© 2025 All Rights reserved WUSF
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Thanks to you, WUSF is here — delivering fact-based news and stories that reflect our community.⁠ Your support powers everything we do.

Tulsa Riot Descendants Look to Reparations

In a matter of days, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear a racially charged case more than 80 years in the making. On May 31, 1921, one of this nation's worst race riots destroyed Greenwood, Oklahoma, a thriving black community on the outskirts of Tulsa.

As many as 300 African Americans were killed and thousands more driven from their homes. Now, many Greenwood survivors and their descendants are seeking reparations. To learn more about the case, NPR's Ed Gordon talks with Charles Ogletree, Jesse Climenko Professor of Law at Harvard University, and Larry Simmons, the deputy city attorney for Tulsa.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tags
Our daily newsletter, delivered first thing weekdays, keeps you connected to your community with news, culture, national NPR headlines, and more.