Mary Jones Parrish survived the attack by a mob of white vigilantes on the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 1921 by fleeing her home on foot to safety. The attack, which came to be known as the Tulsa Race Massacre, completely destroyed the successful, independent African American community known nationally as Black Wall Street, brutally erasing years of toil and sacrifice in only a few hours.
Teacher and businesswoman Mary Parrish intrepidly set out to capture the stories of people in the traumatized community and record them, along with her own analysis, for posterity. She originally published her narrative in about 1923 under the title Events of the Tulsa Disaster, which Anneliese Bruner inherited from her father, Willilam Bruner Jr.; it came to be known as The Little Red Book. Others have duplicated it, even selling authentic-looking copies, but only approximately 25 were originally printed. Authentic copies are rare.