Results: When Tulsa Burned

Have you ever heard of the Tulsa Massacre?

On the night of May 31st, two mobs squared off in front of the city jail. One was there to lynch Dick Rowland, the other to keep him alive. Inside, officers fortified the building as best they could, and took up positions around Rowland to protect him. The sheriff urged everyone to go home, but the two mobs began firing on each other. As the city went wild, the black mob began retreating, with the white one right on their heels. The National Guard arrived to patrol and protect the white business and residential districts. Do you think a more equitable distribution of guardsmen could have diffused the situation?

In the early morning of June 1st, while the white mob laid siege to the black area of Tulsa (known as 'The Black Wall Street,' due to the affluence of it's residents), planes circled above. Law enforcement officers would later claim that the planes were there to observe and to prevent a Negro uprising. Eyewitness reports claimed that the planes began firebombing Greenwood, while the white mob prevented the firetrucks from extinguishing the blaze. More than 35 blocks went up in flames. By that afternoon, General Charles Barrett arrived with National Guard reinforcements and declared martial law, rounding up and detaining remaining black citizens. Do you think that officers intentionally burned down the wealthy black neighborhood?

The official tally for the incident was 36 dead (10 white and 26 black) and more than 800 injured (this is the people who were treated at the white hospitals-the black ones having been burned down). Walter White, of the NAACP, traveled to Tulsa to do his own investigation. He determined that around 50 white men had died, with more than 200 black deaths. A 2001 Oklahoma Comission report estimated that between 100-200 people died. Do you think that the first report was an attempt to cover up what actually happened?

In 2003, 5 survivors sued the City of Tulsa and the State of Oklahoma. They demanded compensation from the state and city "to honor their admitted obligations as detailed in the commission's report." The case was dismissed because the state demands that all civil rights cases be filled within 2 years. 80 years after the massacre, the statute had obviously expired. Do you think that two years is an appropriate length of time for cases involving civil rights violations?