In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma boasted one of the nation’s most prosperous African-American communities. Greenwood was home to 108 Black-owned businesses, two theaters, 15 physicians, two newspapers, and a luxury hotel. It was nicknamed “the Black Wall Street.”
Then, on May 30th, a Black shoeshine boy named Dick Rowland was accused of assaulting a white teenaged elevator operator, Sarah Page. What happened next would ultimately lead to the destruction of Greenwood and the deaths of over 300 African Americans -- a massacre that, until recently, was virtually erased from American history.
This episode originally aired in 2019.
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