In 2 U.S. cities haunted by race massacres, facing the past is painful and divisive

A dozen Black men were convicted of murder by all-white juries in connection with the 1919 massacre in Elaine, Ark. Above, defendants S.A. Jones, Ed Hicks, Frank Hicks, Frank Moore, J.C. Knox, Ed Coleman and Paul Hall with their attorney at the state penitentiary in Little Rock in 1925 after the Supreme Court overturned their convictions. (Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System)

Shortly after going to work for the Tulsa Historical Society in 2001, Michelle Place recalls historian Richard Warner hefting a large cardboard box atop her desk. "This is the most important collection that the Tulsa Historical Society has," he told her. "Guard it with your life."

Warner had co-authored the final report of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission, created by the Oklahoma Legislature to present a historical accounting of the infamous massacre that left upward of 300 African Americans dead and resulted in the destruction of "Black Wall Street," in the city's prosperous Greenwood enclave. The box contained all of the research the commission had collected.