Casualties and damages
Greenwood was almost completely destroyed by the rioting. Most of the churches were destroyed by fire, as was the junior high school. A full 35 city blocks which comprised the Greenwood neighborhood was razed. Nearly 200 businesses were destroyed by looting and fire, and more than 1,200 homes were burned beyond salvage. Another 200 plus houses were wrecked by vandals and looted. Estimates of the number of automobiles destroyed varied widely. In terms of today’s dollars the property loss exceeded $30 million.
According to the American Red Cross an estimated 10,000 black men, women and children were made homeless by the riots, and despite promises of aid to help them rebuild, the majority of them were forced to live in tents for over a year. Instead efforts to change fire ordinances which would have prevented the area from being rebuilt for other than businesses were passed by the city. These were eventually found to be unconstitutional, but they helped delay the availability of funds for the rebuilding of homes.
The loss of human life was also reported in numbers which varied widely depending on the source. Numbers were as low as 9 whites and 21 blacks and as high as three hundred total of both whites and blacks by the Red Cross. National newspapers reported numbers as they were estimated by their reporters. According to the Red Cross, many burials took place without records being kept. An accurate estimate of the death toll is impossible today, as is the number of injuries.
More than 6,000 black people were held in the detention areas for up to eight days before they were allowed to return to where their homes had been. A black attorney and resident of the Greenwood neighborhood, Buck Colbert Franklin, began what became a lengthy legal battle to prevent the city from enforcing the ordinance passed to prevent rebuilding of the residential buildings in the district. Franklin was an eyewitness to the riots and their immediate aftermath, and a ten-page manuscript which he wrote was discovered in 2015 and now resides in the Smithsonian.
The losses from looting and theft were almost impossible to count. Documents in the Smithsonian report that for many years following the riot black women would see their jewelry, missing since the riot, being worn by white women they encountered on the streets of Tulsa. Many of the losses suffered were insured, but the insurance policies contained riders which made the insurer not liable for losses caused by riot. These included both personal property and real property.