The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Historical Context

Jun 01, 2021

Professor Brenda E. Stevenson moderates an online conversation with Karlos K. Hill and Hannibal Johnson, both authors and experts on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a white mob assaulted residents, looted, and destroyed their homes, churches, schools, and businesses in the predominantly Black neighborhood and business district of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The panel discusses the history of Black migration to Oklahoma, the Jim Crow realities of the early 20th century, the facts surrounding the Tulsa massacre, and the immediate aftermath in which hundreds of Black Americans were dead, homeless, or imprisoned, their families and financial lives devastated.

An associate professor and chair of the Clara Luper Department of African and African-American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, Hill is the founder and chair of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Commission. His most recent book is The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History. An attorney, author, and highly regarded public historian, Johnson is the author of Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples with its Historical Racial Trauma.

Copresented with the Department of African American Studies at UCLA