JOEL DANIEL PHILLIPS

Mary E. Jones Parrish (ca. 1892— )was an educator and journalist best known for her eyewitness account of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Born in the late 19th century, Parrish moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma where she worked as a teacher and journalist. During the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Parrish, a resident of the Greenwood District, documented the violence that destroyed much of her neighborhood. Her account of the massacre, published as Events of the Tulsa Disaster in 1923, remains one of the most detailed and personal records of the massacre. The book includes firsthand narratives, interviews, and a list of property losses suffered by the Black residents of Greenwood. Events of the Tulsa Massacre remains a vital historical document of one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history.

Mary E. Jones Parrish’s work preserves the voices and experiences of the survivors, offering a rare and powerful testimony of the horrors faced by Tulsa’s Black community and the resilience that followed. Parrish’s legacy endures as a crucial figure in the fight to preserve the history of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.