Uprising, riot, massacre: Framing, memorialization, and the Tulsa race massacre of 1921
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Abstract
This study examines the development of two opposing narratives that took root in Tulsa in the aftermath of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, in which Whites framed the incident as a Negro uprising, while Blacks in Tulsa’s Greenwood district placed the blame on white mob rule. Utilizing historical accounts, sociological studies, museum studies literature, and state and local history monographs, this research places the emergent public memory of the Tulsa Race Massacre into the broader context of late twentieth and early twenty-first century race politics, while investigating the scholarly and community forces at work at reframing the events of 1921. It concludes that a chief source of anxiety underpinning white resistance to a critical reframing of the massacre revolves around the stigma that comes from the event, in light of similar experiences of stigmatization in the South. However, the examples of other stigmatized cities provide useful models for Tulsans to utilize in navigating the politics of public memory surrounding the centennial of the massacre.