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- Hannibal B. Johnsonattorney and author of Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District.
(Democracy.org) As protests continue over the police killing of Terence Crutcher, we look at how Tulsa, Oklahoma, is no stranger to racial strife. On May 31, 1921, a white mob killed as many as 300 people, most of them black, after a black man was accused of assaulting a white elevator operator. Over two days, white mobs set fire to homes, businesses and churches in Greenwood, a thriving African-American business district known at the time as the Black Wall Street of America. When the smoke cleared, the area lay in ruins. Many blacks left and never returned. The National Guard rounded up thousands of others and held them at various locations around the city. We speak with author and attorney Hannibal Johnson, who examines this history in his book, “Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District.”