One hundred years ago on May 31 and June 1, 1921, mobs of white residents attacked Black residents, homes, and businesses, as well as cultural and public institutions in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, OK, an oil boom city and one of the wealthiest Black communities in the United States. The Red Cross provided critical medical aid and temporary tent housing, and documented the violence in official reports.
Maggie L. Walker, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and Mary Church Terrell founded and led organizations with a focus on social activism through the development of personal relationships, mentoring, and collaborating to bring about social change, often with a goal of bringing more people into the middle class.
Many early African American insurance companies focused on industrial insurance or burial insurance and employed people in the community to sell and administer insurance contracts. Explore our resources related to African American insurance industry, including founders like Aaron McDuffie Moore, John Merrick and Charles Clinton (C.C.) Spaulding.
