The Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has been called "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history." The attack, carried out on the ground and from private aircraft, destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the district—at that time the wealthiest black community in the United States, known as "Black Wall Street".
The Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" was one of a series of "JN" biplanes built by the Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, New York, later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. Although the Curtiss JN series was originally produced as a training aircraft for the U.S. Army, the "Jenny" continued after World War I as a civil aircraft, as it became the "backbone of American postwar [civil] aviation."
Glenn Hammond Curtiss was an American aviation and motorcycling pioneer, and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry. He began his career as a bicycle racer and builder before moving on to motorcycles. As early as 1904, he began to manufacture engines for airships. In 1908, Curtiss joined the Aerial Experiment Association, a pioneering research group, founded by Alexander Graham Bell at Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, to build flying machines.
Tulsa International Airport is a civil-military airport five miles (8 km) northeast of downtown Tulsa, in Tulsa County, Oklahoma. It was named Tulsa Municipal Airport when the city acquired it in 1929; it got its present name in 1963.
Greater Rochester International Airport is a public airport located within the City of Rochester, three miles (6 km) southwest of Downtown, in Monroe County, New York. It is owned and operated by Monroe County. It is the fifth-busiest airport in the state of New York and the third-busiest outside of the New York City metropolitan area. The airport is home to the 642nd Aviation Support Battalion, part of the 42nd Infantry Division.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1921:
Air racing is a type of motorsport that involves airplanes or other types of aircraft that compete over a fixed course, with the winner either returning the shortest time, the one to complete it with the most points, or to come closest to a previously estimated time.
Roosevelt Field is a former airport, located 2.3 miles (3.7 km) east-southeast of Mineola, Long Island, New York. Originally called the Hempstead Plains Aerodrome, or sometimes Hempstead Plains field or the Garden City Aerodrome, it was a training field for the Air Service, United States Army during World War I.
The National Air Races are a series of pylon and cross-country races that have taken place in the United States since 1920. The science of aviation, and the speed and reliability of aircraft and engines grew rapidly during this period; the National Air Races were both a proving ground and showcase for this.
Greenwood is a historic freedom colony in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As one of the most prominent concentrations of African-American businesses in the United States during the early 20th century, it was popularly known as America's "Black Wall Street". It was burned to the ground in the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, in which white residents massacred as many as 300 black residents, injuring hundreds more, and leaving 5,000 people homeless. The riot was one of the most devastating massacres in the history of U.S. race relations, destroying the once-thriving Greenwood community.
Brown Field Municipal Airport is in the Otay Mesa neighborhood of San Diego, California, 13 miles (21 km) southeast of Downtown San Diego and named in honor of Commander Melville S. Brown, USN, who was killed in an airplane crash in 1936. Its main runway is 7,972 feet (2,430 m) long. Its FAA/IATA airport code is SDM. Formerly Naval Auxiliary Air Station Brown Field, it is now a civilian reliever airport and a port of entry from Mexico. It is sometimes staffed by the U.S. Customs Service, but only upon request of incoming pilots to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 45th-most populous city in the United States.
Dick Rowland or Roland was an African-American teenage shoeshiner whose arrest for assault in May 1921 was the impetus for the Tulsa Race Massacre. Rowland was 19 years old at the time. The alleged victim of the assault was a white, 17-year-old, elevator operator Sarah Page. She had declined to prosecute. According to conflicting reports, the arrest was prompted after Rowland tripped in Page's elevator on his way to a segregated bathroom, and a white store clerk reported the incident as an "assault" or a rape.
Harry Stephen Harkness was an American aviator and racing driver.
Alfred Victor Verville was an aviation pioneer and aircraft designer who contributed to civilian and military aviation. During his forty-seven years in the aviation industry, he was responsible for the design and development of nearly twenty commercial and military airplanes. Verville is known for designing flying boats, military racing airplanes, and a series of commercial cabin airplanes. His planes were awarded with the Pulitzer Speed Classic Trophy in 1920 and 1924.
The Verville-Sperry R-3 Racer was a cantilever wing monoplane with a streamlined fuselage and the second aircraft with fully retractable landing gear, the first being the Dayton-Wright Racer. In 1961, the R-3 racer was identified as one of the "Twelve Most Significant Aircraft of all Time" by Popular Mechanics magazine. In 1924, an R-3 won the Pulitzer Trophy in Dayton, OH.
The Curtiss Model 22 Cox Racers were two specialised racing aircraft built by the American Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. The type was flown as a monoplane, biplane and triplane.
Gerstner Field is a former World War I military airfield, located 11.1 miles (17.9 km) southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana. It operated as a training field for the Air Service, United States Army between 1917 until 1919. The airfield was one of thirty-two Air Service training camps established in 1917 after the United States entry into World War I.
Columbus Municipal Airport is an abandoned airport in New Mexico. Its origins date to 1916 when it was used by the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps as a military airfield during the Pancho Villa Expedition. It was apparently closed and abandoned in the late 1970s. Today, efforts are being made to restore it to a general aviation airport.
Lewis Summers Turner was a clerk, automobile salesman, Army pilot, barnstormer, airmail pilot, airline pilot, and one of ten recipients of the Airmail Flyers' Medal of Honor.
