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Red Summers

A 360 video series with artist Bayeté Ross Smith on the untold American history of racial terrorism from 1917 to 1921.

18 December 2021

  • An image of the 1919 Omaha race riot layered over footage of modern day Omaha: ‘It was really profound to be at these sites after studying all this.’

    ‘A reminder of what human beings can be capable of’: a journey to the sites of America’s forgotten race massacres

    Bayeté Ross Smith’s project on the Red Summer of 1919 reveals ‘uncanny’ likeness to today’s political violence
  • Ida B Wells in 1920.

    How Ida B Wells became the last hope for 12 wrongly convicted Black men

    After the 1919 Elaine race massacre, the men on death row looked to the investigative journalist to use the power of the pen to save them
  • Screenshot of Smith's film on the 1917 East St Louis riots

    ‘Black skin was a death warrant’: how the East St Louis race massacre was an omen for racial violence to come

    Four years before the Tulsa race massacre, white mobs firebombed homes and decimated a Black community in Illinois

21 August 2021

  • How racist propaganda inspired riots in America's biggest cities

  • In 1919, racial violence against Black citizens broke out in Chicago and DC in the same week.

    How racist propaganda inspired riots in America’s biggest cities – 360 video

9 July 2021

  • A white mob storming a court house in 1919 Omaha

    How a white mob lynched a Black man, destroyed a city – and got away with it

    In 1919, white rioters stormed into an Omaha courthouse and dragged a Black jailed man who said he was innocent out to his death

18 June 2021

  • Elaine 12

    ‘We want our land back’: for descendants of the Elaine massacre, history is far from settled

  • elaine

    Elaine massacre: how a Black labor movement was met with a violent white mob – 360 video

31 May 2021

  • composite

    ‘The loss is incalculable’: descendants of the Tulsa massacre on what was stolen from them

    For many descendants, the past is still present. They explain how the legacy of the massacre, which was suppressed for so long, lives on today
  • A photo from shortly after the Tulsa massacre combined with modern day footage of the location.

    Tulsa race massacre at 100: an act of terrorism America tried to forget

    It was among the worst acts of violence in US history, and no one was held accountable – how much has changed in the last 100 years?

  • An act of terrorism America tried to forget – 360 video

    This immersive 360 video places you back in 1921 Tulsa, when white mobs killed hundreds of Black Americans and demolished one of the wealthiest Black community in the country

26 April 2021

  • Mt. Zion Baptist Church burns after being torched by white mobs during the 1921 Tulsa massacre.

    Tell us: was your family affected by the US racial violence of the early 20th century?

    We would like to hear from those whose families were affected by the racial violence between 1917 and 1923
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