The Tulsa Race Massacre, 100 Years Later

Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

On May 31, 1921, white mobs attacked a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as “Black Wall Street.” As many as three hundred people were killed, and more than a thousand homes and businesses were destroyed.

Olivia Hooker was six years old at the time. She remembers watching white men with torches come through her family’s backyard, and hiding under a table with her siblings.

Radio Diaries interviewed Olivia Hooker about the massacre in 2018. Six months later, she passed away at age 103.

Today, to mark the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, we revisit our interview with Olivia Hooker and speak with Kavin Ross about why the story of the massacre was buried for decades.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Radio Topia, from PRX.
0:05.6	From PRX's Radio Topia, this is Radio Diaries, I'm Joe Richmond.
0:12.6	On May 31st, 1921, a group of white residents launched an attack on a black middle-class
0:18.2	neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
0:21.7	Over 18 hours, white mobs stormed into black homes, schools, and businesses.
0:26.9	This week marks the hundredth anniversary of the Tulsa race masker.
0:30.6	It's considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history.
0:37.2	Today to mark the anniversary, we're revisiting our interview with Olivia Hooker.
0:42.5	She was six years old at the time of the masker.
0:46.2	My name is Olivia J. Hooker.
0:53.1	The black part of Tulsa was a neighborhood where you could be treated with respect.
1:01.7	My father had a very nice store, Samuel D. Hooker, and son.
1:09.4	It was a store that didn't carry shoddy things.
1:15.0	They had arrow shirts, cupin' hammer, suits, floor shimes, shoes, and stits and hats.
1:25.1	And those were all good names in those days.
1:32.3	It was May 31st, 1921.
1:38.0	At first, we saw a bunch of men with those big, fine torches come through the backyard.
1:48.9	And I remember our mother put us under the table.
1:56.0	She took the longest table while she had the cover for children.
2:02.5	It told us not to say a word.
2:06.2	It was horrifying for a little girl that's only six years old, trying to remember to keep quiet.
2:16.3	They wouldn't know we were there.
	...

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