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The framework/through line we see in all historic thriving Black towns.

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Underlying the recent unrest sweeping U.S. cities over police brutality is a fundamental inequity in wealth, land and power that has circumscribed black lives since the end of slavery in the U.S.

The " 40 acres and a mule " promised to formerly enslaved Africans never came to pass. There was no redistribution of land, no reparations for the wealth extracted from stolen land by stolen labor.

June 19 is celebrated by black Americans as Juneteenth, marking the date in 1865 that former slaves were informed of their freedom, albeit two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Coming this year at a time of protest over the continued police killing of black people, it provides an opportunity to look back at how black Americans were deprived of land ownership and the economic power that it brings. An expanded concept of the "black commons" - based on shared economic, cultural and digital resources as well as land - could act as one means of redress. As professors in urban planning and landscape architecture, our research suggests that such a concept could be a part of undoing the racist legacy of chattel slavery by encouraging economic development and creating communal wealth.

Land grab

The proportion of the United States under black ownership has actually shrunk over the last 100 years or so.

At their peak in 1910, African American farmers made up around 14% of all U.S. farmers, owning 16 to 19 million acres of land. By 2012, black Americans represented just 1.6% of the farming community, owning 3.6 million acres of land. Another study shows a 98% decline in black farmers between 1920, and 1997. This contrasts sharply with an increase in acres owned by white farmers over the same period.

In a 1998 report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture ascribed this decline to a long and "well-documented" history of discrimination against black farmers, ranging from New Deal and USDA discriminatory practices dating from the 1930s to 1950s-era exclusion from legal, title and loan resources.

Discriminatory practices have also affected who owns property as well as land. In 2017, the racial homeownership gap was at its highest level for 50 years, with 79.1% of white Americans owning a home compared to 41.8% of black Americans. This gap is even larger than it was when racist housing practices such as redlining, which denied black residents mortgages to buy, or loans to renovate, property were legal.

The lack of ownership is crucial to understanding the crippling economic disparity that has hollowed out the black middle class and continues to plague black America - making it harder to accrue wealth and pass it on to future generations.

A 2017 report found that the median net worth for non-immigrant black American households in the greater Boston region was just US$8, but for whites it was $247,500. This was due to "general housing and lending discrimination through restrictive covenants, redlining and other lending practices."

Nationally, between 1983 and 2013, median black household wealth decreased by 75% to $1,700 while median white household wealth increased 14% to $116,800.

Freedom farms

Land ownership today could look very different. The idea of collective ownership has a long history in the United States. Even during slavery, a piece of ground was granted by slave masters for enslaved African subsistence farming. The Jamaican social theorist Sylvia Wynter called this land "the plot."

Wynter has explained how that these parcels of land were transformed into communal areas where slaves could establish their own social order, sustain traditional African folklore and foodways - growing yams, cassava and sweet potatoes. Plots were often called " yam grounds," so important was this staple food.

The connection between food, land, power and cultural survival was subversive in its nature. By appropriating physical space to support collective growing practices within the brutal constraints of slavery, black people also demonstrated the need for common, shared mental space to enable their survival and resistance. Herbalism, medicine and midwifery, and other African American healing practices were seen as acts of resistance that were "intimately tied to religion and community," according to historian Sharla M. Fett.

With the end of slavery, these plots disappeared.

The principles of collective land ownership evolved in post-slavery black America. It was central to civil rights organizer Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farms, a cooperative model designed to deliver economic justice to the poorest black farmers in the American South.

In Hamer's view, the fight for justice in the face of oppression required a measure of independence that could be achieved through owning land and providing resources for the community.

This idea of a black commons as a means of economic empowerment formed a focus of W.E.B. DuBois' 1907 " Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans." DuBois believed that the extreme segregation of the Jim Crow era made it necessary to ground economic empowerment in the cultural bonds between black people and that this could be achieved through cooperative ownership.

Credit unions and co-ops

The accumulation of wealth was not the only desired consequence of a black commons.

In 1967, social critic Harold Cruse argued for a " new institutionalism " that would create a "new dynamic synthesis of politics, economics, and culture." In his view, economic ventures needed to be grounded in the greater aspirations of black communities - politically, culturally and economically. This could be achieved through a black commons.

As the political economist Jessica Gordon Nembhard has noted in reference to black credit unions and mutual aid funds, "African Americans, as well as other people of color and low-income people, have benefited greatly from cooperative ownership and democratic economic participation throughout the nation's history."

The nonprofit Schumacher Center for a New Economics is working to rejuvenate the idea of black commons. In a 2018 statement, the center proposed to adopt a community land trust structure "to serve as a national vehicle to amass purchased and gifted lands in a black commons with the specific purpose of facilitating low-cost access for black Americans hitherto without such access."

Meanwhile, shared equity housing schemes and community land trusts continue to grow, helping black families own property, advance racial and economic justice and mitigate displacement resulting from gentrification.

Digital commons

The disproportionate effects of the coronavirus pandemic and unrest over police brutality have highlighted deeply embedded structural racism. Organizations such as Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives are demonstrating a renewed vigor around collective action and a blueprint for how this can be achieved in a digital age. At the same time, black Americans are also forging a cultural commons through events such as DJ D-Nice's Club Quarantine - a hugely popular online dance party. Club Quarantine's success indicates the potential for using online platforms to facilitate community building, pointing toward future economic cooperation.

That's what organizations like Urban Patch are trying to do. The nonprofit group uses crowdsourced funding to build community spaces in inner city areas of Indianapolis and encourage collective economic development that echoes the black commons of years past.

The long history of racism in the United States has held back black Americans for generations. But the current soul searching over this legacy is also an unrivaled opportunity to look again at the idea of collective black action and ownership, using it to create a community and economy that goes beyond just ownership of land for wealth's sake.

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Land loss has plagued black America since emancipation - is it time to look again at 'black commons' and collective ownership?

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Black farmers own far less land than they did in 1910 and the racial gap in homeownership is at the highest level for 50 years.

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Entrepreneurship and business ownership-particularly of community-based businesses-are crucial ways to develop community wealth, for both business owners and the people they employ. Healthy Black-owned businesses could be a critical component for closing the United States' Black-white wealth gap, which we project will cost the economy $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion (in 2018 dollars) per year by 2028. The COVID-19 crisis, however, has further stressed Black-owned businesses and may cause the racial wealth gap to widen. This gap includes a $290 billion-and growing-opportunity to grow overall wealth by achieving revenue parity between Black- and white-owned businesses in addition to providing aid to small and medium-size businesses (SMBs)-those with up to 500 employees-with nonwhite owners.

Black business owners have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic-linked economic downturn, partly because they were more likely to already be in a precarious position, including more likely to be located in communities with business environments that are more likely to produce poor business outcomes. Indeed, about 58 percent of Black-owned businesses were at risk of financial distress before the pandemic, compared with about 27 percent of white-owned businesses. The pandemic contributed to tipping 41 percent of Black-owned US businesses into closure from February to April 2020. More than 50 percent of the owners of surviving Black businesses surveyed in May reported being very or extremely concerned about the viability of their businesses. This concern may be linked to having a more difficult time accessing credit since the COVID-19 crisis began; 36 percent of Black business owners responding to the survey said they had experienced this, compared with 29 percent of all respondents.

Black Americans have never had an equal ability to reap the benefits of business ownership. While about 15 percent of white Americans hold some business equity, only 5 percent of Black Americans do. Among those with business equity, the average Black American's business equity is worth about 50 percent of the average American's and a third of the average white American's (Exhibit 1).

Black-owned businesses also tend to earn lower revenues in most industries and are overrepresented in low-growth, low-revenue industries such as food service and accommodations.

This gap in business activity contributes to an overall lower level of prosperity for Black families: the median white family's wealth is more than ten times the wealth of the median Black family's. This disparity is also a lost opportunity for the US economy as a whole. If existing Black-owned businesses reached the same average revenue as their white-owned industry counterparts (excluding publicly held companies), the result would be an additional $200 billion in recurring direct revenues, which could equal about $190 billion in additional GDP, or a roughly 1 percent increase in 2017 GDP. (For our analytical approach, see sidebar "Quantifying the impact of revenue parity.")

Our analysis mapped barriers throughout the entrepreneurial pathway: ideation and starting up, sustaining, scaling, and exiting (see sidebar "Entrepreneurial pathway: Building a business, from ideation to exit").

We focus here on the systemic barriers that hinder Black entrepreneurs' efforts to ideate and start and sustain local businesses-that is, community-based SMBs that are part of existing supply chains. We then outline interventions that can counteract the effects of these obstacles, particularly opportunities for coordinated efforts. Indeed, US institutions need to repair Black business owners' trust in the business ecosystem-particularly in companies in financial and business services. This historic lack of trust may be slowing business creation; research shows that Black business owners may believe that they need to be better qualified than their white counterparts: 30 percent of Black owners of employer firms (businesses with at least one paid employee) hold an advanced degree, which is true of 22 percent of their white peers.

A silver lining of COVID-19 and the racially charged violence in 2020 may end up being that some large companies have now launched programs to support Black-owned businesses.

Barriers to business building for Black entrepreneurs

Throughout the business-building process, Black business owners face economic, market, sociocultural, and institutional barriers, which are all linked to racial discrimination in the United States. Economic barriers relate to disempowerment and the costs of low starting levels of capital-for individuals, families, and communities. Market barriers result from unaddressed needs, often related to challenges of access-to capital, expertise, and services. Sociocultural barriers encompass the biased and exclusionary ways in which Black entrepreneurs are more likely to be blocked from gaining social capital, such as helpful relationships that make up business networks. Finally, institutional barriers are supported by the systems in which Black-owned businesses operate and include factors as basic as their locations.

Ideating

Black entrepreneurs tend to make decisions in the business-ideation stage that are likely to keep their businesses small. Black entrepreneurs generally pursue businesses in less lucrative sectors. Only five industries represent employer businesses (that is, businesses that employ paid employees) owned by 74 percent of Black women business owners and 62 percent of Black male business owners: healthcare and social assistance; professional, scientific, and technical services; administrative support and waste management services; construction; and transportation and warehousing (Exhibit 2).

These sectors represent only 20 percent of business revenues overall. Meanwhile, although wholesale businesses represent 24 percent of business revenues, only 1 percent of Black women and 2 percent of Black men who are entrepreneurs are in the sector (see sidebar "Uphill climb for Black women in entrepreneurship").

Location can also limit Black entrepreneurs' business potential. Sixty-five percent of Black Americans live in 16 states that are below the US average on indicators of economic opportunity. Within their communities, Black Americans are also disproportionately concentrated in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Black entrepreneurs from these communities are less likely than their white peers to have exposure and access to lucrative business opportunities.

Black entrepreneurs might also lack access to the networks and relationships that could help them make optimal business decisions. Research on New York-based start-ups shows that founders who are mentored by top-performing entrepreneurs are three times more likely than their co-located peers without mentors to become top performers themselves. Outside the start-up world, a knowledgeable contact may help a prospective entrepreneur make decisions such as whether to buy a franchise for up-front capital or to build an independent business.

Starting up and sustaining

The focus of the start-up and sustain phases of entrepreneurship should be on ensuring the business's survival and increasing its profitability. However, Black entrepreneurs' mistrust of institutions-based on their experiences and knowledge of the United States' history of discrimination-can make them wary of using potential resources outside their communities. Combined with a lack of informal and geographic connections to such resources-including venture-capital networks-this tendency can isolate Black entrepreneurs from potential sources of support. (For an overview of the public sector's attempts at closing the gap between Black- and white-owned businesses-and their pitfalls-see sidebar "Legislating for more equitable business outcomes.")

Start-up capital is associated with better business performance, but Black entrepreneurs have less of it. Black entrepreneurs start their businesses with about $35,000 of capital, white entrepreneurs $107,000. As a partial consequence, Black-owned businesses report higher levels of debt relative to revenues. Almost 30 percent of Black-owned businesses spent more than 50 percent of their revenues to service their debt in 2019. Indeed, Black entrepreneurs are three times as likely as white entrepreneurs to say that a lack of access to capital negatively affects their businesses' profitability and almost twice as likely to cite the cost of capital. This lack of capital occurs even though the requirements for Black applicants are more stringent. In one study, 73 percent of Black loan applicants were asked to provide financial statements for their businesses, compared with 50 percent of white applicants with comparable profiles. In addition, 31 percent of Black applicants were asked to provide their personal W-2 forms. No white applicants received such a request.

Black entrepreneurs are three times as likely as white entrepreneurs to say that a lack of access to capital negatively affects their businesses' profitability and almost twice as likely to cite the cost of capital.

Black entrepreneurs can also have difficulty accessing expertise and business services. Black owners of employer firms, which are more likely to benefit from services such as legal and financial advisory, are less likely to seek them out. Only 58 percent of Black owners sought professional services, for reasons including expense, inaccessibility, and mistrust, compared with 70 percent of white owners.

Business networks can support Black entrepreneurs, but Black entrepreneurs are less likely to know and hear about relevant networks that can help support and promote their businesses. Indeed, Black entrepreneurs are likely to be excluded from receiving information about high-potential opportunities, even though focus-group participants said that they would like to connect with a variety of business professionals and mentors. This exclusion translates into fewer connections to formal hubs, such as banks and venture-capital funds, and from informal networks. One sign of this disconnection is that corporate and government procurement programs that target Black-owned businesses tend to be underused. The Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) found in 2016 that Black-owned businesses saw less utilization relative to their availability than white-owned businesses did in the same industries. The median share of contract dollars awarded to Black-owned businesses across five key industries-architecture and engineering, construction, goods and supplies, professional services, and other services-was 4 to 44 percent of contractors' availability, compared with 49 to 61 percent for white-owned businesses.

The aggregate barriers to starting and sustaining a Black-owned business translate structural bias into less access to capital, lower revenue, and dimmer prospects for business growth. The mainstream financial system's role in those barriers has helped to maintain Black Americans' distrust of the financial sector as well as fear of debt.

Interventions

Insufficient access to capital, knowledge, and support ultimately leaves many Black entrepreneurs less economically mobile and limits the potential of entrepreneurship to grow wealth for Black families and communities. Interventions to tackle these barriers will require public-, private-, and social-sector stakeholders to evaluate current business ecosystems and rebuild them to be equitable and more supportive for Black business owners. In particular, local anchor institutions such as hospitals and universities can take the lead on collaborating with the public and social sectors to coordinate the work of disparate organizations. Local economic-development institutions, community development financial institutions, chambers of commerce, and other government agencies such as the Small Business Administration or MBDA are already engaged in these activities. But because anchor institutions are tethered to their communities, they stand to reap long-term benefits from investing in more equitable-and healthier-business communities.

Indeed, this work requires instituting policies that create more equitable outcomes in addition to assuring equitable access to capital. Black leaders' input can help create positive experiences and build Black entrepreneurs' trust in institutions and ecosystems that have felt exclusionary. In addition, the private and social sectors should help Black-owned businesses build capabilities and facilitate knowledge sharing. Expanded opportunities for mentorship (advisory) and sponsorship (advocacy) can further solidify bonds between Black entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in business ecosystems.

Implement policies that produce equitable outcomes

The public, private, and social sectors can all participate in removing institutional barriers for Black-owned businesses. Stakeholders could ensure that laws, policies, and practices are designed to produce equitable opportunities and outcomes.

Policy makers, industry groups, affinity groups, and coalitions of stakeholders could enforce laws and policies aimed at preventing inequitable processes and outcomes. After a review of the current laws and policies and their effects, stakeholders could consider updating antidiscrimination policies. Crucially, stakeholders could set up-or support-internal and external watchdog groups dedicated to creating research on equity in processes and policy outcomes.

In addition, procurement practices, especially at anchor institutions and large organizations, can evolve to be more inclusive of Black-owned businesses. Besides dedicating funds to procurement from Black-owned businesses, large organizations could simplify their minority-supplier certification processes so that they can take on new suppliers more quickly. Organizations should also dedicate funding to supplier-development programs that can help Black-owned suppliers better participate in supply chains.

Once their supplier programs are established, organizations should track their procurement spending with important categories of suppliers and make the data more widely available to track progress and promote accountability. For instance, one North American bank committed to tracking its spending with diverse suppliers, the number of minority-certified suppliers it engages, and the number of requests for information and proposals to these suppliers. This work is especially urgent during the pandemic-linked economic crisis, and entities that have an interest in keeping business ecosystems vibrant may be able to lead the effort.

Enable equitable access to capital

To overcome economic barriers, Black-owned SMBs need direct investment or in-kind equity contributions, including grants, subsidies, loans, and revenue-participation agreements. Direct investment is especially important during the COVID-19 crisis. Our analysis suggests that an additional $7.6 billion to $15.4 billion in liquidity for Black-owned SMBs in the 2020-21 time frame-less than 3 percent of the $659 billion authorized under the Paycheck Protection Program-could preserve 460,000 to 815,000 jobs, for an average of $9,325 to $33,478 per job.

An additional $7.6 billion to $15.4 billion in liquidity for Black-owned SMBs in the 2020-21 time frame-less than 3 percent of the $659 billion authorized under the Paycheck Protection Program-could preserve 460,000 to 815,000 jobs, for an average of $9,325 to $33,478 per job.

The public and private sectors' immediate priority during the COVID-19 economic crisis has been to provide SMBs with grants and loan deferrals. However, increasing the availability of financial resources, particularly start-up and expansion capital, for Black entrepreneurs, will be crucial to improving business owners' experience and replenishing the pipeline of growing businesses. For example, banks, conventional and social-impact investors, foundations, and public programs could make more capital available to Black-owned businesses. Possible programs include ones that make extending capital to Black-owned businesses less risky through measures such as guaranteeing funds and programs that help entrepreneurs from marginalized backgrounds acquire more capabilities. A short-term counterweight to the effects of bias in the loan process could be conducting fewer in-person transactions. Indeed, Black entrepreneurs are already more likely to borrow online, where their race may be less salient. A program for small-business investment companies that provides high-growth small businesses with capital and R&D funding could also accelerate the growth of Black-owned businesses that hold intellectual property and may foster Black entrepreneurship in high-growth industries.

A network of volunteer professional services providers and coaches could help Black-owned businesses navigate the process of attaining loans, grants, and other affordable capital, including from large corporations and nonprofit organizations.

In addition to continuing the long-term project of cultivating Black leaders in positions of influence on capital funding, cross-sector entities could convene and support a consortium of Black fund managers to participate in issuing and managing debt and equity investments in small businesses. The SBA already licenses small-business investment companies that guarantee funds that invest in SMBs. Increasing the share of Black fund managers in this program and simultaneously investing in Black managers-and the pipeline of Black leaders-in the private sector could have compounding effects.

Build business capabilities and facilitate knowledge sharing

To overcome market barriers, Black-owned SMBs need support for building capabilities and sharing a greater amount of knowledge. Black service providers, compensated by organizations working to support equity in entrepreneurship, can lead these capability-building efforts. This work would protect and strengthen Black-owned businesses and build business networks with Black-owned SMBs as hubs.

The private and social sectors-particularly anchor institutions-could provide resources, including help with reskilling and upskilling Black-owned businesses' workers, to make Black-owned SMBs nimbler. For instance, a major social-media platform built a resource hub to provide businesses with industry-specific information they could use during the pandemic. Similarly, on-the-job training and free web-based courses are both resources that can be easily shared among multiple-indeed, many-businesses. Business-services providers could also facilitate digital transformations to help businesses identify new market opportunities.

Finally, digital capabilities will increase Black entrepreneurs' share of opportunities, but the corresponding business services are long-unmet needs. Many Black-owned businesses lack the resources to hire service providers that can help them digitize their businesses, but private-sector and social-sector organizations can provide free technology services and managerial assistance. Free or subsidized installation, tech support, and staff training can help Black-owned businesses acquire more digital capabilities and become more able to share this knowledge with other Black-owned businesses in their communities.

Expand opportunities for mentorship and sponsorship

Community programs can help Black entrepreneurs connect with role models and commercial networks that can help Black prospective entrepreneurs pursue business ownership with more confidence and support. For instance, the private and social sectors could facilitate networking and partnerships between established businesses and compatible start-ups.

An investment in more business ecosystems that provide Black business owners equitable access to resources and opportunities can unlock part of the $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion in annual GDP that would come from closing the racial wealth gap. More important, by making social and economic institutions supportive of a wider swath of people, stakeholders can rectify the mistrust that has developed between Black entrepreneurs and institutions. That restorative effect, along with economic gains, could be a step forward for US society.

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Building supportive ecosystems for Black-owned US businesses

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Entrepreneurship and business ownership-particularly of community-based businesses-are crucial ways to develop community wealth, for both business owners and the people they employ. Healthy Black-owned businesses could be a critical component for closing the United States' Black-white wealth gap, which we project will cost the economy $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion (in 2018 dollars) per year by 2028.

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Leading Locally: A Community Power-Building Approach to Structural Change - Lead Local

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Organizing and base building are the foundation of community power building, but do not exist in a vacuum. There is an ecosystem of advocacy groups, legal supporters, research centers, and intermediaries that play important roles. Yet, organizing is too often seen as being in service to an agenda determined by professional advocates, funders, or communications experts.

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Organizing for Power, Organizing for Change

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What is Power? How does it work?

Power is the ability to act.

Power is not good or bad. It is how you use it and toward what end.

Power unchecked or unaccountable can corrupt - it can also reveal...

Power is not a zero sum game - there is not a limited amount.

Power is not set, it is relational. People power has the ability to alter the relationship.

Exercising our power consciously can manifest the outcomes we desire.

There are different kinds of power:

Power Over - that's what the boss or state use

Power With - horizontal organizing, that what we need to model and build

Power Within - every single one of us has power to act. For some this is also spirit - a willingness to be fully alive, present and participating as an agent of change.

Power Under - when we give up the power that we have, when we say we can't instead of won't.

Sources of Identified Power:

Authority or Legitimacy

Human Resources

Material Resources

Skills and Knowledge

Psychological Factors

Sanctions

Privilege

What kind of power do we need?

Organized people - collectives, unions, coalitions, cooperatives

Organized money - pooling funds, dues etc, collectively we have more

Organized actions/votes - political power to persuade, convince, coerce just action

We live in a culture or world of Power Over.... No matter where you look -in workplaces, communities, states or nations - the power dynamics are the same. We look to those people with money or political power or some other authority - mother, father, priest, teacher, doctor, and newscaster etc to tell us what to do. The power of the people relies on our collective spirit and many people taking collective action toward the same goal. It is by nature decentralized and horizontal. Right now we don't have enough power to create the kind of world we want and the State does lots of things to insure we don't get it. Once we begin to understand how power works, we can learn how to organize to build more....

The State (Boss) is able to maintain itself because we let them. "All those who govern derive their power from the consent of the governed."

We cooperate, we go along...why...because we are afraid of what will happen if we don't. The State (or Boss) in subtle and not so subtle ways will show by example what the cost can be if you don't go along. In the workplace the ultimate punishment is often firing a worker, but outside the workplace people have been killed as a result of their struggle for justice.

It is not the punishment that keeps us obedient it is the fear of punishment.

But obedience is not inevitable. We must organize in ways that overcome fear, apathy and neutrality. We do this by taking one step at a time, building support around each other and escalating to the next step. We do this by giving our opponent the opportunity to do the right thing and when they don't, we escalate again and again until we have won or completely withdrawn our cooperation. To make withdrawing our cooperation possible, we must understand the consequences of our actions. If we are willing to assume the consequence, there is nothing they can do to stop us.

So we see that in this paradigm, we begin to take our power back when we refuse to go along, when we no longer cooperate with the injustice. This is a choice. When we see power as an exercise of choices, we begin to see that every day, every moment gives us an opportunity to exercise our power and that our choices become opportunities to either liberate or oppress. When people cross lines that typically divide, they generate power, power that builds spirit and trust and conscious organizing. That is one of the greatest challenges of an organizer - how to bring diverse communities into respectful relationship with one another, where using or losing privilege strategically can equalize power and spread access to resources to those who have the least, where those most impacted have the greatest voice.

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What is Power? How does it work? Power is the ability to act. Power is not good or bad. It is how you use it and toward what end. Power unchecked or unaccountable can corrupt - it can also reveal... ...

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Politics is a game of fear. Those who do not have the ability to make power elites afraid do not succeed. All of the movements that opened up the democratic space in America-the abolitionists, the suffragists, the labor movement, the communists, the socialists, the anarchists and the civil rights movement-developed a critical mass and militancy that forced the centers of power to respond. The platitudes about justice, equality and democracy are just that. Only when power becomes worried about its survival does it react. Appealing to its better nature is useless. It doesn't have one.

We once had within our capitalist democracy liberal institutions-the press, labor unions, third political parties, civic and church groups, public broadcasting, well-funded public universities and a liberal wing of the Democratic Party-that were capable of responding to outside pressure from movements. They did so imperfectly. They provided only enough reforms to save the capitalist system from widespread unrest or, with the breakdown of capitalism in the 1930s, from revolution. They never addressed white supremacy and institutional racism or the cruelty that is endemic to capitalism. But they had the ability to address and ameliorate the suffering of working men and women.

These liberal institutions-I spend 248 pages in my book "Death of the Liberal Class" explaining how this happened-collapsed under sustained assault during the past 40 years of corporate power. They exist now only in name. They are props in the democratic facade. Liberal nonprofits, from MoveOn to the Sierra Club, are no better. They are pathetic appendages to the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party, as the community organizer Michael Gecan said, is not a functioning political party but "a permanent mobilization." It is propped up with corporate money and by a hyperventilating media machine. It practices political coronations and manipulates voters, who have no real say in party politics. There are, as the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin reminded us, no institutions left in America that can authentically be called democratic.

But, even more ominously, the militant movements that were the real engines of democratic change have been obliterated by the multi-pronged assault of communist witch hunts and McCarthyism, along with deindustrialization, a slew of anti-labor laws and deregulation, and corporate seizure of our public and private institutions. This has left us nearly defenseless.

The corporate state ignores the suffering of the majority of Americans. It rams through policies that make the suffering worse. This is about to get turbocharged under Donald Trump. Institutions, the courts among them, that once were able to check the excesses of power are slavish subsidiaries of corporate power. And the most prescient critics of corporate power-Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader and others-have been blacklisted and locked out by corporate media, including a public broadcasting system that depends on corporate money.

We will have to build movements and, most importantly, new, parallel institutions that challenge the hegemony of corporate power. It will not be easy. It will take time. We must not accept foundation money and grants from established institutions that seek to curtail the radical process of reconstituting society. Trusting in the system, and especially the Democratic Party, to carry out reform and wrest back our democracy ensures our enslavement.

"Power is organized people and organized money," Gecan told me when I interviewed him in New York recently. "Most activists stress organized people and forget organized money. As organizers, we stress both."

"We think the issues are, in a sense, the easy part," said Gecan, who is the co-director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, the largest network of community-based organizations in the United States. He is also the author of " Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action." "When we go to a place like East Brooklyn, or South Bronx, or the west side of Chicago, you can take a ride around the neighborhood and see many of the issues right up front. What we can't see is-is there a fabric of relationships among institutions and leaders in those areas? We spend the first year, or two, or three, building that. Identifying leaders. Identifying institutions that are actually grounded in those communities. Doing training with leaders. Raising money so that the organization doesn't run out of money right at the start."

"We don't take government money," he said. "We want independence. We want ownership. We want people to have skin in the game. We want people to be able to walk away from any situation they want to, to confront anyone they want to, without worrying about having their budget being slashed or eliminated. So we stress both. Organized people and organized money is essentially building the foundation of the organization first. And then, once that's fairly solid, we begin identifying issues through a real, deliberate process of house meetings, individual meetings, soliciting to people. And not just doing a poll in the community. [We find out] what do you care about? What are you concerned about? By asking people what they are concerned about and are they willing to do something about it."

This process of institution building permits organizers and activists to eventually pit power against power.

"The decision-making in those situations is not about merit, how nice you are, or how deep the need is," Gecan said. "It's about do you have enough power to compel a reaction from the state or a reaction from the corporate sector. When people say what are you building around, I say we're building around power. People who understand power tend to have the patience to build a base, do the training, raise the money, so when they go into action they surprise people."

The corporate press echoes the pronouncements of the power elites. It is blind to the undercurrents and moods of the wider society. It did not anticipate the election of Trump any more than it did the financial crash in 2008. It does not report on the lives of ordinary men and women. It shuts out their voices and renders them invisible. And it-like the power structure-will be among the last to know that the bankrupt social and political systems that sustain it are collapsing. Once the ruling ideology, in our case neoliberalism, is understood by the public as a tool for corporate and oligarchic pillage, coercion is all the state has left.

I asked Gecan what characteristics he looks for in identifying leaders. "Anger," he shot back. "It's not hot anger. It's not rhetorical anger. It's not the ability to give a speech. It's deep anger that comes from grief. People in the community who look at their children, look at their schools, look at their blocks, and they grieve. They feel the loss of that. Often, those people are not the best speaker or the best-known people in the community. But they're very deep. They have great relationships with other people. And they can build trust with other people because they're not self-promotional. They're about what the issues are in the community. So we look for anger. We look for the pilot light of leadership. It's always there. It's always burning. Good leaders know to turn it up and down depending on the circumstance."

If we are to succeed we will have to make alliances with people and groups whose professed political stances are different from ours and at times unpalatable to us. We will have to shed our ideological purity. Saul Alinsky, whose successor, Ed Chambers, was Gecan's mentor, argued that the ideological rigidity of the left-something epitomized in identity politics and political correctness-effectively severed it from the lives of working men and women. This was especially true during the Vietnam War when college students led the anti-war protests and the sons of the working class did the fighting and dying in Vietnam. But it is true today as liberals and the left dismiss Trump supporters as irredeemable racists and bigots and ignore their feelings of betrayal and very real suffering. Condemning those who support Trump is political suicide. Alinsky detested such moral litmus tests. He insisted that there were "no permanent enemies, no permanent allies, only permanent interests."

"We have to listen to people unlike ourselves," Gecan said, observing that this will be achieved not through the internet but through face-to-face relationships. "And once we've built a relationship we can agitate them and be willing to be agitated by them."

The homogenization of culture in the wake of the death of the local press and local civic, church and other groups has played a large part in our disempowerment, Gecan argues. We have lost connection with those around us. We do not fully understand the corporate structures of power that wreak havoc with our lives both nationally and in our communities. And this is by the design of the corporate state.

"Over seventy-five years the process of community dissolution that took place in Back of the Yards has been mirrored in thousands of U.S. communities," Gecan wrote of Alinsky's first community organization, Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council, founded in 1939 in Chicago. "Everywhere the tightly-knit worlds of a dozen or so blocks-where workplace, church, neighborhood, recreation, tavern, and political affiliation were all deeply entwined-have given way to exurban enclaves, long commutes, gathered congregations, matchmaker websites, and fitness clubs filled with customers who don't know one another. A world where local news was critically important and closely followed-often delivered by local publishers and reporters and passed along by word of mouth-has been replaced by the constant flow of real and fake news arriving through social media. A world of physically imposing and present institutions and organizations has morphed into a culture of global economic dynamics and fitful national mobilizations built around charismatic figures."

"You have to organize who is in front of you," Gecan said. "Not who used to be in front of you. In places like Chicago, Cleveland or Baltimore, the congregation used to be very robust. Congregations that were strong are weaker. We're still organizing with them but still looking at different institutions. Schools are institutions. They're more complicated, but they're institutions in those neighborhoods. We're recruiting schools in many places; sometimes it's housing groups. Sometimes we build new institutions called East Brooklyn Congregations or United Power for Action and Justice. We're recruiting the best of the existing, we're working with the existing to reconnect with people and expand. And we find new institutions. It has to be institutional in some way."

Gecan concedes that America's future under a Trump presidency, and amid democratic institutions' collapse and climate change, is bleak. But he warned against falling into despair or apathy.

"In 1980 in New York, all the liberal establishment, the entire establishment, was saying New York would never be as strong as it once was," he said. "It was called benign neglect. They wrote off parts of New York permanently in their minds." But community groups, including Brooklyn Congregations, which built 5,000 low-income homes, organized to save themselves.

"Our organizations and our leaders simply didn't accept that judgment from the elites," Gecan said. "Things are tough, hard, but we're going to build an organization. We're going to identify things we can correct and correct them-with government if we can, or without it. We'll raise our own money. We'll figure out our housing strategy. We'll hire our own developer and general manager. It's about being more flexible and plastic about solutions. It's not relying on what the state or market says is possible. It's creating your own options."

Institution building is possible only if you "engage institutions or create newer and better ones-whether it's churches or civic unions," he said. Without these, the power in the other two sectors-corporate and governmental-dominates.

The state, he said, has learned how to manipulate familiar protest rituals and render them impotent. He dismisses as meaningless political theater the kind of boutique activism in which demonstrators coordinate and even choreograph protests with the police. Activists spend a few hours, maybe a night, in jail and then assume they have credentials as dissidents. Gecan called these "fake arrests." "Everyone looks like they've had an action," he said. "They haven't."

He called the choreographed protests sterile re-enactments of the protests of the 1960s. Genuine protest, he said, has to defy the rules. It cannot be predicable. It has to disrupt power. It has to surprise those in authority. And these kinds of protests are greeted with anger by the state.

No movement will survive, he said, unless it is built on the foundation of deep community relationships. Organizers must learn to listen, even to those who do not agree with them. Only then are organization and active resistance possible.

"Three things have to be happening in great organizations: people have to be relating, people have to be learning, people have to be acting," he said. "In many religious circles, there's some learning going on, there's a little bit of relating going on, but there's no action. There's no external action. And it's killed many institutions. In a lot of activism, there's a lot of acting but there's not much relating or learning, so people make the same mistakes again and again."

"I was in Wisconsin during the [Gov. Scott] Walker situation and the reaction to it," he said about the 2011 protests by union members and their supporters. "They did 23 major demonstrations. Fifty [thousand], 70 [thousand], 100,000 people. After the second or third I said to those people, why are you doing all this? Because as you do these, you can't be building relationships in local communities. And you don't know what your own members are thinking about this situation. It ended up being unfortunately the case."

"Can we rebuild unions?" Gecan asked. "We can. It takes time. And we're doing it in some parts of the country. Can we rebuild civic life in our cities? We have and will do more. Can we take these people on? I know we can. But it will take different tactics. It will take some very unconventional allies that will surprise people."

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Opinion | Building the Institutions for Revolt

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Politics is a game of fear. Those who do not have the ability to make power elites afraid do not succeed.

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1921 Graves Investigation

"The only way to move forward in our work to bring about reconciliation in Tulsa is by seeking the truth honestly. As we open this investigation 99 years later, there are both unknowns and truths to uncover. But we are committed to exploring what happened in 1921 through a collective and transparent process - filling gaps in our city's history, and providing healing and justice to our community."

- Mayor G.T. Bynum
1921 Mass Graves Update - March 23
Tuesday evening, the 1921 Graves Public Oversight Committee recommended that a full excavation and analysis of the Original 18 site at Oaklawn Cemetery proceed this summer, with Oaklawn Cemetery as a temporary re-internment site for any identified remains. | Read the full press release

March 23, 2021 Meeting Agenda | DNA Analysis Update Presentation | View Meeting | Meetings and Committee Members

The Physical Investigation Committee's re-interment proposal, which was presented at the Public Oversight Committee's January meeting, is posted online.
Overview
Mayor G.T. Bynum announced the City of Tulsa would reexamine the potential of graves from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre as identified in the 2001 State commissioned report. Four sites were identified in the City's examination: Oaklawn Cemetery, Newblock Park, an additional area near Newblock Park, and Rolling Oaks Memorial Gardens, formerly Booker T. Washington Cemetery. The City established three goals around the reexamination, including: public oversight, historical context and the physical evidence investigation.

A Public Oversight Committee was established to ensure transparency and community engagement throughout the investigation. The Committee serves in an advisory capacity to the City during key decisions throughout the investigation. The Oversight Committee is comprised of descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre and leaders in Tulsa's African-American community. A team of historians and scholars were also assembled to provide historical context for the work being accomplished and document the significance of this important work.

The physical evidence investigation is organized into two phases. The first phase is led by the State of Oklahoma Archaeological Survey through the use of ground penetrating radar at the four identified sites. The first phase is expected to begin in October 2019. Once the radar process is complete, the Survey team will present their findings to the City of Tulsa and the Public Oversight Committee following their investigation.

If anomalies are present from the ground penetrating radar, the City of Tulsa, with the help of the Public Oversight Committee, will determine if the second phase of the investigation will continue, which includes potential excavation and cause of death determination that would be led by the State of Oklahoma's Medical Examiner's Office. The cause of death determination would be an important step to the investigation as remains will be close to 100 years old and a Spanish Influenza outbreak occurred in Tulsa in 1919 prior to the Race Massacre in 1921.

If mass graves are present and can be directly associated with the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the City of Tulsa with the help of the Public Oversight Committee, must determine next steps as it relates to storing remains, DNA testing and genealogical research, and commemorating the gravesites and honoring the remains.
Media Share: Photos & Video No courtesy is needed when using pictures, video and drone footage, from the test excavations at Oaklawn Cemetery. Oaklawn Cemetery: Sexton Test Excavation
July 13 - 16, 2020
July 17 - July 22, 2020 Oaklawn Cemetery: Original 18 and Clyde Eddy Test Excavation

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"The only way to move forward in our work to bring about reconciliation in Tulsa is by seeking the truth honestly. As we open this investigation 99 years later, there are both unknowns and truths to uncover.

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The aftermath of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre (Greenwood Cultural Center)

On the eve of the 99th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Human Rights Watch released a report Friday demanding reparations for survivors and descendants of the violence, which left hundreds of black people dead and blocks smoldering.

"No one has ever been held responsible for these crimes, the impacts of which black Tulsans still feel today," says the report, titled " The Case for Reparations in Tulsa, Oklahoma: A Human Rights Argument. " "Efforts to secure justice in the courts have failed due to the statute of limitations. Ongoing racial segregation, discriminatory policies, and structural racism have left black Tulsans, particularly those living in North Tulsa, with a lower quality of life and fewer opportunities."

Human Rights Watch argued that beyond the physical destruction, the state and city government created polices of structural racism that kept black people in Tulsa from prospering. The lingering economic impact of the massacre can be seen today in the high poverty rates and lower life expectancies in North Tulsa.

"Generations of black Tulsans, especially massacre survivors and their descendants, have endured cumulative economic and moral losses and an inescapable cycle of pain," said Dreisen Heath, the U.S. program advocacy officer at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "Reparations are the right thing to do, and the city of Tulsa and state of Oklahoma have the power to repair a century of harm."

A spokesperson for Tulsa's mayor, G.T. Bynum (R), said the mayor had not seen the report and could not comment.

A white Republican mayor seeks the truth about Tulsa's race massacre a century ago

In January, Bynum told The Washington Post he believed the city should address the issue of reparations after the city completes its investigation into mass graves. It was preparing to dig when the coronavirus pandemic put the search for mass graves on hold.

"There is a strong demand to start talking about reparations," Bynum said. "A lot of people when they talk about reparations, they talk about cash payments to descendants. There is a challenge to track descendants, who are scattered all over the world."

The massacre - one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history - began on May 31, 1921, when a white mob descended on Greenwood, an African American community so prosperous it was called Black Wall Street. Over the next 48 hours, historians believe as many as 300 black people were killed and more than 10,000 were left homeless, after businesses and homes were burned to the ground. There were reports of airplanes flying above Greenwood and dropping kerosene bombs.

Witnesses recounted seeing white mobs looting the homes of black people and setting the houses on fire. "They tried to kill all the black folks they could see," a survivor, George Monroe, recalled.

Some said bodies were thrown into the Arkansas River or buried in mass graves.

On June 1, 1921, martial law was declared. Troops rounded up black survivors and detained them in camps throughout the city.

"Government officials committed no public money to help Greenwood rebuild," Human Rights Watch reported. "Rather, they impeded rebuilding, even rejecting offers of medical and reconstruction assistance from within and outside Tulsa."

In 2001, the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, which was charged by the state with finding out what happened during the massacre, recommended reparations for massacre survivors and descendants, but city officials ignored the commission's recommendations. The city also did not act on the commission's recommendation to excavate for possible mass graves.

The case seemed closed until 2018, when Bynum announced the city would reopen an investigation into the possibility of mass graves. In October, scientists and forensic anthropologists armed with ground-penetrating radar began scanning the grounds of Tulsa's Oaklawn Cemetery. In December, a team of forensic anthropologists and archaeologists, led by the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey at the University of Oklahoma, announced that they found "possible common graves" at two sites in Tulsa.

The city was scheduled to begin digging at Oaklawn Cemetery in April, but the excavation was postponed by the covid-19 pandemic. Officials said they will reschedule the dig when it is safe for scientists to travel.

On Sunday, the 99th anniversary of the massacre, activists and community and civil rights leaders are set to begin a series of virtual forums titled " Their Blood Cries Out, " in which panelists will talk about reparations and racial justice.

Kristi Williams, a community activist in Tulsa, said she believes reparations are past due. "We lost homes, businesses and lives," Williams said. "We need to be compensated because it is time for us to build from what our ancestors left us. And their blood has been crying out for a long time."

The Rev. Robert Turner, pastor of the historic Vernon AME Church where black people hid during the massacre, said, "Reparations should look like justice. Nothing has been done as far as slavery from 1619, and nothing has been done in regards to the worst race massacre in American history. Meanwhile, we have compensated other parts of this state for mass terror - the Oklahoma City bombing. Yet Greenwood, the first site of an aerial bombing terrorism in this country, has not received a dime."

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed without comment a lawsuit against Tulsa, its police department and the state of Oklahoma, demanding reparations. Survivors - many of them in their 90s - stood on the steps of the Supreme Court utterly crestfallen, having hoped for justice before they died.

Otis G. Clark, who was 18 when the mob burned down his home during the massacre, explained his loss. "Family and friends missing. Jobs gone," Clark said in an interview before he died in 2012. "The city took my grandmother's land and didn't give us nothing in return. We suffered. But Tulsa has given us nothing ... even to this day - nothing."

Tulsa plans to dig for suspected mass graves from a 1921 race massacre

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Human Rights Watch calls for Tulsa Race Massacre reparations a century after violence

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On the eve of the 99th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Human Rights Watch released a report Friday demanding reparations for survivors and descendants of the violence, which left hundreds of black people dead and blocks smoldering.

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Tulsa Community College Centennial Initiatives

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Tulsa Community College Centennial Initiatives

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An Interview With Dr. Jocelyn Lee Payne

3/16/2021 - Dr. Jocelyn Lee Payne Interview Transcript

The only child of Tulsa educators Johnson E. and Effie J. Lee, Dr. Jocelyn Lee Payne is a native Tulsan who attended racially segregated public schools in Tulsa and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School. Dr. Payne earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Brandeis University; a Master of Science in College Teaching - Student Services from Northeastern State University; and a Doctor of Education in Higher Education Administration from Oklahoma State University.

After more than 40 years in higher education, Dr. Jocelyn Payne became the first full-time executive director for the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation. Her work includes many years of sharing the stories of the Tulsa 1921 Race Massacre survivors, facilitating courageous conversation on racial reconciliation, and providing overall historical insight about the significance of the Historic Greenwood District as an epicenter of African American wealth, cultural synergy, and triumph during a time of extreme racial divide in US history.

An Interview with Dr. Scott Ellsworth

3/14/2021 - Dr. Scott Ellsworth Interview Transcript

Born and raised in Tulsa, Scott Ellsworth has been researching and writing about the Tulsa race massacre for forty-five years. His first book, Death in a Promised Land, was the first-ever comprehensive history of the massacre. In the 1990s, he initiated the search for the unmarked graves of massacre victims. Scott currently serves as the chair of the Physical Investigation Committee for the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial. His forthcoming book, The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice, will be published on May 18, 2021.

An Interview with Kimberly Jackson

3/13/2021 - Kimberly Jackson Interview Transcript

Kim Jackson is an education reporter and weekend anchor at KTUL. She started in 2001 after spending several years working in the Tulsa market. She was born in Pine Bluff, Ark.

What she loves most about her job is the chance to meet new people, hear their stories, and educate the people who live in her community.

She started working in television right here in Tulsa at the University of Tulsa with TUTV. Upon graduation, she worked at KJRH and OETA before landing her job at Channel 8.

She's covered stories from the Oklahoma City bombing to the Hurricane Katrina victims arriving in Oklahoma, Interviewing 1921 Race Massacre Survivors, and issues surrounding the children in Oklahoma schools.

She has worked with a number of charities over the years but is most proud of the healthy initiatives she's helped to lead. For seven years, she's organized a community couch to 5k running program, encouraging fitness in her community. She's also volunteered in schools as a mentor and loves to speak and motivate students when invited. She's also helped raise thousands of dollars for Margaret Hudson, the school for teen parents.

If she's not at work, chances are she is with her family or at the gym. She loves working out and loves creating memories with her family.

An Interview with Kojo Asamoa Caesar

3/13/2021 - Kojo Asamoa Caesar Interview Transcript

Kojo Asamoa Caesar shares how the story of Greenwood is one that should be told widely and often because it inspires us all to work towards a shared future that is more equitable, innovative and impactful. Reckoning with the Tulsa Race Massacre is as much about the future as it is about the past. We can't move forward together as one city without learning the lessons from the past and atoning for the harm caused.

Kojo Asamoa-Caesar is the son of a certified nursing assistant and a taxi driver who instilled in him an undying belief in the American Dream-the notion that everybody gets an equal chance to go as far as their hard work and talent will take them. Propelled by this belief, he excelled in the public school system and went on to attend college, where he served as student body president, and then after graduation went on to law school.

After graduating from the nation's oldest law school at the College of William & Mary, Kojo began his career as a kindergarten teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His students saw significant growth in their reading scores, and he was ultimately named Teacher of the Year at his school site after just his second year of teaching.

Kojo later went on to serve as the founding principal of Greenwood Leadership Academy, an elementary school in north Tulsa, founded as part of a partnership between the Met Cares Foundation and Tulsa Public Schools. He recruited, hired and managed a staff of 25 to operate a school serving over 250 students.

Kojo then went on to serve as interim executive director at 36 Degrees North-Tulsa's basecamp for entrepreneurs, startups and innovators. He led a staff of nine and managed a board of 13 through a 7-month transitional period that culminated with a successful national search and hire of a new CEO. Under Kojo's leadership, 36 Degrees North served over 285 companies with total gross annual sales of $66.5 million and 1,066 jobs created. The co-working space's membership grew by 27% and revenue increased by 10%, member racial diversity by 5%, and staff racial diversity by 33%.

Kojo most recently ran for elected office and won the primary election to become the Democratic nominee for Congress in Oklahoma's 1st District-making him the first Ghanaian-American to win a major party nomination for federal office and the youngest ever Democratic nominee in the district. Although he ultimately lost in the general election, he received 109,641 votes-the most votes by a Democrat in the district since 1984.

An Interview with Drew Diamond

3/13/2021 - Drew Diamond Interview Transcript

Drew Diamond talks about his experiences in Greenwood as a police officer, police chief, his time on the Board of Directors of the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce and his ongoing community activism.

Drew Diamond is Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa and the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art. He joined the Federation staff in 2010 following two years as an Administrator with Union Public Schools and sixteen years as Director of Training for the Police Executive Research Forum. He was Tulsa's Chief of Police retiring in 1991 after twenty two years of service. Prior to joining the Tulsa Police Department he was an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation until he entered the U.S. Army and became an Agent in the Army Criminal Investigations Command. He is a graduate of Tulsa Community College, Northeastern Oklahoma State University, the FBI National Academy and the FBI National Executive Institute.

An Interview with Nash McQuarters

3/13/2021 - Nash McQuarters Interview Transcript

Nash recounts the story of his grandmother and great-grandmother who both survived the Tulsa Race Massacre. Ruth Dean Nash (his maternal grandmother) shared the story with him, and now he shares her story with others.

Nash McQuarters is a North Tulsa native who attended Booker T. Washington HS and Oklahoma Sate University attaining his BA in Sociology. Nash currently works as the New Student Orientation Coordinator for Tulsa Community College. His passions include promoting the importance of higher education for BIPOC, social justice, and musical theatre. Nash also enjoys every opportunity to share the story of his grandmother and great-grandmother who were residents of Greenwood in 1921 and who were able to hide and survive the Tulsa Race Massacre.

An Interview with Thesha Zeigler

3/13/2021 - Thesha Zeigler Interview Transcript

Thesha Zeigler tells the story of her great Aunt Hazel Smith-Jones and her run-in with angry White terrorist harassing Black communities after the lie of a Black man whistling, "allege" touching of a White woman. In addition to giving her opinion on the direction we are currently heading in the Black Wall Street district and how we should move forward to building a better community and city for ALL of us so that something like this will never happen again.

Thesha Zeigler, M.Ed., Academic Success Coach in The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Tulsa Community College since September 2005. She has earned a Bachelors in Business Management and Masters in Urban Education. She is a naive of Tulsa, Oklahoma and a true community advocate for the betterment of our schools and neighborhoods by working with educators, community leaders, legislators and fellow neighbors. Experiences include academic advising, career development, TRiO Student Support Services, assessments, retail management, catering, shipping/receiving, and weight/balance of aircraft through parcel services.

An Interview with Susan Neal

3/13/2021 - Susan Neal Interview Transcript

Susan Neal serves as Executive Director of the Gilcrease Museum and Vice President for Public Affairs at the University of Tulsa. Neal has more than 30 years of experience in management as well as government and community relations. While in Washington, D.C., Neal served as chief of staff to Congressman Mickey Edwards prior to her recruitment as a House and Senate lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business. Upon her return to Tulsa in 1984, Neal served as vice president of Downtown Tulsa Unlimited for seven years working in marketing and community development. Neal operated her own public relations company before becoming director of Jumpstart, Tulsa's comprehensive early childhood education campaign.

An Interview with Kasey Hughart

3/13/2021 - Kasey Hughart Interview Transcript

Kasey Hughart is a Youth Mentoring Program Teacher at Kendall Whittier Inc. She completed her Bachelor's degree in Sociology, with a minor in Spanish, from the University of Tulsa. Having served in multiple leadership roles at the University, including President / Co-Affiliate Lead / End Coordinator of Dream Act Oklahoma and President of the Student Diversity Council, Hughart is also a graduate of Tulsa Community College (TCC). While attending TCC, Hughart volunteered regularly with the Greater Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, local bilingual newspaper Hispano de Tulsa, Catholic Charities, the Youth Mentoring Program, and the Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless. Her work with DREAM Act Oklahoma allowed her to advocate on behalf of the immigrant community on all levels: locally, statewide, regionally, and nationally.

An Interview with Pastor Chris Moore

3/13/2021 - Pastor Chris Moore Interview Transcript

Pastor Chris Moore (he/him/his), born and raised in Oklahoma, was ordained into the United Church of Christ (UCC) in 2009, after many years in the I.T. Management industry. He is a graduate of the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) and Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa.

He was the founding pastor of First Congregational UCC of Norman, an Associate Pastor at Mayflower Congregational UCC in Oklahoma City, and has been the pastor at Fellowship since late 2013. He currently resides on the boards of The New Sanctuary Movement and Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry, and serves as the faith lead for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, as well as working extensively with ACTION, a broad-based community organizing effort.

An Interview with Joe Williams

3/13/2021 - Joe Williams Interview Transcript

Joe Williams is a former Tulsa City Councilor from 1994-2004 and the first African-American City Council Chairman in Tulsa history. Williams is retired from Oklahoma Natural Gas as a senior manager after 36 years. He is Graduate of the University of Oklahoma; Bachelor of Business Administration with Distinction; National Deans List of Outstanding Students; Letterman on OU Varsity Track Team, 1977 and 1978 Big 8 Conference Outdoor Track Champions

An Interview with Kendrick Marshall

3/13/2021 - Kendrick Marshall Interview Transcript

Assistant Editor of the Tulsa World Kendrick Marshall is a proud HBCU graduate who has done a little bit of everything at the Tulsa World to keep the public informed. He has also served on the Tulsa World team as a breaking news and crime reporter. Marshall, a 2006 graduate of Jackson State University, joined the Tulsa World in August 2012.

An Interview with State Representative Regina Goodwin

3/13/2021 - Regina Goodwin Interview Transcript

State Representative Regina Goodwin has served as State Representative, Tulsa House District 73 since 2015. She is native of Tulsa, grew up on historic Greenwood Ave. After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School in 1980, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Kansas and completed Masters Coursework at Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois. Regina, a faithful member of North Peoria Church of Christ, grew up in a loving and community-oriented family. Regina's grandparents Jeanne and Ed Goodwin, Sr. and parents Alquita and Ed Goodwin, Jr. instilled the philosophy that "Service is the rent we pay for our room and board on earth."

An Interview with Mana Tahaie

3/8/2021 - Mana Tahaie Interview Transcript

Mana Tahaie is an unapologetic advocate for justice with almost two decades' experience organizing for social change in a deep red state. She discusses the Greenwood History and provides her perspective based on her background in analysis of power, community organizing, organizational and institutional development, and identity-based oppression.

An Interview with Dr. Leigh B. Goodson

3/7/2021 - Dr. Leigh B. Goodson Interview Transcript

Leigh B. Goodson, Ph.D. was named the fourth president and chief executive officer of Tulsa Community College in May 2014.

A Tulsa native, Dr. Goodson has worked in higher education most of her professional career, and she previously served in numerous roles at Oklahoma State University.

Dr. Goodson discusses the Greenwood History and TCC's community support in both commemorating and leading in honoring the legacy of Greenwood - linking her efforts on both personal and college-wide efforts.

An Interview with Phil Armstrong

3/7/2021 - Phil Armstrong Interview Transcript

Phil Armstrong discusses the Greenwood History and shares his perspective as the Project Director for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission.

An Interview with City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper

3/7/2021 - Vanessa Hall-Harper Interview Transcript

City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper serves as City Councilor for District 1 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to her role as City Councilor, she is currently the Program Manager for the Tulsa Health Department's Healthy Living Program as well as an Adjunct Professor at Tulsa Community College in the Political Science Department. Vanessa Hall Harper discusses the Greenwood History and shares her perspective as a Tulsa native and City Councilor.

An Interview with Vanessa Adams-Harris

3/7/2021 - Vanessa Adams-Harris Interview Transcript

Vanessa Adams-Harris leads Outreach & Alliances for the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation. She discusses the Greenwood History and her perspective as a native Oklahoman, historian, and researcher interested in stories shared about the history.

An Interview with William White

3/7/2021 - William White Interview Transcript

William White is the founder of the Greenwood Experience that showcases Tulsa's Historical Greenwood Business Community. He discusses the Greenwood History and shares his perspective as a community advocate and researcher in sharing the story of the 1921 Race Massacre.

An Interview with Twila Gibbens

3/7/2021 - Twila Gibbens Interview Transcript

Twila Gibbens is an Oklahoma City native who has resided in Tulsa for several years and has served as former Senior pastor at St. Paul's United Methodist Church Tulsa. She discusses the Greenwood History and her perspective as a native Oklahoman, minister, and docent for the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation.

An Interview with Tyrance Billingsley

3/7/2021 - Tyrance Billingsley Interview Transcript

Tyrance Billinsgly is a community leader, activist, and north Tulsa resident. He discusses the Greenwood History and his perspective as a young professional in Tulsa.

An Interview with Michelle Place

3/7/2021 - Michelle Place Interview Transcript

Michelle Place began working as the Business Manager for the Tulsa Historical Society & Museum in 2001 and was named Executive Director in 2012. Michelle discusses the Greenwood History and her perspective as the Executive Director of the Tulsa Historical Society & Museum and advocate for preserving history while also exploring it for ways of cultivating

An Interview with Maybelle Wallace

3/7/2021 - Maybelle Wallace Interview Transcript

Maybelle Wallace is a no-nonsense Tulsan who, after developing an early interest in acting, has dedicated more than 40 years of leadership to community theater.

The 90-year-old was born in Tulsa and serves as executive director of Theatre North. She discusses the Greenwood History and her perspective as a native Tulsan and how her work as Executive Director of Theater North has been part of the Greenwood legacy.

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TCC faculty, staff and students have planned a variety of events - from the Common Book program to a virtual tour of Greenwood - that aim to develop transformative, relationship-building activities to help foster racial healing.

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Greenwood Initiative from Bloomberg Philanthropies 

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Greenwood Initiative from Bloomberg Philanthropies 

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In December 2018, Mike Bloomberg traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma to announce that the city had won Bloomberg Philanthropies' Public Art Challenge. The winning proposal honored the neighborhood of Greenwood - once known as Black Wall Street, and the site of one of America's worst tragedies: The 1921 Tulsa Race massacre. While there, he was moved by the story of how a predominantly Black neighborhood had become one of the country's most prosperous communities - and was appalled and angered to know that its destruction at the hands of a racist mob had been whitewashed from history books.

In the spring of 2020, during his campaign for president of the United States, Mike announced an ambitious plan to accelerate the pace of wealth accumulation for Black individuals and families and address decades of underinvestment in Black communities. In remembrance of the hundreds killed in Greenwood, and in recognition of how racism has prevented Black families from building wealth, he called the plan The Greenwood Initiative and returned to Tulsa to lay out its proposals in a speech.

We have since carried the plan's objectives over to Bloomberg Philanthropies, where we're supporting and working with partners and institutions that have a proven track record of increasing economic and social mobility to fulfill Greenwood's mission of reducing wealth disparities in Black communities.

The initiative's first major investment was an historic $100 million gift to America's four historically Black medical schools which underscored the connection between Black health and wealth.

Greenwood's First Investment: $100 Million Gift to America's Four Historically Black Medical Schools

On September 3, 2020, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced The Greenwood Initiative's first major investment, an historic, $100 million gift to America's four historically Black medical schools: Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN, Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA, and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, CA. Bloomberg Philanthropies' gift to the medical schools will allow them to provide debt relief up to $100,000 to approximately 800 medical student who are currently enrolled and receiving financial aid over the next four years.

This is the largest-ever individual philanthropic gift received by these medical schools, and it helps to address the connection between Black health and wealth, the dearth of Black doctors in America, and the disproportionate financial burden Black medical students face.

Easing the debt burden of medical students to help increase the number of Black doctors in the U.S.

Enabling students to choose what and where they practice medicine based on passion, not a paycheck

Chronic illness and poor health can impact an individual's ability to work and build wealth. On average, Black Americans are more likely to die at every stage of life than white people - and that troubling trend has continued during this pandemic, with Black people suffering the highest death rates from COVID-19.

Due to a number of factors, Black patients overall have better health outcomes when they are treated by Black doctors. However, while the population of the United States is 13% Black - only 5% of all practicing medical doctors are Black. Black doctors are also more likely to treat minority patients and practice in medically underserved communities, which often lack access to quality care in comparison to predominantly white communities.

Hear from the Schools. The Greenwood Initiative's First Gift:

Top photo: Howard University College of Medicine student Micah Brown is one of the many future doctors who will have had their futures changed by a $100 million commitment to the United States' four historically Black medical schools.

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The Greenwood Initiative | Bloomberg Philanthropies

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In December 2018, Mike Bloomberg traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma to announce that the city had won Bloomberg Philanthropies' Public Art Challenge. The winning proposal honored the neighborhood of Greenwood - once known as Black Wall Street, and the site of one of America's worst tragedies: The 1921 Tulsa Race massacre.

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In January 2019, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced the 1 million dollar award granted to Tulsa for the Greenwood Art Project. So what is this Greenwood Art Project exactly? It is an opportunity to share the rich history, artistically with the world.

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Black Wall Street Times on Fire in Little Africa 

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Black Wall Street Times on Fire in Little Africa 

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TULSA, Okla. - A groundbreaking album of original material, written and recorded by a collective of Oklahoma hip hop artists to commemorate the 100 th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre - will be released on May 28 by Motown Records/Black Forum in partnership with Tulsa's Bob Dylan Center ® and Woody Guthrie Center ®.

The Album

The 21-track collection gets to the truth of what happened on May 31 and June 1, 1921 when a white mob descended on the streets of Greenwood - then a prosperous Tulsa neighborhood known as Black Wall Street - and burned down the business district, destroying roughly 1,500 homes, killing hundreds and leaving thousands of Black Tulsans homeless. For years, this historic,albeit dire, chapter was left out of classrooms and textbooks as the city attempted to erase this part of its past.The artists heard on Fire in Little Africa get to the truth through urgent songs, recalling stories told and stories lived in hope to usher in a new era for Tulsa as they help the community process this generational trauma through music.

" Fire in Little Africa is a powerful and timely project that provides a platform and outlet for the incredibly talented and thriving music community of Tulsa, Oklahoma," said Motown Records Chairman & CEO, Ethiopia Habtemariam. "Carrying the legacy of the Black Wall Street community, Fire in Little Africa is a body of work filled with purpose and prolific storytelling. I am honored and feel privileged to have Motown Records/Black Forum partner with Dr. View, the Bob Dylan Center and Guthrie Center to release this impactful hip-hop album."

Stevie "Dr. View" Johnson, PhD, Manager, Education & Diversity Outreach at the Woody Guthrie Center | Bob Dylan Center and the album's executive producer, added, " Fire in Little Africa has evolved into a communal hip hop movement and we're excited that we get to share the flavor, history and legacy of Black Wall Street with the world, in collaboration with the amazing leadership of the Motown/Black Forum family. We're grateful for Ethiopia's foresight in providing us an opportunity to share our important stories with the world. There are Black Wall Streets across the diaspora and we unequivocally know that Fire in Little Africa will inspire many people. In the words of Steph Simon, 'everything is us.'"

Rolling Stone Magazine

In this feature, Rolling Stone noted, "Fire in Little Africa is poised to teach the world about that long-suppressed history, from locals who grew up in a community that still lives with the aftermath of the massacre. Just as important, the artists involved in the project also hope it serves as a launching-pad moment for Tulsa's hip-hop scene, which has long flown under the national radar."

The album was recorded in Greenwood over a five-day period in March 2020. Studios were set up at the Greenwood Cultural Center and other locations, including the former home of 1921 massacre mastermind/KKK leader Tate Brady. The house is now owned by former NFL first-round draft pick and Tulsa native Felix Jones.

Fireside Podcast

"Fireside with Dr. View" is a weekly podcast featuring "Dr. View" in conversation with thought leaders in activism, academia and culture, centered on the movement behind the Fire in Little Africa music. Listen to "Fireside with Dr. View" below.

Hosts Ali Shaw and Doc Free sit down with Fire in Little Africa artists, Tulsa community leaders and national voices for conversations on music and culture in the "Fire in Little Africa" podcast, which can be found HERE.

Debut Performance

Fire in Little Africa's debut performance will be at the Black Wall Street Legacy Fest on Saturday, May 29, 2021 in the Greenwood District to commemorate the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

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Fire in Little Africa Set for May 28 Release By Motown Records

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"Carrying the legacy of the Black Wall Street community, Fire in Little Africa is a body of work filled with purpose and prolific storytelling. I am honored and feel privileged to have Motown Records/Black Forum partner with Dr. View, the Bob Dylan Center and Guthrie Center to release this impactful hip-hop album," said Motown Records Chairman & CEO, Ethiopia Habtemariam.

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Oklahoma was once home to more historical all-Black towns than any other place in the United States. Once totaling more than 50, that number stands at 13 today.

Shirley Nero has spent the past decade highlighting this history-one that many locals aren't even aware of. Nero and others are creating both new and renewed interest in these communities through tours-both in-person and virtual-so people can learn about this unique part of Oklahoma's history.

"We try to showcase the history of these individual Black towns," she says. The tours are led by local historians, who share personal stories of the past and present.

Nero has her own strong ties to at least one historic Black town. Born at a home outside Clearview-one of the 13 towns still in existence-she attended school there until the 1960s, when the high school closed. Nero and her husband spent their careers in the education field, and once they retired, they returned to Clearview, engaging with the community in several endeavors: establishing Founder's Day, which honors the community's visionaries and historical legacy, as well as creating the Oklahoma African American Educators Hall of Fame museum. Nero recently wrote a grant to obtain funding for a mural on a Main Street building.

"The mural will depict our town's history," Nero says. "I have so many memories of this place, so many stories needing to be collected and preserved and a vast amount of information. I want the state of Oklahoma and the nation to know that there was-and is-a place of importance in the history of this world."

The historic Black towns in Oklahoma developed in Indian Territory after the Civil War, when the former slaves of five Native American tribes-the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole nations-settled together for protection and economic security, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. The federal government forced American Indian tribes to accept individual land "allotments," and the former slaves to the tribes, known as freedmen, created prosperous communities by settling together. The towns, mostly farming communities, supported schools, businesses, and religious institutions.

Each community has its own feel, says Andre' L. Head, co-founder and CEO of the Coltrane Group, an Oklahoma City -based nonprofit that also offers tours of historic Black towns, which boost preservation and economic development. Many of the communities have events celebrating their heritage and legacies. Boley, for example, hosts one of the oldest African American rodeos in the country, while Rentiesville is known for its strong blues presence.

"I first wanted to start looking at historic Black towns on a national level, but then started in Oklahoma and realized, wow, this will keep me busy right here," Hall says of the state's Black history.

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The Untold Stories of Oklahoma's Historic Black Towns

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Oklahoma was once home to more historical all-Black towns than any other place in the United States. Once totaling more than 50, that number stands at 13 today. Shirley Nero has spent the past decade highlighting this history-one that many locals aren't even aware of.

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A few years after the Civil War ended, promoters determined to establish an all-black town on the Kansas frontier took out an ad in a Kentucky bulletin promising membership in "The Largest Colored Colony in America" for a small down payment: "All Colored People that want to go to Kansas, on September 5th, 1877, Can do so for $5.00."

The bulletin explained those wanting to join this new colony, which would be called Nicodemus, "can do so by paying the sum of one dollar ($1.00), and this money is to be paid by the first of September, 1877, in installments of twenty-five cents at a time, or otherwise as may be desired."

Hundreds of black people from Kentucky took up the call and set off for the new colony in Kansas, traveling with the promise of a new and better life. One of the settlers, Willianna Hickman, joined 300 people leaving Kentucky for Nicodemus in 1878. She and her family traveled for two days on a train before reaching Ellis, Kan. It was a difficult and treacherous journey.

Along the way, Hickman told the Topeka Capital newspaper in 1937, a measles epidemic spread, killing several children. They traveled by wagon over what seemed like a "barren and treeless landscape." As they got closer to what was Nicodemus, someone began shouting. When she looked, the settlement did not look like a town at all.

"My husband pointed out various smokes coming out of the ground and said, that is Nicodemus," Hickman recalled. "The families lived in dugouts . . . and I began to cry."

Life for black settlers was hard in Nicodemus, which, according to the Nicodemus National Historic Site, is one of the oldest black settlements west of the Mississippi River.

Six black men and one white man created the Nicodemus Town Company in 1877, according to the site. They were W.H. Smith, president; Ben Carr, vice president; W.R. Hill, treasurer; S.P. Roundtree, secretary; Jerry Allsap; William Edmunds; and Jeff Lenze.

Hill, the only white member, was a land speculator who had traveled to the South to promote Nicodemus and recruit black people for the new colony.

"Hill met some success in the little Baptist church at Georgetown, a few miles north of Lexington," Norman L. Crockett writes in his book "The Black Towns."

"His audience was soon captivated by stories of a western paradise filled with abundant game, wild horse, and soil so fertile that a minimum of labor yielded bountiful harvests."

Although life was hard on the Kansas plains - they fought hunger, snakes and prairie fires - the population of Nicodemus reached as many as 700 people by 1880.

"The black-town idea reached its peak in the fifty years after the Civil War," Crockett writes.

"The dearth of extant records prohibits an exact enumeration of them, but at least sixty black communities were settled between 1865 and 1915. With more than twenty, Oklahoma led all other states. Unfortunately, little is known about many of the black towns."

Crockett writes that not much was documented about the daily lives, aspirations and fears of people living in such towns as " Blackdom, New Mexico; Hobson City, Alabama; Allensworth, California; and Rentiesville, Oklahoma because residents failed to record their experiences and whites were not interested in preserving and collecting material on the black towns."

Oklahoma's all-black towns included Clearview, Boley and Langston, which was founded around 1890, according to the Black Towns Project.

Mound Bayou, Miss., was founded in 1887 by freedmen led by Isaiah Montgomery. The town, according to blackpast.org, was designed for the residents to have very little contact with whites, had a post office, churches, banks, schools and stores and was often cited by Booker T. Washington as a model of self-sufficiency.

Eatonville, Fla., where Zora Neale Hurston grew up, was incorporated in 1887. That's where she went to collect black folklore. Hurston wrote in "Of Mules and Men" that she could think of no better place to do so.

"First place I aimed to stop to collect material was Eatonville, Florida," Hurston wrote in the introduction. "And now, I'm going to tell you why I decided to go to my native village first. I didn't go back there so that the home folks could make admiration over me because I had been up North to college and come back with a diploma and a Chevrolet. I knew they were not going to pay either one of these items too much mind. I was just Lucy Hurston's daughter, Zora."

"I hurried back to Eatonville because I knew that the town was full of material and that I could get it without hurt, harm or danger. As early as I could remember it was the habit of the men folks particularly to gather on the store porch of evenings and swap stories. "

So, Hurston wrote, she sped "down the straight stretch into Eatonville, the city of five lakes, three croquet courts, three hundred brown skins, three hundred good swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools and no jail house."

Greenwood, a division near North Tulsa, was founded in 1906. According to records, it was created by O.W. Gurley, a wealthy black man who owned land in Arkansas. According to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum. In 1889, Gurley traveled to Oklahoma to participate in the "Oklahoma Land Run." Gurley purchased 40 acres, which were designated "only to be sold to colored," according to records. The town, which gained fame as "Black Wall Street,"was destroyed in 1921, after it was burned by angry white mobs.

Blackdom, a town in New Mexico, was founded in 1911 by black settlers, later forced out by a drought, according to New Mexico Geneology archives.

Boley, Creek Nation, Indian Territory, was incorporated in 1905, becoming one of the wealthiest black towns in the country, according to the African-American Registry.

Researchers say it is almost impossible to find a complete list of all-black towns and communities. Many less famous black towns and communities survived until the Depression, when black families left out of the necessity to find jobs.

In the Washington area, several communities still exist. Their populations have declined-but in many descendants still live.

The town of North Brentwood was the first incorporated black municipality in the Washington area, according to the Maryland Heritage Area Authority.

North Brentwood was established in the 1890s after Wallace A. Bartlett, a white Civil War veteran who had commanded black troops, sold property to a local realty company, according to North Brentwood Historical Society.

The northern tract was designated for blacks to develop. "North Brentwood's first residents were former slaves of local planters and Civil War veterans," according to documents by the Maryland Heritage Area Authority. "The first lot was sold to an African American by the name of Henry Randall in 1891." Randall's house stood on Holladay Avenue, which became Rhode Island Avenue.

Other black towns and communities in Prince George's include Glenarden, Lincoln, Chapel Hill, Rossville and Ridgely.

"Fairmount Heights was founded at the turn of the Century and Glenarden in the 1920s," said Susan Pearl, a historian at the Prince George's Historical Society. "Of the communities listed, North Brentwood, Fairmount Heights and Glenarden were incorporated."

Many were not incorporated. They include Ridgely, which was established on what is now Central Avenue in about 1870 by a black farmer. "It was a very vibrant community," said Pearl , who wrote "African-American Heritage Survey, 1996."

"There is little left of it. The church and school are still there."

Rossville was named after Augustus Ross, who was born a slave in 1855. He was freed in 1864 and went on to work for the Muirkirk Iron Furnace. Twenty years later he and 10 other freedmen, many of whom worked at the furnace, bought land in a new subdivision that would eventually be named after Ross, according to the Prince George's County African-American Heritage Survey in 1996.

Lincoln was established in 1908 as a retreat community for successful blacks who lived in the District and could afford to spend time out of the city. "They were movers and shakers in Washington," Pearl said. "The biggest mover and shaker in Lincoln was the brother of the man who handed out the Rosenwald awards."

But the community did not prosper. "It was never incorporated," Pearl said. "It didn't grow even as a black community. There is hardly anything left of Lincoln."

Other black communities were established within towns, Pearl said. "What we know as Old Bowie had a large black population after 1870 because of the people who worked on the railroad."

Heritage Montgomery, an initiative created to promote the county's heritage, collected the stories of some African American communities in its publication "Community Cornerstones," which lists dozens of African American settlements created by freed people after the Civil War.

"A symbol of hope and faith, the church was typically the first institution established in a new black community, usually followed by a school and a charity hall," according to the brochure. "Fortunately, many of Montgomery County's historic landmark churches still proudly stand as cornerstones of their communities."

Those sites include Scotland A.M.E. Zion Church, built in Scotland, which, according to the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission in Potomac, was created in 1880 by William Dove - a freedman who bought 36 acres for $210. The community was originally called Snakes Den.

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All-black towns across America: Life was hard but full of promise

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A few years after the Civil War ended, promoters determined to establish an all-black town on the Kansas frontier took out an ad in a Kentucky bulletin promising membership in "The Largest Colored Colony in America" for a small down payment: "All Colored People that want to go to Kansas, on September 5th, 1877, Can do so for $5.00."

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The All-Black towns of Oklahoma represent a unique chapter in American history. Nowhere else, neither in the Deep South nor in the Far West, did so many African American men and women come together to create, occupy, and govern their own communities. From 1865 to 1920 African Americans created more than fifty identifiable towns and settlements, some of short duration and some still existing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

All-Black towns grew in Indian Territory after the Civil War when the former slaves of the Five Tribes settled together for mutual protection and economic security. When the United States government forced American Indians to accept individual land allotments, most Indian "freedmen" chose land next to other African Americans. They created cohesive, prosperous farming communities that could support businesses, schools, and churches, eventually forming towns. Entrepreneurs in these communities started every imaginable kind of business, including newspapers, and advertised throughout the South for settlers. Many African Americans migrated to Oklahoma, considering it a kind of "promise land."

When the Land Run of 1889 opened yet more "free" land to non-Indian settlement, African Americans from the Old South rushed to newly created Oklahoma. E. P. McCabe, a former state auditor of Kansas, helped found Langston and encouraged African Americans to settle in that All-Black town. To further his cause, McCabe established the Langston City Herald and circulated it, often by means of traveling agents, throughout the South. McCabe hoped that his tactics would create an African American political power block in Oklahoma Territory. Other African American leaders had a vision of an All-Black state. Although this dream was never realized, many All-Black communities sprouted and flourished in the rich topsoil of the new territory and, after 1907, the new state.

In those towns African Americans lived free from the prejudices and brutality found in other racially mixed communities of the Midwest and the South. African Americans in Oklahoma and Indian Territories would create their own communities for many reasons. Escape from discrimination and abuse would be a driving factor. All-Black settlements offered the advantage of being able to depend on neighbors for financial assistance and of having open markets for crops. Arthur Tolson, a pioneering historian of blacks in Oklahoma, asserts that many African Americans turned to "ideologies of economic advancement, self-help, and racial solidarity."

Marshalltown, North Fork Colored, Canadian Colored, and Arkansas Colored existed as early as the 1860s in Indian Territory. Other Indian Territory towns that no longer exist include Sanders, Mabelle, Wiley, Homer, Huttonville, Lee, and Rentie. Among the Oklahoma Territory towns no longer in existence are Lincoln, Cimarron City, Bailey, Zion, Emanuel, Udora, and Douglas. Towns that still survive are Boley, Brooksville, Clearview, Grayson, Langston, Lima, Red Bird, Rentiesville, Summit, Taft, Tatums, Tullahassee, and Vernon. The largest and most renowned of these was Boley. Booker T. Washington, nationally prominent African American educator, visited Boley twice and even submitted a positive article on the town to Outlook Magazine in 1908.

The passage of many Jim Crow laws by the Oklahoma Legislature immediately after statehood caused some African Americans to become disillusioned with the infant state. During this time Canada promoted settlement and, although the campaign focused on whites, a large contingent of African Americans relocated to that nation's western plains, forming colonies at Amber Valley, Alberta, and Maidstone, Saskatchewan. Another exodus from Oklahoma occurred with the "Back to Africa" movements of the early twentieth century. A large group of Oklahomans joined the ill-fated Chief Sam expedition to Africa. A number of other African Americans migrated to colonies in Mexico.

White distrust also limited the growth of these All-Black towns. As early as 1911 whites in Okfuskee County attempted to block further immigration and to force African Americans into mixed but racially segregated communities incapable of self-support. Several of these white farmers signed oaths pledging to "never rent, lease, or sell land in Okfuskee County to any person of Negro blood, or agent of theirs; unless the land be located more than one mile from a white or Indian resident." To further stem the black migration to eastern Oklahoma a similar oath was developed to prevent the hiring of "Negro labor."

Events of the 1920s and 1930s spelled the end for most black communities. The All-Black towns in Oklahoma were, for the most part, small agricultural centers that gave nearby African American farmers a market. Prosperity generally depended on cotton and other crops. The Great Depression devastated these towns, forcing residents to go west and north in search of jobs. These flights from Oklahoma caused a huge population decrease in black towns.

As people left, the tax base withered, putting the towns in financial jeopardy. In the 1930s many railroads failed, isolating small towns in Oklahoma from regional and national markets. As a result, many of the black towns could not survive. During lean years whites would not extend credit to African Americans, creating an almost impossible situation for black farmers and businessmen to overcome. Even one of the most successful towns, Boley, declared bankruptcy in 1939. Today, only thirteen historical All-Black towns still survive, but their legacy of economic and political freedom is well remembered. A fourteenth town, IXL, is new, incorporated in 2001.

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All-Black Towns | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

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The All-Black towns of Oklahoma represent a unique chapter in American history. Nowhere else, neither in the Deep South nor in the Far West, did so many African American men and women come together to create, occupy, and govern their own communities.

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TULSA-"Black Wall Street" T-shirts were on display alongside local art and images of Angela Davis, Spike Lee and Toni Morrison at Ricco Wright's art gallery Thursday, as jazz music played on a set of turntables.

It is a far cry from what the bustling black community of Greenwood, once known as Black Wall Street, was a century ago, before white mobs burned it to the ground and killed hundreds. But the neighborhood, just north of downtown Tulsa, has become part of the new wave of revitalization there as several entities work to reconcile a violent past and build new opportunities.

"For me it was about just bringing art, music and culture here," said Mr. Wright, whose gallery moved to a new Greenwood location in March. "People are coming to pay their respects to the Black Wall Street pioneers, and those who lost their lives, and those who stayed, in an attempt to rebuild Black Wall Street."

Tulsa and its violent history have entered the national spotlight. Protesters plan to take to the streets in Tulsa and in cities across the U.S. on Friday to mark Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the end of slavery, and to demand reform to the American justice system after several killings of African-Americans by police. On Saturday, President Trump is hosting a rally here that officials expect will draw 100,000 people-supporters of the president and those coming to protest him-to this city of 400,000.

Mr. Trump tweeted on Friday: "Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!" He has previously criticized authorities in those cities for not taking a harder line against the violence and looting that has sometimes accompanied protests since the May 25 killing of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.

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Former 'Black Wall Street' Aims to Rebuild as Tulsa Comes Into National Spotlight

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TULSA-"Black Wall Street" T-shirts were on display alongside local art and images of Angela Davis, Spike Lee and Toni Morrison at Ricco Wright's art gallery Thursday, as jazz music played on a set of turntables.

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Dwight Eaton believes his entrepreneurial spirit is part of his DNA, maybe even a genetic mutation.

That genetic imperative may have been what drove his great-grandmother Minnie to move her family from Arkansas to Tulsa in the early 1900s. Lured like many Black families by the discovery of oil and the abundance of land, she opened a grocery store. They set up shop less than a mile away from the Greenwood District, a thriving stretch of Black-owned businesses know nationally as "Black Wall Street."

His grandfather, Joseph Eaton, whom Dwight remembers as a soft-spoken man who liked to chew on cigars, spent his early teenage years working in a factory and cutting hair on the side.

When a mob of white Tulsans burned Greenwood to the ground, injuring and killing hundreds of their Black neighbors in 1921, Joseph Eaton and many others stayed in Tulsa to rebuild.

More than 25 years later, Eaton raised the money to open his own barbershop, which would become a community hub for local civil rights leaders. His wife, Louise, was an activist and prolific writer.

"Contrary to popular to belief, Greenwood did rebuild after the massacre," Dwight Eaton said. "It rebuilt to a certain degree of prominence maybe equal to or slightly more than what it was."

This summer's 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre is a time for the nation to pause to remember the tragedy. But Tulsa's leaders hope to use the centennial to celebrate and revive the "Black Wall Street mindset" that brought Black families like the Eatons to Oklahoma and helped them rebuild after the massacre.

"The overarching story as I tell it is that of the human spirit," said Hannibal B. Johnson, a member of the 1921 Centennial Commission and author of "Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples with Its Historical Racial Trauma."

"It's important to highlight the character of these incredible people who against odds that are almost unimaginable to us today were able to realize their vision, fulfil their dreams."

For Blacks facing political and social oppression in the Jim Crow South of the late 1800s, Oklahoma represented "a promised land," according to Johnson. Black people who had been enslaved by Native Americans and brought with them to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears, as well as their descendants, were given allotments of land by the federal government following the Civil War.

Dozens of all-Black towns were developed around Oklahoma and the discovery of oil brought O.W. Gurley, once one of the country's wealthiest Black men, to Tulsa. Gurley started a number of businesses and bought land that he sold to other African Americans in what would become the Greenwood District in 1906, Johnson said.

The Greenwood District grew into an economic haven within the rigidly segregated city. It was home to an array of mom-and-pop operations and small businesses including grocery stores, restaurants, theaters, beauty salons and barbershops as well as professional service providers like doctors, lawyers and pharmacists.

"It was remarkable in terms of the concentration, the number of Black entrepreneurs," Johnson said.

As Greenwood prospered, the country hit what Johnson called the "nadir of race relations." Attacks on Black communities escalated during the Red Summer of 1919. Oklahoma enacted some of the same Jim Crow policies that many African Americans had faced in the South. Outside of Greenwood, Tulsa was a lawless city where lynchings took place and the Ku Klux Klan had a presence.

"Tulsa was a sort of tinder box waiting on something really to ignite those smoldering embers," said Johnson. "Certainly a factor was jealousy of the Greenwood community."

What set Tulsa on fire was the arrest of Dick Rowland, a Black teenager who was accused of assaulting 17-year-old white elevator operator Sarah Page on May 30.The next day, a group of white Tulsans gathered outside the jail where he was held and Black Tulsans arrived to prevent a lynching. Amid the standoff, shots were fired and at least a dozen people were killed.

Hannibal B. Johnson, member of the 1921 Centennial Commission

Tulsa was a sort of tinder box waiting on something really to ignite those smoldering embers.

What followed was a 16-hour rampage in which white Tulsans burned 35 city blocks and more than 1,200 residences and injured hundreds. Johnson said it's almost impossible to know how much wealth was lost, but that conservative estimates put the damage at $25 million in today's money.

A state commission reportreleased in 2001 confirmed at least 39 dead - 26 Black and 13 white. But experts say the death toll could be as high as 300; hundreds were injured.

Tulsa race massacre at 99: Unmarked mass grave found in search for victims, official says

The case against Rowland was dismissed later that year after Page stated she did not want to prosecute.

Nearly 100 years later, experts are attempting to find and identify victims buried in Tulsa. Forensic anthropologists found at least 10 bodies in an unmarked mass grave in October.

Black Tulsans were unable to receive any insurance money because the massacre was labeled a "riot." Nevertheless, Greenwood was rebuilt within five years, said Phil Armstrong, project director for the 1921 Centennial Commission.

"You have Black citizens who had to carry the burden of what they did to us as a community," said Armstrong. "Yet still have the courage and the strength to remain and rebuild ... that can be an inspiration not just to Black citizens today but people all over the world."

By the mid-1940s, 200 Black-owned and operated businesses had returned to the city, including the Eatons', Johnson said.

Despite the reconstruction, the community struggled in part because of federally financed policies that demolished many homes and businesses in Tulsa that were labeled blighted, according to state Senator Kevin Matthews, who represents the district that includes Greenwood.

Senator Kevin Matthews

The highest hope I have is that the mentality and the Greenwood spirit returns to Tulsa.

Large percentages of the Black population still live in North Tulsa, where 33.5% are living in poverty.

Tulsa leaders, including Matthews, Armstrong and Johnson are seeking to revive the spirit of Black Wall Street through the Centennial Commission.

Matthews hopes to use Greenwood Rising, a history center being built by the commission, to tell the stories of entrepreneurs like Gurley and J.B. Stratford, draw people to Tulsa and allow Black Tulsans to benefit economically from the influx of tourism. He's also started entrepreneurship programs for Black youth to learn more about becoming business owners.

"The highest hope I have is that the mentality and the Greenwood spirit returns to Tulsa," he said. "Our community and Black people again realize their strong ability to not only recover and be resilient but to be prosperous and create cooperative economics in a way that hasn't happened since 1921."

Today, the barbershop Dwight Eaton's grandfather built has been preserved and his brother, Bobby Eaton Jr., runs a radio station out of the same building. Eaton opened a coffee shop, the Black Wall Street Liquid Lounge, in January 2020.

"We're just taking that model of success that was in place from the 1900s ... and using the same principles to attempt to recreate the district," he said. "There's hope, but there's a lot of work to be done."
Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg

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100 years after the Tulsa Massacre, entrepreneurs revive spirit of 'Black Wall Street'

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Dwight Eaton believes his entrepreneurial spirit is part of his DNA, maybe even a genetic mutation. That genetic imperative may have been what drove his great-grandmother Minnie to move her family from Arkansas to Tulsa in the early 1900s. Lured like many Black families by the discovery of oil and the abundance of land, she opened a grocery store.

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1921 Race Massacre Centennial Commission 

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1921 Race Massacre Centennial Commission 

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"This is not the time where people just come together and sing 'Kumbaya' and shake hands and move along...This is the beginning of a 3-year, 5-year, 20-year process where race relations move forward."

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1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission

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"This is not the time where people just come together and sing 'Kumbaya' and shake hands and move along...This is the beginning of a 3-year, 5-year, 20-year process where race relations move forward."

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The Attack on Greenwood

The 1921 Attack on Greenwood was one of the most significant events in Tulsa's history. Following World War I, Tulsa was recognized nationally for its affluent African American community known as the Greenwood District. This thriving business district and surrounding residential area was referred to as "Black Wall Street." In June 1921, a series of events nearly destroyed the entire Greenwood area.

May 31 - June 1, 1921

On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young black man named Dick Rowland was riding in the elevator in the Drexel Building at Third and Main with a white woman named Sarah Page. The details of what followed vary from person to person. Accounts of an incident circulated among the city's white community during the day and became more exaggerated with each telling.

Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day and began an investigation. An inflammatory report in the May 31 edition of the Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between black and white armed mobs around the courthouse where the sheriff and his men had barricaded the top floor to protect Rowland. Shots were fired and the outnumbered African Americans began retreating to the Greenwood District.

In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was looted and burned by white rioters. Governor Robertson declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned all black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days.

Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, more than 800 people were treated for injuries and contemporary reports of deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died.

In order to understand the Tulsa Race Massacre it is important to understand the complexities of the times. Dick Rowland, Sarah Page and an unknown gunman were the sparks that ignited a long smoldering fire. Jim Crow, jealousy, white supremacy, and land lust, all played roles in leading up to the destruction and loss of life on May 31 and June 1, 1921.

Race Riot Commission

In 2001, an official Race Riot Commission was organized to review the details of the event. No one will ever know the absolute truth of what happened during the hours of the Race Massacre.

However, by examining historical resources, members of the Race Riot Commission determined a number of details to be undeniable. "These are not myths, not rumors, not speculations, not questioned. They are the historical record."

Historical Facts
The following information comes from the 2001 Race Riot Commission Report:
Black Tulsans had every reason to believe that Dick Rowland would be lynched after his arrest. His charges were later dismissed and highly suspect from the start. They had cause to believe that his personal safety, like the defense of themselves and their community, depended on them alone. As hostile groups gathered and their confrontation worsened, municipal and county authorities failed to take actions to calm or contain the situation.

At the eruption of violence, civil officials selected many men, all of them white and some of them participants in that violence, and made those men their agents as deputies. In that capacity, deputies did not stem the violence but added to it, often through overt acts that were themselves illegal. Public officials provided fire arms and ammunition to individuals, again all of them white. Units of the Oklahoma National Guard participated in the mass arrests of all or nearly all of Greenwood's residents.

They removed them to other parts of the city, and detained them in holding centers. Entering the Greenwood district, people stole, damaged, or destroyed personal property left behind in homes and businesses. People, some of them agents of government, also deliberately burned or otherwise destroyed homes credibly estimated to have numbered 1,256, along with virtually every other structure - including churches, schools, businesses, even a hospital and library - in the Greenwood district. Despite duties to preserve order and to protect property, no government at any level offered adequate resistance, if any at all, to what amounted to the destruction of the Greenwood neighborhood. Although the exact total can never be determined, credible evidence makes it probable that many people, likely numbering between 100-300, were killed during the massacre.

Not one of these criminal acts was then or ever has been prosecuted or punished by government at any level: municipal, county, state, or federal. Even after the restoration of order it was official policy to release a black detainee only upon the application of a white person, and then only if that white person agreed to accept responsibility for that detainee's subsequent behavior. As private citizens, many whites in Tulsa and neighboring communities did extend invaluable assistance to the massacre's victims, and the relief efforts of the American Red Cross in particular provided a model of human behavior at its best. Although city and county government bore much of the cost for Red Cross relief, neither contributed substantially to Greenwood's rebuilding, in fact, municipal authorities acted initially to impede rebuilding.

Despite being numerically at a disadvantage, black Tulsans fought valiantly to protect their homes, their businesses, and their community. But in the end, the city's African-American population was simply outnumbered by the white invaders. In the end, the restoration of Greenwood after its systematic destruction was left to the victims of that destruction. While Tulsa officials turned away some offers of outside aid, a number of individual white Tulsans provided assistance to the city's now virtually homeless black population. But it was the American Red Cross, which remained in Tulsa for months following the massacre, that provided the most sustained relief effort. Maurice Willows, the compassionate director of the Red Cross relief, kept a history of the event (available in full under the "Documents" section of this online exhibit).

What's in a Name? Riot vs. Massacre

In recent years there has been ongoing discussion about what to call the event that happened in 1921. Historically, it has been called the Tulsa Race Riot. Some say it was given that name at the time for insurance purposes. Designating it a riot prevented insurance companies from having to pay benefits to the people of Greenwood whose homes and businesses were destroyed. It also was common at the time for any large-scale clash between different racial or ethnic groups to be categorized a race riot.

What do YOU think?

Definition of RIOT: a tumultuous disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons assembled together and acting with common intent. Definition of MASSACRE: the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty.

Mass Graves Investigation

"Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum launched an investigation into longstanding oral history accounts of mass graves at various sites in Tulsa, alleged burial sites for scores of mostly-black victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Mayor Bynum continues to emphasize that this process, which may be long and tedious, is an investigation.

There is no certainty that one or more mass graves will be located. The investigation is geared toward answering, as best we can, the lingering historical question, originating through oral histories, about the existence of one or more mass graves linked to the massacre.

By this undertaking, we honor our oral history and its tellers. This history, separate and apart from its truth, has value.

Who told what to whom? Why? Was it accurate? These are all questions worth exploring.

The current Mass Graves Investigation seeks to address those questions and more. It deserves the support of the entire community. "

- Hannibal B. Johnson, www.hannibalbjohnson.com

Learn more about the on-going investigation on the City of Tulsa website here: www.cityoftulsa.org/1921graves

Traveling Exhibit

The Tulsa Historical Society & Museum has created a traveling exhibit on the history of the Greenwood Area and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre for the purpose of educating the community.
Learn more or request this free exhibit.

Online Collection

To view the entire collection of artifacts related to the Tulsa Race Massacre please visit our online collection.

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1921 Tulsa Race Massacre - Tulsa Historical Society & Museum

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Following World War I, Tulsa was recognized nationally for its affluent African American community known as the Greenwood District. This thriving business district and surrounding residential area was referred to as "Black Wall Street."

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TULSA, Okla. - Developers are planning to build a roughly $4 million townhome project called "Black Wall Street Square" in north Tulsa.

McGee Enterprises, Inc. and Boomtown Development Company are putting the project together in the Dunbar neighborhood near Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and East Reading Street.

The developers say there will be 24 townhomes on the property.

Eight will be market rate, starting around $150,000 with three beds, two baths and two-car garages.

Sixteen will be more affordable with three beds, two baths, and one-car garages.

The design will be finalized based on community input and plan to break ground mid-to-late summer of 2022, and the project is expected to be finished in 2023.

Black Wall Street Square will be designed based on Greenwood and Black Wall Street in the 1920s with brownstones. They say they'll be focused on engaging the community for their input before asking for the rezoning change.

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Developers planning $4 million 'Black Wall Street Square' townhome project in north Tulsa

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TULSA, Okla. - Developers are planning to build a roughly $4 million townhome project called "Black Wall Street Square" in north Tulsa. McGee Enterprises, Inc. and Boomtown Development Company are putting the project together in the Dunbar neighborhood near Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and East Reading Street.

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Before the Tulsa Race Massacre where the city's Black district of Greenwood was attacked by a white mob, resulting in two days of bloodshed and destruction, the area had been considered one of the most affluent African American communities in the United States for the early part of the 20th century.

The massacre, which began on May 31, 1921 and left hundreds of Black residents dead and 1,000 houses destroyed, often overshadows the history of the venerable Black enclave itself. Greenwood District, with a population of 10,000 at the time, had thrived as the epicenter of African American business and culture, particularly on bustling Greenwood Avenue, commonly known as Black Wall Street.
READ MORE: How the Tulsa Race Massacre Was Covered Up
Developed on Indian Territory

Founded in 1906, Greenwood was developed on Indian Territory, the vast area where Native American tribes had been forced to relocate, which encompasses much of modern-day Eastern Oklahoma. Some African Americans who had been former slaves of the tribes, and subsequently integrated into tribal communities, acquired allotted land in Greenwood through the Dawes Act, a U.S. law that gave land to individual Native Americans. And many Black sharecroppers fleeing racial oppression relocated to the region as well, in search of a better life post-Civil War.

"Oklahoma begins to be promoted as a safe haven for African Americans who start to come particularly post emancipation to Indian Territory," says Michelle Place, executive director of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum.

The largest number of Black townships after the Civil War were located in Oklahoma. Between 1865 and 1920, African Americans founded dozens of Black townships and settlements in the region.

O.W. Gurley, a wealthy Black landowner, purchased 40 acres of land in Tulsa, naming it Greenwood after the town in Mississippi.

Courtesy of Tulsa Historical Society & Museum

Built 'For Black People, by Black People'

"Gurley is credited with having the first Black business in Greenwood in 1906," says Hannibal Johnson, author of Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District. "He had a vision to create something for Black people by Black people."

Gurley started with a boarding house for African Americans. Then word began to spread about opportunities for Black people in Greenwood and they flocked to the district.

"O.W. Gurley would actually loan money to people who wanted to start a business," says Kristi Williams, vice chair of the African American Affairs Commission in Tulsa. "They actually had a system where someone who wanted to own a business could get help in doing that."

Other prominent Black entrepreneurs followed suit. J.B. Stradford, born into slavery in Kentucky, later becoming a lawyer and activist, moved to Greenwood in 1898. He built a 55-room luxury hotel bearing his name, the largest Black-owned hotel in the country. An outspoken businessman, Stradford believed that black people had a better chance of economic progress if they pooled their resources.
LISTEN: 'Blindspot: Tulsa Burning' from The HISTORY® Channel and WNYC Studios
Greenwood Became Self-Contained and Reliant

A.J. Smitherman, a publisher whose family moved to Indian Territory in the 1890s, founded the Tulsa Star, a Black newspaper headquartered in Greenwood that became instrumental in establishing the district's socially-conscious mindset. The newspaper regularly informed African Americans about their legal rights and any court rulings or legislation that were beneficial or harmful to their community.

Demands for equal rights were an ongoing mission for Black Americans in Tulsa despite Jim Crow oppression. Greenwood itself had a railway track running through it that separated the Black and white populations. Consequently, Gurley and Stradford's vision of having a self-contained and self-reliant Black economy came to be not only by desire but by logistics.

"As a practical matter they had no choice as to where to locate their businesses," said Johnson. "Tulsa was rigidly segregated, and Oklahoma became increasingly racist after statehood."

On Greenwood Avenue, there were luxury shops, restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, jewelry and clothing stories, movie theaters, barbershops and salons, a library, pool halls, nightclubs and offices for doctors, lawyers and dentists. Greenwood also had its own school system, post office, a savings and loan bank, hospital, and bus and taxi service.

Greenwood was home to far less affluent African Americans as well. A significant number still worked in menial jobs, such as janitors, dishwashers, porters, and domestics. The money they earned outside of Greenwood was spent within the district.

"It is said within Greenwood every dollar would change hands 19 times before it left the community," said Place.
READ MORE: 9 Entrepreneurs Who Helped Build 'Black Wall Street'

Oklahoma Historical Society/Getty Images

A Time of Racial Violence

It wasn't long before the affluent African Americans attracted the attention of local white residents, who resented the upscale lifestyle of people they deemed to be an inferior race.

"I think the word jealousy is certainly appropriate during this time," says Place. "If you have particularly poor whites who are looking at this prosperous community who have large homes, fine furniture, crystals, china, linens, etc., the reaction is 'they don't deserve that.'"

With the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, Black residents in Greenwood feared racial violence and the removal of their voting rights. The Oklahoma Supreme Court for years routinely upheld the state's restrictions on voting access for African Americans, subjecting them to the poll tax and literacy tests. And lynchings proliferated across the country, particularly during the Red Summer of 1919, where anti-Black riots erupted in major cities across the United States, including Tulsa.

In response, The Tulsa Star encouraged Black residents to take up arms and to show up at courthouses and jails to make sure Black people who were on trial were not taken and killed by white lynch mobs.

Accusation of Sexual Assault Ignites Riots

But the heightened racial animosity in Tulsa erupted in 1921 when 19-year-old Dick Rowland, a Black shoe shiner was accused of attempted sexual assault of a 17-year-old white elevator operator named Sarah Page. When an angry white mob went to the courthouse to demand that the sheriff hand over Rowland, the sheriff refused. A group of about 25 armed Black men-including many World War I veterans-then went to the courthouse to offer help guarding Rowland.

As word of a possible lynching spread, a group of around 75 armed Black men returned to the courthouse, where they were met by some 1,500 whites. After clashes between the groups, the Black men retreated to Greenwood.

Mobs of armed, white men then descended on Greenwood, looting homes, burning down businesses and shooting Black residents dead on the spot.

With millions in property damage and no help from the city, the rebuilding of Greenwood began almost immediately, thanks to the assistance of the NAACP, other Black townships in Oklahoma, donations from Black churches and a resilient Greenwood community. However, some businesses like the Tulsa Star newspaper were permanently shuttered in the wake of the violence.

The Greenwood District still exists today but after decades of urban renewal and integration the area's demographics and businesses resemble little of its storied past.

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Tulsa's 'Black Wall Street' Flourished as a Self-Contained Hub in Early 1900s

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Before the Tulsa Race Massacre where the city's Black district of Greenwood was attacked by a white mob, resulting in two days of bloodshed and destruction, the area had been considered one of the most affluent African American communities in the United States for the early part of the 20th century.