THE GROUND BREAKING: Uncovering the Tulsa Massacre

The Tulsa race massacre of 1921 was the worst single incident of racial violence in American history. Over the course of sixteen hours, a prospering African American community, later known as Black Wall Street, was looted and burned to the ground by a white mob. More than 1000 African American homes and businesses were destroyed, while the death count remains unknown to this very day. Not only did no white person spend a day in prison for the murders, arson, and theft of May 31st/June 1st, 1921, but for more that fifty years the history of the massacre was actively suppressed. Scott Ellsworth will bring to life this American tragedy, and the challenges it poses for all of us today.

Scott Ellsworth has taught in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at UM for fourteen years. An award winning writer and historian, he has researched and written about the Tulsa massacre over the course of more than four and half decades. His latest book on the massacre, THE GROUND BREAKING: An American City and Its Search for Justice, has been praised by the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. "This book should be essential reading," wrote Harvard law professor Kenneth Mack, "for anyone interested in an honest grappling with our racial past and with the task of moving forward."

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This is a Hybrid event