Tulsa Speaks: A City Council, Reparations, and Race in America Today

In 2021, the international media descended upon Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the centennial commemoration of the May 31–June 1, 1921, massacre in which a white mob killed more than three hundred African American residents, burned homes and businesses, and decimated a thriving town once referred to as "Black Wall Street." Tulsa Speaks is about the ongoing work of the Tulsa City Council, both before the Centennial and afterward, when the cameras were no longer trained on the city. It dives deep into the interpersonal dynamics among the nine councilors, exploring the continuing fight for reparations and racial justice and the long-running efforts of the sole African American councilor, Vanessa Hall-Harper of District 1, to bring repair to Greenwood. Tulsa, like many municipal bodies across the country, serves as a hopeful sign of what we might become, as Americans and as a microcosm of race relations in America today.