Eastern Oklahoma Catholic

Reflections on the role of the Cathedral during the Tulsa Race Massacre and today

At the end of May, our local community will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Sparked by the false accusation that a young black man had sexually assaulted a white woman, the racial violence that unfolded between the night of May 31 and the early morning of June 1, 1921, left much of the thriving “Black Wall Street” neighborhood of Greenwood in ashes. In addition to the 10,000 Tulsans left homeless, close to a thousand residents were seriously injured and hundreds dead. Nearly all of the victims were members of the Greenwood community.