Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a group of scientists and historians is on the verge of unearthing a chunk of the city's past that has long been buried, and one that some people may prefer to keep that way. It's a potential mass grave from the worst single incident
of interracial violence in American history. Beginning May thirty one, thousands of armed white Toulson's invaded the black section of the booming oil town, terrorizing its residents, looting their homes and businesses, and burning to the ground some thirty five square blocks of the city. Before the rampage was over, more than ten thousand Black people were left homeless, and more than six thousand were interned in camps, where they'd stay,
in some cases for months. We spoke with Scott Ellsworth, a native Tulson and a professor of African American history at the University of Michigan. Ellsworth is the author of the nine and eighty two book Death in a Promised Land, one of the first books to take a comprehensive and historical look at the Tulsa race massacre, previously mystically called the Tulsa Race Riot of ninety one. He said, to
this day, we don't know how many died. Reasonable estimates range from I would say forty too as high as three hundred. When the unmarked but suspected mass grave in a Tulsa cemetery is excavated in July, it may provide a few answers to exactly what happened over those two days. In it will be for many a literal reopening of a wound that's festered within the city for nearly a century. The Tulsa Race Massacre of nine one did not, in
a word often used to describe such events, erupt. The city simply reached what now seems an inevitable breaking point. In early Tulsa was a wash with cash from the oil boom. The good fortune reached into the north section of the city, mostly populated by Black Americans. That area, later to be known as the Black Wall Street, contained a hundred ninety one businesses, including hotels, a feed store, a roller, ink cleaners, mom and pop stores, and restaurants,
plus offices for doctors, dentists, and lawyers. The area had at least five churches too, a library, a movie theater, and a hospital. Like the rest of the city at that time, the black area also known as Greenwood had its problems. Alcohol, even under prohibition, was readily available. Illegal drugs were easy to find too, as we're gambling and prostitution. The whole city, not just Greenwood, struggled with crime and
with lawless punishment. Less than a year before, a white teenager accused of murder was taken from his jail cell and lynched by a white mob. The police did little to protect him, and racial violence against black people was commonplace, even though thousands of black Americans had just returned from fighting in World War One. Jim Crow laws and pervasive racist attitudes meant that a quality remained nothing more than a dream for black Americans, and many white Americans wanted
to keep it that way. Ellsworth wrote in a two thousand one report commissioned by the state of Oklahoma on the then called riot that quote. During the weeks and months leading up to the riot, there were more than a few white Toulson's who not only feared the color line was in danger of being slowly erased, but believed that this was already happening. So into that explosive milieu, a black teenaged boy working as a shoeshiner had a brief run in with a white teenaged girl operating an elevator,
and the fuse was lit. The boy was taken into custody. A group of more than two thousand angry white people, some intent on lynching him, possibly prompted by an inflammatory editorial in a white run newspaper, gathered on the courthouse steps. Some armed black war veterans and others squared off with them there, and soon shots were fired. White people from all over the city began their march on the Greenwood area to tamp down what many white people saw as
an uprising. There are stories of black citizens being murdered in their homes, interrupted in their evening prayers. The terror went on for eighteen hours into June one. Despite their sworn duty to serve and protect, neither Tulsa Police nor any other government agency assisted the black population. Instead, Tulsa police officers helped set some fires, and an all white unit of the National Guard joined the invaders. Other public officials provided guns and AMMO to white men. The KKK
got involved. A semi functioning machine gun was used on Black Tulson's, and some reports indicate that airplanes dropped homemade fire starters. Despite being largely outnumbered, Black Toulson's fought to protect their homes and businesses, and most of all, Greenwood, but in the end, scores of black people and some white people were killed and Greenwood was left in ruins. The exact numbers of injured and dead, even after what's to be uncovered in three suspected mass graves, may never
be known. It's still unclear exactly what happened between the black shoeshine boy Dick Rowland and the white elevator girl Sarah Page to spark the massacre, though one thing is known. She refused to bring charges. Roland was vindicated. For years, Tulsa refused to acknowledge in any meaningful way what had happened in ninety one. Nobody has ever been charged or prosecuted for the crimes that occurred during those eighteen or so hours. Even those who grew up there, Ellsworth included,
were not taught that part of the city's history. The Tulsa race massacre became a terrible and closely held secret that began to change with Ellsworth's death in a Promised Land and some earlier work. Then in nine when members of the national media descended on Oklahoma City after the bombing of the federal building, they were informed of this other more terrible episode of domestic terrorism in the state's history.
More news accounts and more books of the massacre followed, and in twenty nineteen, the HBO comic book superhero series Watchman, inspired in part by Tulsa, enlightened many more to the story. But Tulsa's failed efforts to come to grips with its deadly past has left scars. Ellsworth said, the city was robbed of its honesty. You have entire generations growing up in Tulsa who have never heard of this. You have people growing up with a false reality, a false vision
of the land they were on. I mean, imagine if today, right now, that you had young people growing up in Manhattan who had never heard of nine eleven, that there were no books to talk about nine eleven. That it's as if it didn't exist. The Race massacre was a gigantic myth in the history of Tulsa. It was deliberately buried for a long time. With the unearthing of one of at least three suspected mass graves in Tulsa. Next month will mark another step in the long road to
understanding and perhaps one day, recovery. Ellsworth said, I know that this has been a process that has been going on for a while now. It's caused people to kind of re evaluate how they look at the past, how they look at their town, and what's going on. I think that's been a liberating process for some people. It's been a very difficult one for others. Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other topics, visit how
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