Hello and welcome to this day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.

This is 50 Weeks that Shaped America, our series pinned to America's 250th birthday. This is part two of our

look at the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. Last episode, we met a few really remarkable

characters who were residents of the so-called Black Wall Street in Tulsa. We talked a little bit

about how the economic and social empowerment came to be in that neighborhood, and we set the stage

for the two days of white mobs running through the Greenwood District.

More than 800 people admitted to hospitals, thousands of black residents of Tulsa hiding from violence.

30, 40, 50 people died and a story that was forgotten for many years and then came back over the last few decades.

We will get into all of that.

Here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.

Hello, Jody. Hey there. So to reset, we were on the night of May 31st, heading into June 1st in

Tulsa. There was an attempted lynching of a black shoestiner who had been

arrested for purportedly assaulting a white girl in an elevator.

A group of black men had showed up to do some combination of offering their assistance to

the sheriff and also just monitored the situation to make sure the man had not been lynched.

They were told to go back to their side of town.

As they were leaving from their side of town, someone grabs a gun.

The shooting begins.

It dies down around 2 a.m., but that is not the end of the violence.

That is actually just a pause.

As we now know, white residents of Tulsa were plotting to

starting the next day invade Black Wall Street and the Greenwood District and run roughshod over

...