Photographing The Tulsa Massacre Of 1921

Writing for the Public Domain Review, Dr. Karlos K. Hill describes the event and provides photographs taken at the time. This is a tough story and some of the images and words may be hard to take.

Although other race massacres occurred in Illinois, Arkansas, and Florida, this was perhaps the most photographed. Of the over 500 images in the archive, only about a half dozen were captured by a Black photographer. Professor Hill concluded, “An extensive race massacre photo archive exists because so many white participants desired to visually represent and share with other whites their role in the violent destruction of the Greenwood District.”

Photo from Dr. Hill’s essay