Four TV and Documentary Projects On The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Are In The Works

Back in April, Ashleigh Di Tonto, who is the VP development for Trailblazer Studios, pitched a documentary miniseries on the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. She was turned down multiple times.

“No one knew the story other than through Watchmen,” Di Tonto recalls, saying that Damon Lindelof’s HBO series featured a portrayal of the event. During Watchmen’s October premiere, the network explored the historical nightmare, when white rioters destroyed a wealthy section of the Oklahoma city known as Black Wall Street. “Now two networks called and want me to repitch it after they passed and said it was too obscure,” Di Tonto says.

The horrific murder of George Floyd changed everything. Since the unjustified murder by Minneapolis police back on May 25, the senseless act of violence ignited Black Lives Matter protests, and now four projects are in the works highlighting the 100th year anniversary of the Tulsa massacre next year.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, LeBron James production company Spring Hill will produce a documentary with Bad Rap’s Salima Koroma as the director. The executive producer of Surviving R. Kelly, Dream Hampton, is working on a miniseries called Black Wall Street produced by Cineflix Productions. Also, Russell Westbrook, another prominent NBA player, is partnering with production house Blackfin for a docuseries called Terror in Tulsa: The Rise and Fall of Black Wall Street, set to be directed by Stanley Nelson, the filmmaker behind Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool.

“The times have changed,” said Nelson. “In the last two weeks, the world has changed.”

Nelson also spoke on the Tulsa massacre with a 2019 PBS documentary, Boss: The Black Experience in Business. “It was heartbreaking not to be able to spend more time on it,” he said. He added that he capitalized on the opportunity to tackle the subject when asked by Blackfin and Westbrook. They are now in the ending stages of pitching a proposed four-part series to networks and financiers.

While the filmmakers are silent on the specific details, each wants to build a bridge between the past and present, and give a sense of resonance. “One of the things I’ve been able to do with my films is make history come into the present,” said Nelson. “We don’t want to ever make a film that you sit back and watch and go, ‘Well that was interesting, let me go eat a hamburger.'”

Di Tonto has secured an exclusive partnership with Tulsa’s Centennial Committee and Greenwood Cultural Center, a nonprofit preserving the history of Black Wall Street. “We really want to showcase what they are trying to do in 2021,” Di Tonto said, adding that the project hopes to present “the past and present rebuilding and not just make it about the massacre.”

Cineflix president J.C. Mills said in his June 1 scripted miniseries announcement that Hampton’s “sensitive yet hard-hitting approach will honor the fallen and help heal a wound by shining a light on a story that’s been brushed under the rug for far too long.”

Di Tonto said, “In just a few months, we’re now at multiple projects with huge names, and this may sound trite, but I’m just happy that this is being told.”