The Tulsa Race Massacre, 100 Years Later

On May 31, 1921, white mobs attacked a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as “Black Wall Street.” As many as three hundred people were killed, and more than a thousand homes and businesses were destroyed.

Olivia Hooker was six years old at the time. She remembers watching white men with torches come through her family’s backyard, and hiding under a table with her siblings.

Radio Diaries interviewed Olivia Hooker about the massacre in 2018. Six months later, she passed away at age 103.

Today, to mark the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, we revisit our interview with Olivia Hooker and speak with Kavin Ross about why the story of the massacre was buried for decades.

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