In 1921, a white mob attacked a predominantly Black area in Tulsa, killing hundreds of people and destroying the country’s wealthiest African American community.
“The idea of Black communities thriving economically on their own – and in some cases having residents doing better financially than the average white person at the time – would have caused resentment,” said Chris Messer, a sociology professor at Colorado State University who has studied the massacre.
Although the Black men retreated to Greenwood, the white mobs followed, looting and burning homes and businesses and shooting Black residents at random.
“The racial wealth disparities we see today are the product of a long historical process of black exclusion from the economy and white inclusion into wealth distribution,” said Trevon Logan, an economics professor at Ohio State University.
“America has a history of sharing its wealth – via homesteads, homeowner programs and the like – with white Americans while deliberately excluding Black people.”
