The 1921 Tulsa Massacre

When America First Bombed Other Americans from Airplanes

The Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma: June 1, 1921

Issue #44 April 6, 2022

By Pamela Hilliard Owens

In 2022 we are watching in horror as major cities in Ukraine are bombed to smithereens by Vladimir Putin, similar to how Putin, in 2012, also helped Bashar al-Assad of Syria bomb his own capital, Aleppo, one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in the world. 

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Cities have been destroyed during wars (real or imagined wars) since the beginning. Putin falsely believes that Ukraine “belongs” to Russia, so in his mind, he is bombing his own country and his own people. al-Assad also bombed his own country and his own people.

But that’s “over there,” it would never happen here in America, right? Wrong. 

Government agencies in the United States bombed Americans in their own cities twice in the 20th century: 1) in The Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, and 2) in a west Philadelphia neighborhood that was home to a Black Liberation Organization (MOVE) in 1985. This article will discuss the Tulsa Massacre.

The Origins of Greenwood

During the official “Indian Removal” that took place in much of the 19th century, free Blacks and the slaves and relatives of the “Five Civilized Tribes” (the Cherokee, Muskogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations) ended up settling (voluntarily or involuntarily) in the Oklahoma Territory, which was also set up as “Indian Territory” until Oklahoma became a state in 1907. The then-majority-Black population hoped to escape the slavery and Jim Crow laws of their previous residences. 

In the early 20th century, hundreds of Black set up their own very successful businesses, churches, schools, and other institutions in a 4,000-acre area at the edge of the Tulsa community. As recommended by Booker T. Washington and supervised by C.W. Greene, the area was called “Greenwood” and formally organized in 1901. By 1921, there were about 10,000 Black residents of Greenwood.

Black Wall Street

The Greenwood district was one of the most commercially successful and affluent majority African-American communities in the United States. In addition to the businesses, schools, and churches, Greenwood also had African-American attorneys, entrepreneurs, doctors, and other professionals. It was known across America as “Black Wall Street.”

As the population grew and the land expansion started touching on the boundaries of the segregated white areas of Tulsa, white residents became increasingly resentful and jealous of the wealth of the Greenwood community.

One day, a Black shoe shiner was falsely accused of assaulting a white woman on an elevator, and the Tulsa Race Massacre started. 

For decades, “mainstream historians” called this event the “Tulsa Race Riot,” implying that the Blacks were the perpetrators and the source of the problem. It is only relatively recently that this is now called the…

Tulsa Race MASSACRE

There are many conflicting reports about the initial incident that sparked the white mob attacks, but most people agree that a 19-year-old Black shoe shiner who worked in a building in Tulsa near Greenwood was getting on the elevator run by a 17-year-old white girl to get to the top floor where the colored bathroom was located, and apparently touched her in some way. 

The Black young man was arrested and there were rumors that he might be lynched. That brought many Blacks to the courthouse to attempt to defend him, and several altercations between armed Blacks and whites ensued.

The smaller incidents escalated on Memorial Day, Tuesday, May 31, and by Wednesday, June 1, the white mobs, armed with rifles and machine guns, were looting homes and businesses in Greenwood and taking Black residents to detention or shooting them in the streets. The Tulsa police chief deputized many white men and authorized them to go into Greenwood to stop the “Negro uprising.”

Early in the morning of June 1, according to several eye-witness reports, at least 12 private planes started circling Greenwood and dropping burning turpentine balls on multiple buildings in the neighborhood. This was the first time that an American city was attacked with bombs from airplanes.

Finally, later on Wednesday, June 1, the Oklahoma National Guard was deployed, martial law was declared and the massacre and related activities ended.

Although exact numbers are not available, it is estimated that between 100 - 300 people died, and the entire commercial area of Greenwood, including 191 businesses, a junior high school, several churches, and the only Black hospital were destroyed. About 1500 homes were burned or looted. The estimated property damage totaled more than $33 million (in 2020 dollars). 

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Tulsa was not the first nor the last…

Although the Tulsa Massacre was the first an American city was bombed from the air with official government approval, the event was not the first nor the last of similar incidents where white mobs destroyed Black areas in the United States. 

The activist and entertainer Common devised a map of many of the areas of devastation over the last 150 years or so. Common urges people to do their own research into these events so that we never forget and never let things like these massacres ever happen again in America.