Dick Rowland

Dick Rowland was an African American teenager in 1921 involved in a key incident in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He supposedly bumped into a white elevator operator, Sarah Page, which led to her accusing him of assault. Although details are uncertain, the accusation ignited racial tensions, culminating in the Tulsa Race Massacre, a devastating attack where a white mob destroyed the prosperous Black neighborhood known as Black Wall Street. Rowland's precise actions remain unclear, but his case became a catalyst for one of the worst acts of racial violence in U.S. history.