Americans shudder when they hear about ethnic cleansing atrocities elsewhere in the world, but less than a century ago something similar was happening in the United States, a Kansas University professor says.

Bill Tuttle, American studies professor, is researching and writing an essay about the 1921 Tulsa, Okla., race riots, considered by some to be among the worst in history. About 300 people — mostly blacks — were killed in 16 hours.

Tuttle is looking at the significance of that incident and how it relates to major race riots in other cities between 1917 and 1923.

“These, to me, seem to be examples of ethnic cleansing,” Tuttle said. “I’m going to try to frame it in that context and compare it to Rwanda and Sudan. It’s the kind of ethnic cleansing we’ve seen in Bosnia.”

A few months ago Tuttle was commissioned to do the study for the U.S. Parks Service, which is partnering with the Organization of American Historians to look at the Tulsa riot. Although the Parks Service hasn’t said what it would do with the study, there has been talk in Tulsa and the state of Oklahoma about a museum and memorial focusing on the riot. There has even been talk of reparations.

A museum reconciliation committee is planning and taking steps toward building the museum, estimated to cost about $26 million, said Julius Pegues, a Tulsa resident who chairs the committee. Fund-raising has been under way and the committee hopes to obtain federal money and a historical designation as well.

“I think people thought it was long overdue, to reconcile the injustices that were done,” Pegues said in a telephone interview.

Tuttle has conducted other research for books and articles about race riots such as one in 1917 in East St. Louis, Ill., where 49 people were killed; in 1919 in Chicago when 38 people were killed; and in 1919 in Elaine, Ark., where 200 people were killed. There were several race riots in the U.S. in the summer of 1919, which is referred to as the Red Summer.

In Tulsa, the riot began the night of May 31, 1921, after mobs called for the lynching of a black man who shined shoes and was accused of assaulting a white woman.

Kansas University professor Bill Tuttle is researching and writing an essay for the U.S. Parks Service about the 1921 Tulsa, Okla., race riot, in which about 300 people were killed. Tuttle is pictured last week at his home office.

Outside the Tulsa courthouse a white man was killed in a struggle with a black man over a gun. Groups of whites began shooting blacks and setting fire to homes and businesses in the city’s black Greenwood district.

“Most of black Tulsa was burned to the ground,” Tuttle said. “The thing in Tulsa was not only did the police do very little, they actually deputized hundreds of white men. Some of them were about to join the Ku Klux Klan. They were told to shoot as many blacks as they could.”

Tuttle recently visited Tulsa to conduct research and interviewed a 91-year-old man whose family escaped and survived the riot.

“He was 8 years old at the time and he had a very vivid memory of what happened to his family as this white mob approached,” Tuttle said. “A lot of people had the choice of either burning to death in their house or running outside and getting shot.”

In addition to his writings, Tuttle is known to the Parks Service and national historians because he was a consultant in establishing the Brown v. Board of Education historical site in Topeka and has worked with others locally to get the Bleeding Kansas historical designation for the Lawrence area.

Tulsa City-County Library: Tulsa Race Riot Final report of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (pdf) Tulsa Historical Society

There have been several books written about the Tulsa riot, and as interest has grown four or five of them have come out in the past two years, Tuttle said.

“It’s kind of a hot topic right now, and quite frankly, it ought to be,” he said.