S3 Ep42: Uncovering the True Story of the Tulsa Massacre

Crimes of the Centuries

Amber Hunt and Audioboom

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For years, the violence that occurred in the area known as "Black Wall Street" in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921 was remembered as the "Tulsa Race Riot" - when it was even remembered at all. But that name, promoted by the media and government officials, was at best a misleading description of what we've now started to reveal over the past few decades as a massacre perpetrated on a thriving Black community that took generations to recover.

"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from the Obsessed Network exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history.

AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK - NOW AVAILABLE! Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking that they change laws, change society, or even earn the label,
0:15.6	Crime of the Century.
0:18.4	But the stories that made headlines in decades past
0:21.5	aren't necessarily remembered today.
0:25.0	I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist and author,
0:27.5	and in each episode of this show,
0:29.5	I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser known today but was huge when it happened.
0:35.0	This is crimes of the centuries. The As Oklahomans awoke June 1st, 1921, they were greeted by an alarming headline in all caps and bold font on the headlines the previous decade and must have struck some is sadly familiar but this
1:15.5	wasn't about a war overseas the great war later known as world war one had in fact
1:21.2	ended three years earlier. This headline referred to a battle far
1:25.9	closer to home. The subhead was more descriptive. Race war rages for hours after
1:32.3	outbreak at courthouse, troops and armed men patrolling streets.
1:37.4	The bulk of the world's front page was dedicated to this so-called race war, though we know in hindsight that's a misrepresentation.
1:45.9	A war suggests an offensive on both sides.
1:49.7	That's not what happened here.
1:51.7	What went down was this. Two days earlier a young boot black or
1:56.2	shoe polisher named Dick Roland climbed a board an elevator in Tulsa's
2:00.9	Drexel Building, a handsome brick four-story building that housed several businesses.
2:07.2	The anchor tenant, as it were, was Renburg's department store, which sold clothes.
2:13.4	Elevators were clunkier back then, and operated by humans.
2:17.9	This one was run by a teenage girl named Sarah Page,
2:21.3	and the generally accepted story has been that Roland lost his footing, either as he stepped on or as the elevator got moving, the exact sequence has never been fully clear.
	...

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