18 The Tulsa Race Riot

Probably the most violent singular example of post-slavery racial violence in the US happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. Mobs of armed whites burned buildings, killed African-Americans, and utterly destroyed what had been known as Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street.” For years the incident was not extensively talked or written about, but it is now more widely known as one of the most horrifying examples of domestic terror that the US has ever known. Related Links: The 2001 report commissioned by the Oklahoma state legislature on the riot. Walter White’s 1921 piece The Eruption of Tulsa from The Nation. The New York Times on the riot’s aftermath. A report on the riot from 60 minutes.