‘Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten’ pays respect to lives lost
Exclusive: “There s this tendency to talk about bootstraps and a tendency to leave out the fact that America likes to take your shoestrings or your bootstraps,” Greg Robinson II, activist and descendent of Tulsa Race Massacre survivors, says.
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A century has passed since the Tulsa Race Massacre destroyed the vibrant and prosperous Black Wall Street, but it’s still seared in the public consciousness.
Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten is just one of the many documentaries that will delve further into the horrific event.
Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten is a 90-minute documentary that explores the racial violence that ravaged the Greenwood district known as Black Wall Street on May 31, 1921. An unruly white mob of 2,000 descended into Black Wall Street and burned down the neighborhood to ashes and claimed 100-300 Black lives.
Hollywood execs once dismissed the idea of mass interest in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, but the success of HBO's Emmy-winning series breathed life into a raft of documentaries.
May 6, 2021
Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten
, a production Saybrook Productions Ltd. in association with The WNET Group, premieres Monday, May 31 at 9 p.m. on THIRTEEN.
One of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history occurred 100 years ago, from May 31 to June 1, 1921, when a mob of white residents set fire to “Black Wall Street,” an affluent Black community in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Known as the Tulsa Race Massacre, this act of anti‑Black violence destroyed hundreds of Black-owned businesses and homes, killing an estimated 100-300 Black residents, and leaving an estimated 10,000 Black residents homeless.
This explosion of racial terror was compounded by the silence that followed. No one was punished for the crimes committed, and history textbooks often made no reference to them even in Oklahoma so many Americans are still unaware of this history.
Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten,
The Washington Post reporter
DeNeen L. Brown interviews descendants of Greenwood residents and business owners and today’s community activists. She asks them about the city’s 2018 decision to search for mass graves from 1921, community demands for reparations, and today’s efforts to revive the Black district of Greenwood through education, technology, business development, and more.
“Last year, teams of archaeologists and forensic anthropologists found a mass grave in the city-owned cemetery, which may be connected to the massacre,” said Brown. “This spring, the City of Tulsa plans to commemorate the 100
th anniversary of the massacre, as descendants of survivors demand reparations for what was lost and protest against current oppression and racism.”