Thread by @nytimes

A century ago, a prosperous Black neighborhood perished in the Tulsa Race Massacre at the hands of a white mob. Hundreds were killed. Buildings burned. Years of Black success were erased.

We recreated the neighborhood in 3D to show what was lost. nyti.ms/3bNK4wD

In 1921, the Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood was a fully realized antidote to racial oppression of the time. It was a thriving community of commerce and family life to its roughly 10,000 residents.

It became home to what was known as America’s Black Wall Street.

What took years to build was erased in less than 24 hours in one of the worst racial terror attacks in U.S. history — sending the dead into mass graves and forever altering family trees. nyti.ms/3bNK4wD

This 3D model shows what had been built before the massacre.

The 100 block of Greenwood Ave. may best tell the story of Black entrepreneurship. You could shop for groceries, play pool, take in a theater show, eat dinner or get your hair styled — without ever leaving the block.

John and Loula Williams came to symbolize Greenwood's entrepreneurial spirit. They owned a confectionery and the nearby East End Garage. They also owned the 750-seat Williams Dreamland Theatre, the first movie house for Black people in the city. nyti.ms/3bNK4wD

Several women also set up shop as entrepreneurs on Greenwood Avenue.

Mary E. Jones Parrish was a teacher and journalist who operated a typing school. Mabel B. Little ran the Little Rose Beauty Salon on the block. nyti.ms/3bNK4wD

But Greenwood was more than the one block.

This recreation shows the neighborhood before the massacre.

It was one of the few places in the country offering Black citizens — less than six decades out of enslavement — a three-dimensional life. nyti.ms/3bNK4wD

And then came the massacre that ended it all.

The assaults raged over two days. The morning of June 2, 1921 revealed emptiness and ruin. Plumes of smoke hovered in the air.

Soon, the bodies of those killed were stacked and discarded in mass graves and a river.

It all began on May 30 with two teenagers in an elevator and morphed into a sexual assault accusation. Accounts vary about what happened; we know a Black teenager was later arrested and a newspaper headline essentially mobilized a lynch mob. nyti.ms/3bNK4wD

Some white rioters were deputized and given weapons by officials. The white mob descended on Greenwood. Black Tulsans fought back, defending their families and property. But they were outnumbered. nyti.ms/3bNK4wD

The mob indiscriminately shot Black people in the streets, ransacked homes and set fires “house by house, block by block,” a 2001 state commission found.

Planes flown by white people dropped dynamite, in what historians said is among the first aerial attacks of an American city.

The numbers presented a staggering portrait of loss:
— 35 blocks burned to the ground
— As many as 300 dead; hundreds injured
— 8,000 to 10,000 homeless
— More than 1,470 buildings burned or looted
— Eventually, 6,000 held in internment camps
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The Dreamland Theatre that the Williams family owned was destroyed. The family, among the most successful before the massacre, stayed and rebuilt.

Others had both admirable and heartbreaking second chapters.

Greenwood thrived again for a few decades, then fell to urban renewal and other forces. For decades, Tulsa deliberately ignored and covered up what had happened.

To this day, not one person has been prosecuted or punished for the destruction.
nyti.ms/3bNK4wD