51精品视频

Tags
  • Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
  • Department of History
Accolades & Honors

Alaina E. Roberts Publishes Essay on Tulsa Massacre

Alaina E. Roberts, assistant professor in the听听, wrote an听听that appeared in听, a blog of the听听on the commemoration of the Tulsa Massacre.听

The massacre, which occurred from May 31 to June 1, 1921, was an attack by White Americans on Black residents and their businesses in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in a wealthy community known as 鈥淏lack Wall Street.鈥 An estimated 100 to 300 African Americans were murdered.

In her essay, ""听Roberts discusses her personal connection to this point in history and the discovery of her Native American ancestry. According to Roberts, the broader historical context behind the massacre is not widely known鈥攏amely, the stories of the Native American and Black people who immigrated to and shaped the area almost a century before the massacre.

鈥淛ust as my research on Black-Native history helped me better understand myself and my career trajectory, the broader history behind the Tulsa Massacre allows us to better understand that Tulsa was a place shaped by its history of settlement by Native Americans and the people of African descent who lived within their nations,鈥 Roberts听said. 鈥淎cknowledgment of these intersections makes the process of telling and illustrating history more complex but also more accurate and inclusive.鈥

Roberts will further explore this topic in her upcoming book, 鈥淚鈥檝e Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land,鈥 which will be published in April 2021 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.