fact that African Americans did achieve things in life and made an impact on the world.