Trivia – What Was the First American City Attacked By Air?
If you guessed Honolulu, you guessed wrong. Twenty years before Pearl Harbor, law enforcement and white assailants used more than a dozen planes to drop firebombs on buildings and homes and fire rifles at the residents of Tulsa’s Greenwood District.
Oklahoma 1921
Upon its admission as a state on November 16, 1907, the new Oklahoma legislature quickly enacted Jim Crow segregation laws. From statehood to 1921, there were 26 lynchings of African-Americans in the state.
While segregated, Tulsa’s Greenwood District was the wealthiest black community in the United States and known as the “Black Wall Street”. The label is reported to have been given by noted African-American educator and author Booker T. Washington.
The Tulsa race riot began on May 31, 1921, after news reports that 19-year old Dick Rowland, an African-American shoeshiner, was taken into custody on charges of raping a white woman drew a lynch mob. The arrest is believed to have prompted by Rowland tripping in an elevator on his way to a segregated bathroom and grabbing the arm of the white operator to save himself from falling. A white store clerk reported the incident as an assault or rape.
By 7:30 p.m., hundreds of whites gathered outside the Tulsa County Courthouse, where Rowland was held, demanding that he be turned over. When word reached Greenwood, a group of about twenty-five armed African-American men (may World War I veterans) went down to the courthouse and offered to protect Rowland (as another African-American had been seized from the jail and lynched the year before). The sheriff declined the offer of assistance and then the group returned to Greenwood.
Hours later, false rumors circulated that whites were storming the courthouse and a group of about 75 African American men returned to the courthouse to offer protection. The sheriff again declined the offer and as the men were leaving, a white confronted one of the African-Americans about what he intended to do with his gun. “I’m going to use it if I need to,” he replied. A scuffle ensued and the gun went offer and the two groups exchanged gunfire, with the outnumbered African-Americans retreating to Greenwood. The white mob began firing shots into Greenwood and then began to set it afire (and block firetrucks from the area).
From May 31 and through June 1, 1921:
- Between 39 and 300 African-Americans were killed;
- More than 35 blocks comprising 1,256 residences were burned to the ground; and
- More than 10,000 African-Americans were left homeless.
It is one of the worst race riots/massacres in American history.
The case against Dick Rowland was dismissed in September 1921 as the woman involved did not wish to press charges. No charges were ever filed in the massacre.
In late 2019, several possible mass graves were identified in Tulsa and scheduled to be excavated in 2020. That project has been delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Tulsa’s Dirty Little Secret
From Wikipedia:
Many survivors left Tulsa. Both black and white residents who stayed in the city were silent for decades about the terror, violence, and losses of this event. The riot was largely omitted from local and state, as well as national, histories: “The Tulsa race riot of 1921 was rarely mentioned in history books, classrooms or even in private. Blacks and whites alike grew into middle age unaware of what had taken place.”
As a result, on the 75th anniversary of the massacre, the Oklahoma legislature created a Commission to “investigate events, interview survivors, hear testimony from the public, and prepare a report of events.”
In 2001, the Commission reported that the city had conspired with the white mob against the Tulsa black community and recommended that the state legislature, the Governor, the Tulsa mayor, and the city council take the following actions:
- Make direct payment of reparations to “riot” survivors and descendants;
- Create a scholarship fund available to “students affected by the riot;”
- Establish an economic development enterprise zone in the historic Greenwood district;
- Create a memorial for the riot victims and for the burial of any human remains found in the search for unmarked graves of riot victims
See the report below.
Most of these recommendations have not been realized. To the extent some of them have, they have been mostly funded by private actors. A 2020 report by Human Rights Watch says it is time for justice for the Greenwood’s victims:
No one has ever been held responsible for these crimes, the impacts of which black Tulsans still feel today. Efforts to secure justice in the courts have failed due to the statute of limitations. Ongoing racial segregation, discriminatory policies, and structural racism have left black Tulsans, particularly those living in North Tulsa, with a lower quality of life and fewer opportunities. . . . On the 99th anniversary of the massacre, a movement is growing to urge state and local officials to do what should have been done a long time ago—act to repair the harm, including by providing reparations to the survivors and their descendants, and those feeling the impacts today.
The Tulsa massacre was dramatized in the 2019 HBO series “The Watchmen”.
Originally published June 1, 2015. Updated May 31, 2020.
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