The Rebuilding Of Black Wall Street
Most of the story about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre centers around the destruction of what was known as “Black Wall Street,” a bustling 35-square-block area with Greenwood Avenue running through the center. Those stories will tell you that a Black man named Dick Rowland tripped in an elevator, causing a White woman named Sarah Page to scream.
Newspapers printed this interaction, framing it as an attempt at sexual assault, causing an angry mob to swell at the courthouse where Rowland was being held. Tension ignited after a group of armed Black men, mostly WWI veterans, arrived to defend Rowland, and the mob attacked.
With a 26-to-1 advantage, the White mob burned, looted and killed their way through one of the wealthiest Black communities of the time, leaving an estimated 300 dead. Many ...