“The plot to take it over has happened - it just didn’t happen in 1921,” said Sean Thomas, a doctoral candidate at Oklahoma State University’s geography department. Freeman Culver III, president and CEO of the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce, said few Black business owners remain in downtown Tulsa. White households have a median income $20,000 higher than the average Black family. Half of white Tulsans own their homes, compared to barely more than a third of Black Tulsans. Most live outside of Greenwood in north Tulsa, while the wealthier downtown remains largely white. Tulsa’s Black residents have faced displacement and a loss of property and wealth that has stretched across generations. He said outside of the single remaining block of Greenwood businesses, there are only four Black property owners in the downtown area, one of which is the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce. The same goes for the arts district, which Culver and others note was developed largely through tax incentives and loans that mostly went to white developers. There’s nothing else.”Ĭulver said that in 2013 when Forbes called Tulsa the best place for young entrepreneurs, he didn't think the magazine was talking about Black entrepreneurs, many of whom lack the capital and connections to compete. “And now what do you see?” Moreno asked as he stood above the expressway. Greenwood Cultural Center / Getty Images Looking north along Greenwood Avenue, the single block of remaining businesses in Greenwood. A view of Greenwood Avenue looking north in 1938. At its height, Black business owners operated 40 grocery stores and dozens of confectionaries across the mixed-use 35-block community. Thank God for the grit of Black Tulsa.”īy the 1950s and ʼ60s, Greenwood had blossomed into one of the most successful Black neighborhoods in the country. Scars are there, but the city is impudent and noisy. “Five little years ago, fire and blood and robbery leveled it to the ground.
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It was not the bloodshed that eventually destroyed most of Greenwood, however rather, it was this, he said, pointing to the spaghetti of interchanges to the south and the expressway that stretches north.
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In his new book set to be released next week, “The Victory of Greenwood,” Moreno explores how the neighborhood had a second renaissance led by Black Tulsans after the massacre, rebuilding even bigger than before.
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The Greenwood District in ruins after the massacre in 1921.
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But that’s not the full story of Greenwood, nor its end. With the anniversary just days away, many have focused on the violence. At the end of May, it will be a century since a white mob looted, burned and murdered in Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood, then known as the Black Wall Street, killing hundreds and displacing thousands more.