Dr. Scott Ellsworth was born in March 1954. Ellsworth is an author, historian, and professor at the University of Michigan. Ellsworth teaches African American history, southern literature, and crime and justice in the United States today. He has also worked at the Smithsonian Institution as a historian. Ellsworth earned his PhD. at Duke University in 1982. He was a member of the Duke Oral History Program and in 1992 was the author of Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, the first inclusive history of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Ellsworth served as one of the lead historians for the Tulsa Race Riot Commission and remains involved in the legal battles for reparations for survivors and finding unmarked graves of the massacre victims.
Guide to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Oral History Collection, 2004-2007. National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution