Embedded Files
10 Events (fill in the blanks)
10 Events (fill in the blanks)
1. On the morning of May 30th, ____________ accused ___________ of assault in an elevator of the Drexel Building in downtown Tulsa.
2. On the afternoon of May 30th, Dick Rowland is ___________ and taken to the Tulsa ___________ to await trial for the assault.
3. Around 5 pm on May 31st, a newspaper editorial in The ___________ ignites the fire of racial tension and a lynch mob begins to gather. It was written by __________.
4. Around 6 pm on May 31st news of the gathering mob reaches the ___________ District north of the railroad tracks whose citizens begin to form ideas and plans for what to do.
5. From 6 pm - 10 pm on May 31st, bands of Greenwood citizens ride south in cars with __________ to check on the situation at the courthouse as the ____________ swells to over 2,000 people.
6. Around 10 pm the night of May 31st, a fight between a black man and a white mobster causes a ________ to go off and the __________ begins.
7. From 10 pm into the early hours of the morning of June 1st, fighters from both sides exchange gunfire along the railroad tracks and __________ Street. Few people are actually killed in the fighting.
8. At 5:08 am on __________, the morning whistle at a factory goes off (usually to alert workers to get up), but the white mob of thousands uses it as a signal to invade the ____________ District with weapons and torches.
9. On June 1 from 5:08 - 11:29 am the bulk of the atrocities of the massacre take place. Hundreds of eyewitness accounts catalogued by __________ in her 1923 book Events of the Tulsa Disaster testify to violent acts by the mob.
10. On June 1 at 11:29 am __________ troops from Oklahoma City arrive at the governor’s orders and declare __________, effectively ending over __________ hours of uninhibited mayhem by the mob. Greenwood lays in utter ruin.
Word Bank
Dick Rowland
courthouse
Greenwood
guns
Richard Lloyd Jones
White mob
Tulsa Tribune
Sarah Page
arrested
Archer
Greenwood
Mary E. Parrish
gunshot
National Guard
6
Martial Law
June 1, 1921
Tulsa Race Massacre
6 Hours of Violence
6 Hours of Violence
BEFORE and AFTER
Eye Witness Accounts Synthesized
Eye Witness Accounts Synthesized
(as recorded in M.E. Parrish’s 1923 collection of eyewitness accounts Events of the Tulsa Disaster)
- Indiscriminate shooting, beating, hanging, and burning by deputized mobsters as young as 12 years old
- People, dead and alive, are drug behind cars with ropes and chains through the streets to cheers from spectators
- The Tulsa National Guard and police force join the mobsters in the razing and murder of Greenwood
- Airplanes drop kerosene bombs on Greenwood
- Looting and burning of Greenwood homes and businesses goes unchecked for hours
- Tulsa police do nothing to stop the attack on Greenwood and often join in the violence, even deputizing and arming civilians as young as 12 years old
- Destruction of Mt. Zion Baptist Church and the Dreamland Theater is total
- 35 city blocks are burned to the ground
- 300-500 people are dead and buried in hidden graves
- The remaining 9,000+ citizens of the Greenwood District are either interned in camps, hidden in South Tulsa, or fleeing further to the North
- Homeless blacks must wear markers with a white person’s signature or be sent to jail
Videos of the Violence
Videos of the Violence
In 2019, HBO put out a series called Watchmen that featured historically accurate dramatizations of the violence during the Massacre. These videos are disturbing with racial violence and obscene language. Viewer discretion is advised.
Discuss with Family and Friends
Discuss with Family and Friends
- What were your reactions to the events of the timeline and the violence from eyewitness accounts and the videos?
- What does this remind you of?
- What could cause people to treat other humans this way?
- What would you have done in their shoes?
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