Letters

Yes, there was such a place known as “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Let’s learn together.

On August 4, 1916, Tulsa passed an ordinance that mandated residential segregation by forbidding members of either race from residing on any block where three-quarters or more of the residents were members of the other race. Although the U.S. Supreme Court declared such an order unconstitutional the following year, Tulsa and many other cities continued to establish and enforce segregation for the next three decades.

Many servicemen returned to Tulsa following the end of World War I in 1918. As they tried to reenter the labor force, social tensions and white supremacist sentiment increased in cities where job competition was fierce. An economic slump in Northeastern Oklahoma increased the level of unemployment. The Civil War, which ended in 1865, was still in living memory; civil rights for African Americans were lacking.

But Tulsa, a booming oil city, also supported a large number of affluent, educated and professional African American residents. Greenwood was a district in Tulsa that was organized in 1906 following Booker T. Washington’s 1905 tour of Arkansas, Indian Territory and Oklahoma. It was a namesake of the Greenwood District, which Washington had established as his own district in Tuskegee, Alabama, five years earlier.

Greenwood became so prosperous that it came to be known as “the Negro Wall Street” (now commonly referred to as “the Black Wall Street”). Most Black people lived together in the district. Black Americans had created their own businesses and services in this enclave, including several grocers, two newspapers, two movie theaters, nightclubs and numerous churches. Black professionals, including doctors, dentists, lawyers, and clergy, served the community. Cooperation, economic independence, and excellence being demonstrated there.

Greenwood residents selected their own leaders and raised capital there to support economic growth. In the surrounding areas of northeastern Oklahoma, they also enjoyed relative prosperity and participated in the oil boom.

Until the whole city was burned down and over 10,000 Black people were left homeless. The cost of the property damage amounted to more than $1.5 million in real estate and $750,000 in personal property (equivalent to $38.43 million in 2023).

By the end of 1922, most of the residents’ homes had been rebuilt, but the city and real estate companies refused to compensate them. Many survivors left Tulsa, while residents who chose to stay in the city, regardless of race, largely kept silent about the terror, violence and resulting losses for decades. The massacre was largely omitted from local, state and national histories for years.

Brenda Simmons

Founder

Southampton African American Museum

Southampton Village