Tulsa Race Massacre - The Promised Land | 1

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2019

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Between 1838 and 1890, thousands of African Americans moved to Oklahoma, brought there as Cherokee slaves or drawn there by the promise of free land. Black pioneers established towns where African Americans could govern themselves and thrive in community together, and in time, Oklahoma became known as “The Promised Land” of freedom, dignity, and economic self-sufficiency. Out of this movement, the wealthiest African American community in the nation was born. By 1921, the Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood had become such a hotspot of entrepreneurship that it became famous as “Negro Wall Street.”

But the Greenwood community lived uneasily in the racist, corrupt, lawless oil boomtown of Tulsa. On a hot May day in 1921, a young shoeshine boy would step into an elevator with a teenage white girl and accidentally spark the worst incident of racial violence in America -- a massacre that would be kept secret for decades.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music,
0:05.6	download the app today.
0:09.0	Imagine as 4pm on May 30th, 1921.
0:22.8	Your glasses slide down your nose, a sweat trips off your forehead.
0:26.6	The rain that drenched the Memorial Day Parade Goers didn't break the heat, it's still
0:30.4	in the 90s.
0:31.6	And for the last few hours, you've been unpacking heavy boxes of clothing, working alongside
0:36.2	Charlie, your fellow clerk at Renberg's Clothing on Main Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
0:42.0	Thanks Mrs. Logan, we'll call you when your new dress comes in.
0:46.3	Charlie's been a fixture at Renberg's for years, but your job is new.
0:50.0	You had to take it when the work slowed down in the accounting office.
0:53.3	You're good with numbers and you love that job, but when the oil boom slowed, it hurt
0:57.5	all the businesses that supported it.
0:59.6	They didn't need you anymore.
1:01.1	And with so many white men unemployed, it took weeks to find a new job.
1:05.5	Renberg doesn't pay nearly as well as your old job, but you sure as heck need it, with
1:09.7	three kids and another one on the way.
1:12.9	As Charlie usheres a customer out the door, you pause to wipe a salty drip off your face,
1:17.9	as usual Charlie glitters at you.
1:20.1	But you can't take it.
1:21.1	I knew you wouldn't last at this job, harder than it seems, huh?
1:25.5	Charlie's a beefy, muscular guy, and he acts like he owns the place.
	...

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