In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood District, known as Black Wall  Street, was one of the most prosperous African-American communities in  the United States. But on May 31 of that year, the Tulsa Tribune reported  that a black man, Dick Rowland, attempted to rape a white woman, Sarah  Page. Whites in the area refused to wait for the investigative process  to play out, sparking two days of unprecedented racial violence.  Thirty-five city blocks went up in flames, 300 people died, and 800 were  injured. Defense of white female virtue was the expressed motivation  for the collective racial violence.Accounts vary on what happened between Page and Rowland in the elevator of the Drexel Building. Yet as a result of the Tulsa Tribune’s  racially inflammatory report, black and white armed mobs arrived at the  courthouse. Scuffles broke out, and shots were fired. Since the blacks  were outnumbered, they headed back to Greenwood. But the enraged whites  were not far behind, looting and burning businesses and homes along the  way.  (You can find more on youtube.)