Dec. 29, 1923: Terror Attack on African Americans in Catcher, Arkansas

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 11 pages.
Using scenarios based on real situations, this lesson helps middle and high school students examine the definition of terrorism and the use of the term terrorism in the media and U.S. foreign policy.

Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 20 pages.
Teaching about racist patterns of murder, theft, displacement, and wealth inequality through the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.

Article. By Linda Christensen. If We Knew Our History Series.
Students need to learn the hidden history of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and how this links to racial wealth inequality today.

Book — Non-fiction. By Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace. 2021. 144 pages.
Scipio Africanus Jones — a self-taught attorney who was born enslaved — leads a momentous series of court cases to save twelve Black men who’d been unjustly sentenced to death.

Book — Non-fiction. By James Loewen. 2018. 592 pages.
Documents the history of towns across the United States that exclude African Americans (and other racial/ethnic groups) after sundown.

One of our most read “This Day in History” posts is about the July 29, 1910, Slocum Massacre—the racially charged murders by whites on the Black population of Slocum, Texas, and the subsequent cover-up of a community’s violent history.

Black farmers were massacred in Elaine, Arkansas for their efforts to fight for better pay and higher cotton prices. A white mob shot at them, and the farmers returned fire in self-defense. Estimates range from 100-800 killed, and 67 survivors were indicted for inciting violence.

More than fifty African Americans killed in the Ocoee Massacre after going to vote in Florida.

In one of countless white supremacist massacres in U.S. history, white supremacists destroyed a thriving Black community in Oklahoma, known today as the Tulsa Massacre.

White supremacists destroyed the Black town of Rosewood, Florida, and murdered many of its residents. Descendants have fought for reparations and recognition of the history.