Another project examining the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is in the works. Deadline confirms “Bad Rap” director Salima Koroma is helming and executive producing a documentary about Black Wall Street, aka the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The booming business district and surrounding neighborhood, which at the time was the wealthiest black community in the U.S., was the site of the massacre.
As previously reported, “Surviving R. Kelly’s” dream hampton is working on a docuseries recounting the tragedy, one of the deadliest incidents of racial violence in American history.
Koroma’s doc will tell the story of the Black Wall Street community, as well as its devastating end. LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s SpringHill Entertainment is producing.
“On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young black man named Dick Rowland was riding in the elevator in the Drexel Building at Third and Main with a woman named Sarah Page. The details of what followed vary from person to person. Accounts of an incident circulated among the city’s white community during the day and became more exaggerated with each telling,” according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum. “Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day and began an investigation. An inflammatory report in the May 31 edition of the Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between black and white armed mobs around the courthouse where the sheriff and his men had barricaded the top floor to protect Rowland. Shots were fired and the outnumbered African Americans began retreating to the Greenwood District.”
The source continues, “In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was looted and burned by white rioters. Governor Robertson declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes, and imprisoned all black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days.”
The massacre itself lasted 24 hours and left 35 city blocks in ruins, 800 people injured, and over 300 Black citizens dead.
Yesterday, June 1, marked the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Koroma announced her project in tribute:
The Tulsa Race Massacre is not just a black story but American history. The fabric of this country is soaked in racism and today 99 years later, we’re still fighting for change. That’s why I’m partnering with @SpringHillEnt to tell the story of Black Wall Street ✊🏿
— salima the creator (@limacake) June 1, 2020
Despite its magnitude and social significance, the Tulsa Race Massacre has generally not been taught in schools or acknowledged in history books. Many people have not even heard of the tragedy.
Ninety-nine years later, protests have broken out all over the world in response to the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by Minneapolis police. A white police officer knelt on Floyd neck for nearly nine minutes, despite his pleas that he couldn’t breathe. As Koroma alluded in the above post, revisiting the Tulsa massacre is especially vital right now — have things changed much, or at all, for Black people in the intervening century?
Koroma directed, edited, co-produced, and served as DP on “Bad Rap,” a doc centering Asian-American rappers. She served as producer on two installments of doc series “That’s Amazing.”
“Make a film that you love,” Koroma said when Women and Hollywood asked for her advice for female filmmakers. “This is very specific for documentary filmmakers: If you’re spending years on a project, make sure it’s a project you’ll care about until the end. No one wants to be stuck with doing something they’re lukewarm about for five years.”
