By Cara Moore Lebonick | National Archives News ST. LOUIS, November 4, 2024 — On the 100-year anniversary of race riots erupting in the predominantly Black-populated and affluent Greenwood District

"With journalistic skill, heart, and hope, Requiem for the Massacre reckons with the racial tension in Tulsa, Oklahoma one hundred years after the most infamous act of racial violence in American history"--;"More than one hundred years ago, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, perpetrated a massacre against its Black residents. For generations, the true story was ignored, covered up, and diminished by those in power and in a position to preserve the status quo. Blending memoir and immersive journalism, RJ Young shows how, today, Tulsa combats its racist past while remaining all too tolerant of racial injustice.Requiem for the Massacre is a cultural excavation of Tulsa one hundred years after one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. Young focuses on unearthing the narrative surrounding previously all-Black Greenwood district while challenging an apocryphal narrative that includes so-called Black Wall Street, Booker T. Washington, and Black exceptionalism. Young provides a firsthand account of the centennial events commemorating Tulsa's darkest day as the city attempts to reckon with its self-image, commercialization of its atrocity, and the aftermath of the massacre that shows how things have changed and how they have stayed woefully the same..." --

"The definitive, newsbreaking account of the ongoing investigation into the Tulsa race massacre In the late spring of 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma, erupted into the worst single incident of racial violence in American history. Over the course of sixteen hours, mobs of white men and women looted and burned to the ground a prosperous African American community, known today as Black Wall Street. More than one thousand homes and businesses were destroyed, and scores, possibly hundreds, of people lost their lives. Then, for nearly a half century, the story of the massacre was actively suppressed. Official records disappeared, history textbooks ignored the tragedy, and citizens were warned to keep silent. Now nearly one hundred years after that horrible day, historian Scott Ellsworth returns to his hometown to tell the untold story of how America's foremost hidden racial tragedy was finally brought to light, and the unlikely cast of characters that made it happen. Part true-crime saga, part archaeological puzzle, and part investigative journalism, The Ground Breaking weaves in and out of recent history, the distant past, and the modern day to tell a compelling story of a city-and a nation-struggling to come to terms with the dark corners of its past"--

"On the morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob numbering in the thousands marched across the railroad tracks dividing black from white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and obliterated a black community then celebrated as one of America's most prosperous. Thirty-four square blocks of Tulsa's Greenwood community, known then as Negro Wall Street of America, were reduced to smoldering rubble. With chilling details, humanity, and the narrative thrust of compelling fiction, The Burning re-creates the town of Greenwood at the height of its prosperity; explores the currents of hatred, racism, and mistrust between its Black residents and neighboring Tulsa's white population; narrates events leading up to and including Greenwood's annihilation; and documents the subsequent silence that surrounded the tragedy."--Page 4 of cover.

‎In the early 20th century, Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was an epicenter of Black economic influence in the United States. However, in the early hours of June 1, 1921, a white mob — sanctioned by the Tulsa police — swept through the community burning and looting homes and businesses, and killing residents. A century later, the question before Congress, the courts and the United States as a whole is: What would justice look like? Guest: Brent Staples, a member of the New York Times editorial board.

The day that a white mob came to Greenwood Avenue in Tulsa, Okla., Viola Fletcher was just 7 years old.