OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Metro Library Downtown is hosting a presentation on the Tulsa Race Massacre today, Saturday, Feb. 15.
‘Historically Speaking: Tulsa Race Massacre’ will be held from 2 to 3 p.m. at the library, 300 Park Ave., and will be presented by Bruce Fisher, a local historian, according to a Metro Library news release.
“[Fisher] will teach the full story of the Tulsa Race Massacre with recorded first hand accounts from survivors,” the news release states.
Tulsa’s Greenwood District was nationally known at ‘Black Wall Street’ following World War I. It had a thriving and affluent black community and several businesses run by black community members, according to the news release.
Racial tensions turned catastrophic on May 31, 1921, after a young black teenager named Dick Rowland was falsely accused of sexually assaulting a young white woman named Sarah Page.
Thousands of white Tulsans invaded the Greenwood District on that day.
During an 18-hour period that languished into June 1, the mob looted and burned buildings and homes, virtually destroying 35 square blocks of the Greenwood District. Worst of all, between 100 and 300 people were killed and more than 8,000 people made homeless, according to the History website.
“This tragedy became one of the worst, but least known, incidents of racial violence in U.S. History,” the news release states.
