The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre was less an act of spontaneous vengeance against Black residents and more premeditated and organized than previously known, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The study also found local law enforcement and military personnel helped organize the attack in which an estimated 10,000 white Tulsans destroyed Greenwood, a thriving community also known as “Black Wall Street.”
The attack “was so systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence. White men murdered hundreds of Black residents, burned businesses and homes to the ground, and left survivors without resources or recourse. In the aftermath, authorities failed to offer meaningful help, and efforts to seek justice through the courts foundered,” says the report, which was released three days before the end of the Biden administration.
The 124-page report was the culmination of a 2024 investigation by the cold case unit of the department’s Civil Rights Division, which reported: “Members of the unit spoke with survivors and with descendants of survivors, examined firsthand accounts of the massacre given by individuals who are now deceased, studied primary source materials, spoke to scholars of the massacre and reviewed legal pleadings, books and scholarly articles relating to the massacre.”
The purpose of the Jan. 17 report was to break the federal government silence that has shrouded details about the violence for more than a century and to expose it as the “coordinated, military-style attack” it was, said Kristen Clarke, former assistant attorney general of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
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