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This Day in Esoteric Political History

The Day Before The Tulsa Massacre (1921) w/ Cord Jefferson

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6982 Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2021

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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It’s May 30th. This day in 1921 was the day before a white mob descended on the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, burning hundreds of buildings to the ground in what was known as “Black Wall Street.”

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Cord Jefferson, writer for the HBO series “Watchmen,” which opens during the massacre and helped to introduce the story of Tulsa for many viewers. They discuss what Greenwood looked like just before the riots, and how the massacre led to generations of lost wealth for Black Oklahomans.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

0:07.0

My name is Jody Avergan.

0:10.0

This day, May 30, 1921, the Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood was private.

0:17.0

Greenwood was often referred to as America's Black Wall Street,

0:21.0

a neighborhood that was full of stable black owned businesses and growing

0:24.4

generational black wealth.

0:26.6

More than 70 businesses operated in Greenwood, mostly in one and two-story buildings.

0:32.0

Some of the names, the Earl Real Estate Company, the Little Rose

0:35.1

Beauty Salon, the Dreamland Theater, the Alexander Hotel, Doctors, Lawyers, Dentists,

0:40.0

the Oklahoma Sun, one of two black-owned newspapers in the neighborhood but within a day

0:45.4

almost all of it would be gone over the course of 18 hours starting on May 31st

0:50.4

through June 1st 1921 a white mob attacked residents, homes, and businesses in the Greenwood

0:56.7

neighborhood.

0:57.7

According to a later estimate, more than 1,200 houses were burned.

1:01.7

Two newspapers, a school a school a library a hospital

1:03.9

churches hotel stores all destroyed or damaged by fire official records

1:09.2

indicated 36 dead but historians estimate the death toll may be as high as 300.

1:15.8

What I am describing here is what has come to be known as the Tulsa Massacre or the Tulsa

1:19.8

Race Riot or the Greenwood riots.

1:22.5

And this is, of course, 2021, the 100th anniversary

1:25.7

of those riots.

1:26.5

There is a considerable amount of coverage

...

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