Tulsa Race Massacre

The Tulsa race massacre, also known as the Tulsa race riot or the Black Wall Street massacre, was a two-day-long massacre that took place between May 31 – June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deputies and armed by city officials, attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event is considered one of "the single worst incident[s] of racial violence in American history" and has been described as one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the history of the United States. The attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood—at the time one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, colloquially known as "Black Wall Street." More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals, and as many as 6,000 black residents of Tulsa were interned in large facilities, many of them for several days.