'Tulsa Burning' review: Vivid, powerful account of race massacre

WHAT IT'S ABOUT The Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, lies just north of downtown, adjacent to interstate 244, but 100 years ago, this was a city within a city, with 10,000 Black residents, and hundreds of businesses, from a hotel, the Stradford, to its own newspaper — the Star, edited by one A.J. Smitherman. On May 31, 1921, Smitherman alerted residents that a Black man was about to be lynched at the Tulsa courthouse. Dozens — many armed — went to stop it and a standoff ensued. That night, thousands of whites surrounded Greenwood, and by the next day, so-called Black Wall Street had been burned to the ground. Some 300 residents (including women and children) lay dead. This film — directed by Stanley Nelson and Marco Williams — explains how the worst race massacre in recorded U.S. history happened, then explores the aftermath.

MY SAY "You are standing in a crime scene," the voice-over says at the outset of this film, while a frontloader begins to peel back the turf at Tulsa's Oaklawn cemetery. As quickly evident, no ordinary crime scene either. News reports the past few months have confirmed the discovery of unidentified remains in this spot, while there are believed to be other mass graves scattered around Tulsa. Those may be found, or never found, but the point — crystal-clear by the end of "Tulsa Burning" — is that this chapter in U.S. history is nowhere near conclusion and in some ways, just beginning.

The shadow that falls across this film is of the foreshadow variety, while the lingering questions are, what will happen next or when? There is no statute of limitation on murder, so justice can still be served, but how and by whom? Moreover, what of reparations? "Tulsa Burning" pointedly presses that question too while reminding viewers that the Greenwood massacre was only recently acknowledged by the city — a terrible scarlet letter that it tried to bury along with those victims.

Another Black Wall Street film ("Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer," Nat Geo, 9, June 18) indicates just how fraught in fact the reparation question is. There were some three dozen white assaults on Black communities around the country during the summer of 1919, including one in Arkansas (the so-called "Elaine Massacre '') where as many as 200 Blacks were killed. What of those victims and their descendants? Will justice ever be served for them?

Concise, thorough and lavishly if grimly illustrated, "Tulsa Burning" is really all about questions. They're unanswered here, but insistent, troublesome and refuse to go away — the lawyers lining up behind descendants should make certain of that. But the larger reason is that it's impossible to watch this without absorbing the sheer magnitude of what happened beneath this freeway 100 years ago. As a viewer, there is no wiggle room or escape route, no easy out. It's all right there on the screen. You can almost smell the smoke. Try to walk away from the screen but you can't because the ghosts follow you.

There have been a dozen books on the Tulsa massacre (one of those by Hannibal B. Johnson who is interviewed for this), and a TV series too ("Watchmen"). It's hardly a secret any longer. This happened, and the horror lingers. But there is something about a well-produced film arriving on the centennial to really focus the attention. This is that film. Watching we become witnesses to this crime, while "Tulsa Burning" — and those ghosts — demand action, not just answers.

BOTTOM LINE A commanding call to action