In 1921, a Black male was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a White female elevator operator in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Scores of Black males showed up at the jail armed with weapons. Some were driving around with armed men in the back of trucks. This led to White residents arming themselves. A gun battle broke out, followed by an angry mob of White people torching part of a Black neighborhood.
In the end, 26 Black people were killed, 10 White people were killed, and $1.5 – $2 million worth of property was destroyed. This is the same as $24.4 – $29.8 million in 2021 dollars.
During the 1992 Rodney King riots, over 60 people were killed, and there was nearly $1.5 Billion worth of damage in 2021 dollars. During the “Long Hot Summer” of 1967, Black rioted nationwide. At least 88 people died, thousands were injured, and the property damage was well over a half-billion in 2021 dollars.
The Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 saw at least 35 deaths, many hundreds injured, and well over a billion in property damage.
As time went on, the White death toll was forgotten, and the Black death toll was exaggerated to 300. Meanwhile, the Black community of Tulsa was romanticized into a sort of Wakanda where Black people had accomplished more than any other Black community in the world. We are told that Tulsa was a shining monument of Black overachievement that White people completely wiped out.
