Dr. Scott Ellsworth

About Dr. Scott Ellsworth

    Born and raised in Tulsa, Scott Ellsworth is the author of Death in a Promised Land, the first comprehensive history of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.  He currently serves as the chair of the Physical Investigation Committee for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial, which discovered a mass grave at Oaklawn cemetery in October.  Described by Booklist as “a historian with the soul of a poet,” Scott is the author of The Secret Game, which won a 2016 PEN Book Award, and has written about American history and culture for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.  His newest book, about the Tulsa race massacre and its legacy, is The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice, of which Harvard Law School Professor Kenneth W. Mack wrote, “This book should be essential reading for anyone interested in an honest grappling with our racial past and the task of moving forward.”  Scott teaches in the Department of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan.