The films - backed by some NBA stars - are set to debut on History Channel, National Geographic, CNN, PBS
Many documentary filmmakers - some supported by NBA superstars - are unleashing the historically neglected Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, one of the most horrific tragedies in American history.
LeBron James & Russell Westbrook are among those releasing the documentary based on the racially motivated genocide. The projects come during the 100th anniversary of the massacre in Greenwood, a black-owned business district & residential neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Each documentary typically takes a deep dive into how the thriving Greenwood community - Black Wall Street, due to the number of Black-owned businesses - was destroyed in a 2-day raid by a white mob. Subsequently, at least 300 black people were killed. More than a thousand homes were burned & others were looted, leaving about 10,000 residents displaced & homeless and destroying the Black Business District.
Stanley Nelson, who co-directed "Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre" with Marco Williams, said, "This is to systematically destroy property & property with African Americans running away from their lands." . " Westbrook - who previously played with the Oklahoma City Thunder - is the executive producer of the documentary aired Sunday on the History Channel.
National Geographic, CNN & PBS will also debut documentaries. Another documentary, "Black Wall Street", is being distributed by Cineflix Productions, but none of the networks have picked it up yet.
Nelson said all the projects are very urgent & important, especially in commemoration of the massacre that came close to the 1-year anniversary of last year's racial count due to the death of George Floyd. (A former Minneapolis police officer has since been convicted of Floyd's murder.)
Emmy winner Nelson said, "I think the more (Greenwood) the story can be brought to light, the better it is." "I'm sure that every film will be completely different. I think there is a special time here."
Director Salima Koroma said that the story should be told more than once. She presented her Tulsa massacre documentary on some networks about five years ago, but was uninterested because she believes the "gatekeepers" were unwilling to welcome the story.
Eventually, Koroma's project found a home with James & Maverick Carter's The Springhill Company. He believes that the collaboration of the Los Angeles Lakers superstars & Carter played a major role in moving the project forward.
"I had to make it to the right gatekeepers," said Koroma, director of "Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street," which airs Mondays on CNN & later on HBO Max.
"They see that we have to tell Black stories," she said. "Now everyone is longing to tell it. Finally, tell these stories. I think that is what is happening."
Some filmmakers said that it was difficult to tell the story because most of the material no longer exists.
"So how can you tell a feature documentary? ... now people are putting resources to do more than just photographs," Koroma said. "You can do animation and graphics. It's hard to tell. But we can tell this story with all our might."
The story of the Tulsa massacre was largely forgotten or unknown to some until the HBO series "Watchmen" & "Lovecraft Country" shed light on the dark tragedy within the last 2 years. Courtney B. The production company of Vance & Angela Bassett recently signed an agreement with MTV Entertainment Studios to produce a limited scripted series about the massacre.
Reporter Daneen L. Brown, who appeared in the two documentaries, said that all of the massacre projects are needed for educational purposes, as she says most of it was taken out of the library from textbooks, newspapers & magazines. The Oklahoma native said her father — who is a pastor in Tulsa — had never heard of the massacre until the late 1990s, when the Tulsa Race Riot Commission was formed.
"The survivors of the massacre stopped talking about it," she said. "Black survivors only whispered about it, because there was a real fear among black people that it might happen again, & it happened elsewhere."
As a curious child, Brown said that he 1st learned about the massacre after reading about the history of enslaved blacks in school. She said that projects that advance the genocide can also be educational.
"This will be something that people & schoolchildren will learn about," said Brown, a Washington Post reporter who has written more than 20 articles on the massacre. He interviewed the descendants of Greenwood residents & business owners in the PBS documentary "Tulsa: The Fire & the Forgotten", which airs on May 31.
Brown will be reporting on the discovery of mass graves in National Geographic's "Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer", which will premiere on June 18. He said that documentaries like him should be told as much about the American Revolution, the citizen. War and the 1st & Second World Wars.
"(Tulsa Massacre) is not known to the larger community, certainly not known by white America," said Jonathan Silver, who worked with Brown as a director on a PBS documentary. "I think the Black American experience has been overshadowed. We don't know as white Americans. That historical violence has cast a very long shadow."