In partnership with MTV Entertainment Studios, Bassett Vance Productions has announced an original limited series on Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. The series will be produced by Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance’s production company and written by award-winning playwright Nathan Alan Davis. The program will depict events surrounding the two days when white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, attacked and destroyed the prosperous Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street. The racist massacre left more than three hundred Black Tulsans dead and thousands homeless or displaced.
The unnamed Tulsa project is the first series announced by the husband-wife duo’s production company as a partnering company with the Viacom CBS MTV Entertainment Group’s development program for BIPOC and women filmmakers.
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“Angela and I have always had a deep appreciation for history, especially when it comes to stories that are rooted in the Black community. We look forward to working on this series with MTV Entertainment Studios that will explore an important slice of American history as we look to reflect on events that changed the lives of countless Black families in Tulsa, Oklahoma one hundred years ago,” said Vance, who is also principal at Bassett Vance Productions. “With this year marking a century since the massacre, there is a renewed call for reparations and healing for the descendants of the victims and the Greenwood community as a whole.”
Developing a scripted series around the event of Tulsa may result in real change or at least some social awareness. Series like When They See Us and movies like Selma have helped reintroduce important events back into the social conscience, and producers like Bassett and Vance carry responsibility for depicting historical events.
“As storytellers—together with Courtney, Angela and Nathan—we have the privilege of shining a light on a devastating event in our history that is important, necessary, and still resonates 100 years later,” said Nina L. Diaz, president of Content and Chief Creative Officer at MTV Entertainment Group.
While many viewers are wary of another show depicting brutal and graphic black trauma, Vance notes the show “will also importantly introduce too many the stories of the extraordinary, entrepreneurial people who built Black Wall Street and all that this community accomplished.”
