Tulsa Lynching of 1921 - July 17, 2011

The Tulsa Lynching of 1921
July 17, 2011

Film and Discussion

View the Invitation

July 2011 is the 90th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Riots
Producer, writer, and director Michael Wilkerson reveals the unsettling story of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 in his documentary film, The Tulsa Lynching of 1921: A Hidden Story. The film, first released on Cinemax in May 2000, has received critical acclaim for its effective use of images, interviews with aging survivors of the riot, and with powerful voiceover readings of historical newspaper accounts of the riot by several well known actors.

The riot began after an alleged assault by a young African American man on a white female, although many newly discovered accounts suggest that the incident was little more than an accidental step on the woman’s toes. White law enforcement officials deputized an additional 500 white men to enter into the Greenwood district of Tulsa, an all-African American middle class neighborhood, and burn it to the ground. By the time that federal troops arrived to put down the uprising, over 300 African Americans were dead and over 1,200 homes were destroyed.

The aftermath of the Tulsa Race Riot found African Americans with rejected insurance claims against burned homes and redacted newspaper accounts in archival collections. The state and local governments made extensive efforts to suppress widespread reporting of the riot or removed records of it in historical accounts. African American attorneys like Elisha Scott of Topeka, worked to resolve petitions by African Americans who lost homes and relatives to the riot.

The Tulsa Lynching of 1921: A Hidden Story will be followed by a brief discussion of the Topeka connection to the events through the Scott law firm by Thom Rosenblum, the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site staff historian.

Photo courtesy of Oklahoma Historical Society

Presented by the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research and the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site as part of the 2010-2011 program series, Commemorating Our Nation's Struggle for Freedom: From Civil War to Civil Rights.