S1 E6: Black Wall Street Burning - a podcast by Nia Clark

Between May 31st and June 1st of 1921, what the Oklahoma Historical Society calls quote, "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history," claimed the lives of potentially hundreds of people and left an entire community in Tulsa, Oklahoma completely decimated. That community, known as Greenwood - an African American district in North Tulsa, suffered a brutal attack by a white mob, which resulted in a horrific scene of chaos, destruction and bloodshed. The area, with a population of about 10,000 at the time, according to the historical society, had been considered one of the most affluent African American communities in the United States for the early part of the 20th century. For that reason it earned the name Black Wall Street.

Although the attack was decades in the making, allegations of assault coupled with boiling racial tensions and inflammatory newspaper articles are widely believed to be the cataclysmic events that sparked the attack.   In this episode, listeners will hear audio recordings of interviews with two survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, including William Danforth Williams as well as Eunice Jackson.

Featured guests in this episode include:

Dr. Scott Ellsworth, writer, historian and professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.  

-Hannibal B. Johnson, attorney, consultant and author of Black Wall Street.

-Dr. Alicia Odewale, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tulsa.   A special thanks to the Oklahoma Historical Society and the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum for allowing the use of their archival audio recordings in this episode.

Musical Attribution:

1. Glueworm Evening Blues (ID 994) by Lobo Loco License, disclaimer and copyrite information. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode 

Link to music: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lobo_Loco/Welcome/Glueworm_Blues_ID_994

2. Title: Driving to the Delta (ID 923) by Lobo Loco License, disclaimer and copywite information: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lobo_Loco/Welcome/Driving_to_the_Delta_ID_923_1563

Link to music: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lobo_Loco/Welcome/Driving_to_the_Delta_ID_923_1563

3. Spirit Inside (ID 819) by Lobo Loco License, disclaimer and copyright information: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/0) 

Link to music: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lobo_Loco/Tree_of_Meditation/Spirit_Inside_ID_819

4. African Moon by John Bartmann Link to license, disclaimer and copyright information: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Link to Music: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/african-moon

Further episodes of Dreams of Black Wall Street

Further podcasts by Nia Clark

Website of Nia Clark