The 1921 Greenwood Massacre In Images of America.
There is so much to be learned about the history of the United States and its communities. Hannibal Johnson's book "Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District" (2014) is part of the "Images of America" series of local histories. As often is the case, a local history has broader implications for understanding our country. Johnson, an attorney, consultant, and author, has written extensively about the Greenwood Massacre that occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 31 -- June 1, 1921.
With the discovery of oil, Tulsa grew rapidly in the early years of the 20th century. African Americans shared in the wealth. With the prevailing segregation and racism, African Americans congregated in a community known as Greenwood literally on the other side of the tracks from downtown Tulsa. The community was largely self-contained and became prosperous with many African American businesses, theaters, professional offices, and cultural attractions. Greenwood became known as "the Negro Wall Street". An incident in an elevator between a 19 year old African American shoeshine boy and a 17 year old white girl operating the elevator lit the fuse for an incendiary confrontation. A large group of armed white men went into Greenwood and set it on fire. Law enforcement proved unable to intervene. The fire burned 35 square city blocks and destroyed over 1200 buildings. An estimated 100-300 people died and the total almost certainly was higher. The Greenwood Massacre gradually receded from public memory and was in danger of being forgotten. Serious study of the Massacre began in the 1990s with books, films, a Congressional investigation, and a study by an Oklahoma Commission which resulted in a 2001 report, "Tulsa Race Riot: a Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921."
Johnson's book tells the story of the 1921 riot, its background, and its aftermath movingly and eloquently in this short 128 page pictorial history. Johnson's approach is measured and thoughtful. By telling the history of the Greenwood District before and after the riot, Johnson sees the story as a whole and sees it optimistically as a "triumph of the human spirit." Johnson draws inspiration from the way in which Greenwood recovered from the riot and rebuilt. He wants the Greenwood story to be used to help people understand each other better and live together.
The book is in four chapters titled "Roots", "Riot", "Regeneration", and "Renaissance". The opening chapter shows a growing Tulsa and Greenwood District in the years before the riot. It features a group of Yearbook photographs of graduates from the the 1921 class at Greenwood's Booker T. Washington High School. The second chapter "Riot" includes many photographs of the Massacre itself with burning buildings, gun-toting citizens, and arrested African Americans who were carried off to camps run by the Red Cross. In the Regeneration chapter, Johnson shows how Greenwood bounced back and in the 1940s became even more closely-knit and prosperous than before the riot. The coming of integration and urban renewal ended this resurgence of economic growth. The final chapter of the book describes the belated attention given to the Greenwood Massacre with the construction of the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park in Tulsa, a Cultural Center, monumentation, and other commemorations of the incident. The book ends with short quotations from interviews with survivors of the 1921 massacre.
This book taught me a great deal. The book could be read with benefit by students or by readers wanting an introduction to this event. A bibliography or suggestions for further reading would have been useful. Johnson has done a service with this book. I hope his basic optimism about American and its future will prove well-founded and contagious.
