Tulsa Wealth Disparity: The Political Legacy of the 1921 Race Massacre

Public policies rooted in systemic racism and racialized violence have stripped wealth from Black Americans. Is this wealth disparity heightened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, home to one of the worst incidents of racial violence in America? I shed light on this question by analyzing local housing and economic development policies and supplemental census data in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. I find that the Race Massacre has lasting detrimental effects on the racial wealth gap in Tulsa, likely exacerbated by policies in the 1960s-70s and the 2000s. Local and federal reparations are necessary to address a century of racialized dispossession in Tulsa.