Black American History

The Tulsa Race Massacre: How America Burned Its Wealthiest Black Community to the Ground in 1921

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The Tulsa Race Massacre 1921 feature image showing Black Wall Street before and after the destruction, with burning buildings, smoke, historic newspaper, and Greenwood district map.

In the early hours of June 1, 1921, white mobs aided by local government officials burned 35 city blocks of Tulsa, Oklahoma to ash. They destroyed 1,256 homes, 191 businesses, a hospital, a school, churches, and a library. They killed an estimated 300 people. They left 10,000 Black Americans homeless overnight. The neighborhood they destroyed … Read more

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: 40 Years of Deliberate Medical Neglect That Destroyed Hundreds of Lives (1932–1972)

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  For forty unbroken years, the United States Public Health Service watched 399 Black men in Alabama go blind, lose their minds, and die — while holding a cure in their hands and choosing not to use it. The men were never told they had syphilis. They were never offered penicillin. They were watched, recorded, … Read more