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The CfPS Library
The library houses community journalism that explores the hidden, neglected, and misunderstood histories of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and beyond.
Explore feature stories, videos, and short essays from CfPS founder, Lee Roy Chapman.
Read longform stories about Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
Learn about Tulsa's unique position at the nexus of the Mvskoke, Cherokee, and Osage nations.
Explore stories about the hidden, neglected and misunderstood history of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Environmental Injustice
Sometimes, national issues feel too abstract to feel personal. Growing up in Tulsa, my perspective was shaped not only by what I saw, but also by what I wasn’t taught to see: the hidden histories, communities, and injustices that were woven into the city around me.
Megan Kalapura
Dec 9, 20257 min read
Public Secrets: Calvary Cemetery (Video)
In this episode of Public Secrets, historians Lee Roy Chapman and J. Kavin Ross uncover a forgotten Creek Freedmen cemetery in South Tulsa.
Lee Roy Chapman
May 12, 20251 min read
High School Football 1921: Return of the Hornets
By Randy Hopkins Courtesy of Tulsa Booker T. Washington High School. In the fall of 1921, students began returning to Tulsa, Oklahoma's...
Randy Hopkins
Feb 2, 20248 min read
The Nightmare of Dreamland: Tate Brady and The Tulsa Outrage
The seventeen men were terrified, and with good reason. They stood shivering in the November midnight air...
Lee Roy Chapman
Aug 23, 202319 min read
An Open Letter to the Tulsa City Council
Once the Centennial was over and a single body with bullet holes was discovered in Oaklawn in late June 2021, things changed.
Randy Hopkins
Aug 23, 202315 min read
Birthday of the Klan: The Tulsa Outrage of 1917
On November 10, 1917, a birth announcement for the “Modern Ku Klux Klan” appeared in a front-page headline of the Tulsa Daily World.
Randy Hopkins
Aug 22, 202366 min read
The Plot to Kill "Diamond Dick Rowland" and the Tulsa Race Massacre - Part Three
May 31, 1921 Tulsa police officials “feared the explosive combination of forces” resulting from the news of Diamond Dick Rowland’s arrest.
Randy Hopkins
Aug 22, 202323 min read
The Plot to Kill "Diamond Dick Rowland" and the Tulsa Race Massacre - Part Two
Claiming them to be dens of iniquity, the police had long cast a suspicious eye on negro rooming houses. The Rowland family ran a large one.
Randy Hopkins
Aug 22, 202328 min read
The Plot to Kill "Diamond Dick Rowland" & The Tulsa Race Massacre - Part One
On Tuesday afternoon, May 31, 1921, a newspaper article titled “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator” hit the streets of downtown Tu
Randy Hopkins
Aug 22, 202334 min read
Echo of History: The City of Tulsa’s Mass Graves Debacle
On the morning of July 30, 2021, an iron fence and locked gates divided two groups of Tulsans at the City-owned Oaklawn Cemetery.
Randy Hopkins
Aug 22, 202329 min read
Mask of Atonement: The Plan to Rebuild the Homes of Greenwood
The Greenwood rebuilding “plan” was a major feature of the second full day of national news coverage of the then-called Tulsa Race Riot.
Randy Hopkins
Aug 22, 20239 min read
Recovering History: The Freeing of Dick Roland
There's no listing for this prisoner during June or July. This supports claims that Roland was removed from the jail soon after his arrival.
Randy Hopkins
Aug 22, 202315 min read
Alias: James Jones and "Diamond Dick" Rowland
Learn about James Jones, better known as "Diamond Dick" Rowland, the teenager at the center of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
Randy Hopkins
Aug 21, 202310 min read
J.B. Stradford: Carnage Without Death
by Steve Gerkin J.B. Stradford We will never understand. How could we allow the racial brutality of slavery, the lynching of Blacks as...
Steve Gerkin
Aug 21, 202314 min read
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