Tulsa Massacre: Violence, Resilience & Rebirth
American History Hit
History Hit
4.3 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2024
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The city of Tulsa is perhaps best known in history books for the events of 1921. In 36 hours, hundreds of residents of the Greenwood district were murdered and more than 30 blocks of housing and businesses were razed to the ground.
In this episode, Don is with Victor Luckerson to go beyond the story of that one day in Tulsa. Why was the Greenwood district known as Black Wall Street? Why was it targeted that day? How did its residents raise themselves up and carry on to become commercially stronger in the aftermath? And what is the legacy of the massacre in Tulsa?
Victor is a journalist and author based in Tulsa. His book on this subject is 'Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street' and his substack is https://runitback.substack.com
Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The floor crunches underfoot as a stunned Theodore Bellman shuffles through the smoking ruins of his old workplace. |
| 0:09.0 | Just days ago, a building stood here among the 35 teeming blocks of the Greenwood District, |
| 0:15.8 | Tulsa's proud black community. |
| 0:18.3 | Now it is merely a barren lot, among others, covered in soot, rubble, and charred wood. The streets around it are virtually |
| 0:26.2 | unrecognizable. Hands covered in ash, Bauman walks the perimeter of the Oklahoma Star, the newspaper where he was once |
| 0:34.9 | managing editor. The Star's owner and Bauman's former boss, Andrew Jackson |
| 0:40.5 | Smitherman, has left town for the East Coast, nervous that he will somehow be |
| 0:44.7 | blamed for inciting the massacre by advocating in print self-reliance and resistance to mob violence. |
| 0:52.0 | Balman, though, has not run. |
| 0:54.2 | He remains in Tulsa, with the newspaper's business manager, Henry Goodwin. |
| 0:59.9 | Finally, Bauman comes to the object he's been seeking, a still intact linotype printing press. |
| 1:06.7 | He touches it, knowing that this battered metal machine is a reliable symbol, despite the horrors that have occurred in this city, |
| 1:14.7 | all the destruction and the death, |
| 1:17.0 | this black-owned news business will survive. |
| 1:20.2 | Like the people of the Greenwood District themselves, |
| 1:23.0 | this paper will be printed and voices will be heard, |
| 1:27.0 | rising, enduring, thriving. Welcome to American History Hit, Don Wildman here. |
| 1:33.0 | Glad you're listening. |
| 1:34.0 | Today, Welcome to American History Hit, Don Wildman here. |
| 1:42.8 | Glad you're listening. |
| 1:43.8 | Today, we examine a notorious event of epic proportions, |
| 1:48.2 | one that took place on Memorial Day weekend in the early 20th century. |
... |
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