Tulsa Race Massacre

On May 31 and June 1, 1921, a white mob of up to 10,000 people attacked Greenwood, Tulsa's prosperous Black district known as “Black Wall Street,” in what the DOJ's own 2025 review called a “coordinated, military-style attack” rather than spontaneous mob violence. As many as 300 residents were killed and more than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools, and churches were burned; survivors were rounded up and held in internment camps, and insurance companies later denied claims under “riot clause” exclusions. City officials claimed at the time that only 36 people had died; historians have since estimated the toll at 75 to 300, and unmarked mass graves identified in Tulsa in recent years are still being excavated and their occupants identified. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division formally reviewed the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act and released a 120-plus page report in January 2025 — the federal government's first official accounting of the event — finding that the Tulsa Police Department, the Tulsa County sheriff, the Oklahoma National Guard, and then-Mayor T.D. Evans each played a role, either through direct participation or by failing to act. The report also found that federal investigative reports written within days of the massacre in 1921 were apparently never evaluated by any prosecutor. No one was ever charged, and the DOJ concluded that no avenue for prosecution remains today.

Tulsa, OK · Tulsa County

• 1921: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The massacre's May 31–June 1, 1921 date and scope, per the DOJ's 2025 Civil Rights Division review.
• The DOJ's report found the Tulsa Police Department, county sheriff, National Guard, and mayor each played a role, and that no federal prosecutor is known to have evaluated investigative reports written in 1921; no one was ever charged.

• The exact death toll has never been established; estimates range from 75 to as many as 300, and unmarked mass graves are still being excavated and identified.
• Why federal reports written within days of the massacre were apparently never evaluated by any prosecutor at the time was never explained in any surviving record.

• U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division — “Review and Evaluation: Tulsa Race Massacre”
• Associated Press — case report on the DOJ's findings
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs