In Tulsa, Oklahoma’s “Black Wallstreet” on the evening of May 31 1921, a race riot erupts.
“During one of the worst race riots in American history, Tulsa, Oklahoma became the first U.S. city to be bombed from the air… Mostly Blacks were killed… . Tulsa Blacks were so successful that their business district was called ‘The Negro’s Wall Street.’ Envy bred hatred of the Blacks… . A White female elevator operator accused Dick Rowland, a 19–year–old Black who worked at a shoeshine stand, of attacking her… . The Tulsa Tribune ran a sensational account of the incident the next day, and a white lynch mob soon gathered at the jail. Armed Blacks, seeking to protect Rowland, also showed up… . Whites invaded the Black district, burning, looting and killing … the police commandeered private planes and dropped dynamite. Eventually … martial law [was] declared. The police arrested more than 4,000 Blacks and interned them in three camps. All Blacks were forced to carry green ID cards” (Irving Wallace et al., Significa, 1983).(via Your History Online VII)
“The nights carnage left some 3,000 African Americans dead, and over 600 successful businesses lost. Among these were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half dozen private airplanes and even a bus system.”
This event serves as one of the first records of Black Americans being placed in detention camps and also of “pass laws.” Similiar laws would be duplicated in South Africa under the Apartheid regime a few years later.
Learn more about Black Wallstreet here: “A Black Holocaust in America.”
(via wtfwhiteprivilege)
