Max Abrahams
US History
April 18, 2023
Thesis Essay
Tulsa Race Massacre
Tulsa was home to over 10,000 black residents, Tulsa was a thriving community of commerce and family. Tulsa got the name Black Wall Street due to it being one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States. America's Black Wall Street did not last long, over 100 years ago on May 21, 1921, a heavily armed white mob of looters and arsonists came to Tulsa and caused absolute terror. What took years to build was erased in a 2-day long riot. Hundred of Greenwood residents were brutally killed and their homes and businesses were burned to the ground.
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On top of the deaths, the riot created 1.8 million dollars in property damage, adjusted for inflation of 27 million dollars in 2023. The Tulsa race massacre is considered one of the worst racial terror attacks in the history of the nation. The Tulsa Race massacre illustrates the rising white supremacy of the 1920s through the destruction of black wealth and community. In the 1920s white supremacy was the prevailing ideology in many parts of the world, the idea that white people were superior to people of other races was deeply ingrained in America's society leading all the back to manifest destiny. Through white supremacy, the Klu Klux Klan was born. During the 1920s, cultural conflict and modernization helped resuscitate the Ku Klux Klan. Whereas the original KKK was a violent, racist organization born in the post-Civil War South, the modern Klan was driven by somewhat different concerns. Many white, lower-middle-class, Protestant Americans in the North and Midwest were fearful that immigrants were changing traditional American …show more content…
In recent years there has been a renewed focus on the massacre, including efforts to excavate mass graves and provide reparations to survivors and their descendants. There has been a more significant push to acknowledge the race riot and its impact on the black community, and efforts are underway to uncover and preserve evidence of the