No charges, many questions
The Tulsa Race Massacre began on May 31, 1921, after a white mob tried to lynch Dick Rowland, a Black teenager who was falsely accused of attacking a young white woman operating an elevator in a downtown Tulsa store.
When a group of Black World War I veterans raced to the Tulsa courthouse to protect Rowland, a battle erupted between the veterans and the white mob. A shot was fired, a white man was hit, and chaos erupted. Hours later, a white mob descended on the nearby Black community of Greenwood.
Over the next 18 hours the white mob, including Tulsa police officers and members of the National Guard, shot Black people in cold blood, looting and burning houses. Witnesses said airplanes dropped turpentine onto houses and businesses.
By the time the rampage ended on June 1, Greenwood was reduced to smoldering ashes. More than 35 square blocks of the once prosperous business district, including more than 1,200 businesses, were destroyed. More than 10,000 Black people were without homes. (Remembering ‘Red Summer,’ when white mobs massacred Black people from Tulsa to D.C.)
