The meaning of Tulsa Unspoken and unspeakable, the Greenwood Massacre is a painful bulwark in the broken soul of America. The Rev. Robert R.A. Turner, center, draws attention to the 1921 Tulsa Massacre every week in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Courtesy photo May 28, 2021 (RNS) — It has been 100 years since a race massacre destroyed the Greenwood community of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we are only just beginning as a nation to confront the multiple meanings and implications of this horror of American history. On May 31, 1921, 37 blocks of the affluent African American community were destroyed by rampaging whites. One white Tulsan labeled a photograph of the carnage, “Running the Negro Out of Tulsa.”