The Tulsa Race Massacre: 100 Years Later
AFAM 4970/ENGL 4970/ENGL 5970/JMC 4970/JMC 5970
Karlos Hill
Meta G. Carstarphen
Rilla Askew
John Stewart
In 1921 the deadliest outbreak of white terrorist violence against a black community in American history took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Tulsa Race Massacre is an interdisciplinary exploration of the facts of the massacre, the conditions in media and culture which led to it, and our contemporary engagement with that history. Team-taught by Dr. Karlos Hill, Dr. Meta G. Carstarphen, Professor Rilla Askew, and Dr. John Stewart this course draws upon different yet complementary areas of expertise (African American Studies, Journalism, Creative Writing/Literary Studies, and Digital Humanities) to offer students an innovative, multi-perspective, and cross-disciplinary understanding of the Tulsa Race Massacre and its aftermath. Through lectures, readings, exploratory writing, in-class discussions, and guest speakers, this course will help students develop an appreciation for the centrality of the Black experience to Oklahoma history, culture, and media, come to understand the scope and impact of racism and racial violence in Oklahoma’s story, and examine our collective and individual responses to the massacre as we live out its legacy one hundred years later. The class will share what they learn with the rest of the world by creating a web and mobile app that teaches users about the massacre.
Public Lecture Series
Information for this Lecture Series will be posted here as it comes in.
The Truth About Tulsa and the 1921 Race Massacre: History and Legacies in Context
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
6 pm
Zoom
Dr. Scott Ellsworth
Professor of African-American Studies
University of Michigan
Dr. Scott Ellsworth, author of the seminal history Death in a Promised Land and one of the lead scholars for the 2001 Tulsa Race Riot Commission Report, offers perspectives on the Tulsa Race Massacre from historical and contemporary perspectives, with particular recognition of the ways in which the massacre continues to reverberate today.
Dr. Scott Ellsworth is a native Tulsan, author, and professor of African-American Studies at the University of Michigan. Dr. Ellsworth’s Death in a Promised Land was the first scholarly account of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. His forthcoming book The Groundbreaking tells the story of Tulsa and the Greenwood district since the race massacre and particularly the ways in which the massacre continues to reverberate.
The Tulsa Massacre and TV: How Depictions of America’s Worst Lynching is Changing Pop Culture
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
7 pm
Zoom
Eric Deggans
NPR TV Critic and Media Analyst
National Public Radio
Noted NPR television critic and media analyst Eric Deggans takes an in-depth look at how the Tulsa Race Massacre has been depicted on the small screen as he offers penetrating insights into how those portrayals resonate through pop culture today.
A journalist for more than two decades, Eric Deggans is a television critic for NPR and serves as a contributor and media analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, dissecting media issues on NBC TV platforms and online. He is the author of Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation, a look at how prejudice, racism and sexism fuels some elements of modern media. Eric has guest hosted CNN’s media analysis show Reliable Sources and in 2017 was named one of the country’s 15 Most Influential Media Reporters.
Quraysh Ali Lansana: Poet as Witness
Thursday, April 15, 2021
7 pm
Zoom
Quraysh Ali Lansana
Tulsa Artist Fellow and Acting Director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation
OSU-Tulsa
Noted poet, activist, and Tulsa Artist Fellow Quaraysh Ali Lansana will share poems, short nonfiction and anecdotes exploring the Black American experience, with specific focus on the struggles and triumphs of Black Oklahomans past and present.
Quraysh Ali Lansana is author of twenty books of poetry, nonfiction, and children’s literature. A Tulsa Artist Fellow and Acting Director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation at OSU-Tulsa. Lansana is Creator and Executive Producer of KOSU/NPR’s Focus: Black Oklahoma monthly radio program. His most recent books include the skin of dreams: new and collected poems, 1995-2018, The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip Hop, and Opal’s Greenwood Oasis, and the forthcoming Those Who Stayed: Life in 1921 Tulsa After the Massacre.
