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Trinity College
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1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

Jeff Liszka

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Jeff Liszka
Contact:
Library Level A
Room A37
860-297-2270

Guide Overview


This guide is designed to facilitate research on the history and contemporary implications of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. “The Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma [. . . .] The attacks burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood – at the time one of the wealthiest Black communities in the United States, known as "Black Wall Street" (Wikipedia).

This guide includes books; background and scholarly articles; historical, current, and local news sources; court cases and reports; other primary source materials such as oral histories, podcasts, films, images, and maps; as well as links to Tulsa centered museums, archives, and foundations.

We intentionally selected resources that capture Greenwood before, during, and after the race massacre to emphasize that the history of Black Wall Street did not begin or end with the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921.  The New York Times 3D model of the Greenwood district provides a great starting point for learning about the history of Greenwood and What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed.

We also included resources that situate the attack on Black residents in Greenwood in a broader sociohistorical context of systemic inequalities and anti-Black violence, as evidenced by racial terror lynchings, red summer and other race massacres across the U.S.

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What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed

What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed (New York Times)

Using maps, newspaper clippings, testimonies and more, a team of graphics editors created an interactive 3-D portrait of the community that was burned down in 1921.

Note: To access this article, new users will need to sign-up for a NYTimes account via our registration page (https://courseguides.trincoll.edu/nytdotcom). Faculty and staff must re-register every year. Students must provide year of graduation. You may then access nytimes.com with your credentials from anywhere on a computer, tablet, or phone app.