Ottawa W. Gurley (known as O. TULSA RACE MASSACRE. Quraysh Ali Lansana, an Oklahoma native and the acting director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation at Oklahoma State University, Tulsa, is helping organize an exhibition about the historic Black Wall Street neighborhood, its destruction and its rebirth, for Tulsas Philbrook Museum of Art with Tri-City Collective. On May 30, 1921, Dick Rowland, a young African American shoe shiner, was accused of assaulting a white elevator operator named Sarah Page in the elevator of a building in downtown Tulsa. The 1921 Attack on Greenwood was one of the most significant events in Tulsa's history. Full Report: The Case for Reparations in Tulsa. He bought land and opened another general store north of Tulsas St. Louis and San Francisco or Frisco Railroad tracks. Old World War I airplanes dropped bombs on Greenwood, with the mob fatally shooting Black people and looting and burning their homes and businesses. Post-Civil War massacres in New Orleans, Memphis, Wilmington, Charleston, the Atlanta, Georgia, massacre (1906), the Elaine, Arkansas, massacre (1919), and the Rosewood, Florida, massacre (1923) have been buried deep in the record, ignored in mainstream history books, and lost to national memory. In a 1940 Works Progress Administration oral history, an ex-enslaved Creek confirmed this: I was eating out of the same pot with the Indians, . Relief was sent in from around the country, from the Red Cross, churches, and other philanthropies, though Tulsa city officials attempted to block it. Even afterward, few Black families had a chance to organize a funeral or mourn their dead. Her research and teaching focuses on archaeological sites of African heritage in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands and Oklahoma. The Bloomberg Philanthropies gave Tulsa $1 million for an expansive public art project called the Greenwood Art Project. . "I could see planes circling in. appearance, and a sprinkling of trappers, hunters, half-breeds, creoles and negroes of every hue. Black families, enslaved and freed, were among the Lochapoka Creeks, who were forced from Alabama during the Trail of Tears and founded Tulsa in 1836. Originally dubbed the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, this man-made calamity might also be given several other descriptors: white riot, assault, disaster, massacre (the mostly commonly used term today), pogrom, a holocaust, ethnic cleansing, or genocide. Library. And they mustered the strength to rebuild. 2006.018. Oklahomas Tulsa Race Massacre Commission reported that 100 to 300 people were killed, though the real number might be even higher. You have a really successful Black business community across the Frisco tracks, literally across the tracks from downtown Tulsa, said Johnson, the education chair for the Centennial Commission. No one in the white mob was prosecuted or otherwise punished for the massacre, the report said. OHS-203 - Analysis and Final Report. Segregation produced a captive marketplace, and Black entrepreneurs prospered. This page includes Oklahoma Historical Society resources and collections that chronicle this devastating event in our states history. It was too late. In 1925, Booker T. Washingtons National Negro Business League held its annual meeting in Tulsas partially restored business district. Black Tulsans are three times more likely to face police brutality in comparison to their white counterparts. . "Truth. Late in the battle as gunfire was sporadic, Jackson walked back to his home, after attending to victims, with his hands up. Members of the commission gathered accounts of survivors who were still alive, documents from individuals who witnessed the massacre but had since died, and other historical evidence. The Black Dispatch This site uses cookies. Tulsa police commissioner J. M. Adkison and police chief John Gustafson were under pressure to keep law and order in the rough and tumble boomtown. View in National Archives Catalog WASHINGTON, May 3, 2021 A century ago this month, the Greenwood District of Tulsa, OK, known as "Black Wall Street," was ablaze. He is the author of Tulsas Daily World: The Story of a Newspaper and Its Town. It all started on Monday morning, May 30, 1921, when a nineteen-year-old African-American shoeshine named Dick Rowland was working at a stand in front of the Drexel Building in downtown Tulsa. Updates? A disguised light-skinned African-American Tulsan overheard an ad hoc meeting of city officials plan a Greenwood invasion that night. Alternate titles: Tulsa race riot of 1921. Some have waited decades to find out where the mass graves . Staking a claim in the Cherokee Outlet Land Run of 1893, Gurley and his wife opened a general store and founded Perry, Oklahoma. From May 31 to June 1 in 1921, the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Okla., "Black Wall Street," was torched. DuBois had already warned the Black veterans of World War I, in the May 1919 issue of the Crisis, that they would be cowards and jackasses if now that the war is over, we do not marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land.. Rezensionen werden nicht berprft, Google sucht jedoch gezielt nach geflschten Inhalten und entfernt diese. The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission was formed to investigate in 1997 and officially released a report in 2001. The second building on the right is the Drexel Building, which was a pivotal location in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. A. Robertson dispatched the National Guard and declared martial law. Thousands were left homeless & some 300 died. When something is stolen from you, you go to the courts to be made whole. This wasnt the case for us. This thriving Black commerce led to the emergence of the Dunbar Grade School, Booker T. Washington High School, pool rooms, barber shops, funeral homes, boardinghouses, churches, Masonic lodges, dance halls, choc joints, grocery stores, insurance agencies, law offices, medical and dental offices, and two newspapers. Greenwood functioned independently, with its own school system, post office, bank, library, hospital and public transit. In The Black Oklahomans, Arthur B. Tolson shows that Africans, both Moors and Angolans, free and enslaved, accompanied Coronados expedition, which crossed the Oklahoma panhandle in 1541. Johnson said the inability of Black people to accumulate wealth and transfer it intergenerationally is the root cause. The destruction of Greenwood and the assault on its citizens, beginning on May 31, 1921, was called the worst public disturbance since the Civil War. 1,229 pages. Materials are presented uncensored and unaltered to reflect the historical record, and some content may be disturbing to viewers. Tulsa, 1921: Reporting a Massacre Randy Krehbiel, Karlos K. Hill (Foreword) 3.83 298 ratings53 reviews In 1921 Tulsa's Greenwood District, known then as the nation's "Black Wall Street," was one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States. In 1921, one of the nation's worst race massacres destroyed the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of Black Tulsans. Mary E. Jones Parrish said that the Greenwood men defended the Frisco Tracks like a stone wall, until they exhausted their ammunition. Massacre and Greenwood Rising Self - 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Survivor John W. Franklin Self - Managing Partner at Franklin Global LLC Karlos K. Hill Self - Department Chair and Professor at University of Oklahoma Hannibal Johnson Self - Education Chair for 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial (as Hannibal B. Johnson) George Monroe Self - 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Survivor When first published in 2001, society apparently wasn't ready for such an unstinting narrative. Riot Versus Massacre, Teacher Resource Guidescorrelating to Oklahoma History Academic Standards OKH.5.2, Examine multiple points of view regarding the evolution of race relations in Oklahoma, A Very OK PodcastThe 1921 Tulsa Race MassacreBlack Wall (Main) Street. The Tulsa Race. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Follow NBCBLK on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Parrish, who miraculously escaped death as she fled through a hail of gunfire with her young daughter, wrote: The Tulsa disaster has taught great lessons to all of us, has dissipated some of our false creeds, and has revealed to us verities of which we were oblivious. The city's "Black Wall Street" was among the most prosperous neighborhoods in America, and a Black utopia and then it was burned to the ground. In this book, Krehbiel describes the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and discusses the antecedents and consequences of the tragic event that left somewhere around ~300 African Americans dead (estimates unknown and widely varying) and destroyed Tulsa's prosperous "Black Wall Street" in the neighborhood of Greenwood. Tulsa's Greenwood district is the site of one of the most devastating race disturbances in the history of the United States. . The written order, filed on Wednesday . They were left to rebuild on their own. Later that afternoon at the Black-owned Williams Dreamland Theatre, sixteen-year-old Bill Williams watched as a neighbor jumped on stage and announced: Were not going to let this happen. Over the next two days, mobs of white people looted and set fire to African American businesses and homes throughout the city. 34 square blocks of Tulsa's . Use the links below to listen on YouTube. Kweku Larry Crowe is an independent researcher from Dayton, Ohio. Get the full version of this audiobook: https://audiobookscloud.com/B0851DWL7GTulsa 1921: Reporting a MassacreIn 1921, Tulsa's Greenwood District - known the. Randi Richardson reports for TODAY Digital and NBC BLK from New York. From WKY-TV News, this documentary shares stories of Black Oklahomans from pre-statehood to the 1970s through rare photographs and interviews. Slavery was obviously a huge example of an inability to accumulate wealth uncompensated labor, he said. The story of Tulsas Greenwood community, Events of the Tulsa Disaster was compiled by the Black stenographer Mary E. Jones Parrish and published by the Black community sometime after 1922. Arsonists reportedly waited for white women to fill bags with household loot before setting homes on fire. The devil courts said we were too late. I was told we had to leave and that was it. 1,186 pages. The law firm of Spears, Franklin & Chappelle provided legal assistance to victims. She is a native Tulsan, co-creator of the Tulsa Syllabus and the archaeology project Mapping Historical Trauma in Tulsa from 1921-2021., Alicia Odewale; Tulsa, 1921: Reporting a Massacre. "Examines the events and players contributing to, participating in, and responding to Tulsa's 1921 race riot and massacre and the social, political and historical context in which it occurred"--. For Black people, Greenwood is a reminder of the need to stay vigilant. Every year the Tulsa Equality Indicator report comes out and it reveals and outlines alarming disparities along racial lines from policing to the life expectancy. . The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Tulsa Race Massacre descendant Heather Nash, left, yells at Brenda Alford, 1921 Graves Public Oversight Committee member, and forensic anthropologist Dr. Phoebe Stubblefield as remains from a mass . Legacy of the Tulsa Race Massacre Roundtable Discussion (2021)Legacy of the Tulsa Race Massacre was a roundtable discussion focused on how race relations developed in Oklahoma after one of the states most horrific events, the Tulsa Race Massacre. The courts in Oklahoma wouldn't hear us. $29.95 (cloth); $21.95 (paper). Ethelyn Gimlin (H1983.109) By 1919, white civic leaders sought Greenwoods land for a railroad depot or other uses. Take me. Dont shoot him! The looting, though hurried, was methodical, with mobsters taking furniture, Victrolas, and pianos. A furious mob of thousands of white men then surged over Black homes, killing, destroying, and snatching everything from dining room furniture to piggy banks. The first grocery store since the 1940s or 1950s is just now under construction in North Tulsa! OHS-205 - Case Dockets #19167-19221, 1921. 1,090 pages. Thousands of African-American families moved in and helped found 30 Black towns, including Boley, Clearview, Tatum, Lima, and Langston, where McCabe himself helped found Langston College in 1897. Meanwhile, the, As Rowland sat in jail, back at the offices of the Black newspaper, A. J. Smitherman of the Tulsa Star led an impassioned discussion about how to protect him. Let the blame for this negro uprising lie right where it belongs on those armed negros and their followers who started this trouble and who instigated it and any persons who seek to put half the blame on the white people are wrong, the Tulsa City Commission wrote in a report issued two weeks after the massacre. It will air in May 2021, on the centennial of what's known as one of the worst incidents in American history of racial violence against Black people. It all started on Monday morning, May 30, 1921, when a nineteen-year-old African-American shoeshine named Dick Rowland was working at a stand in front of the Drexel Building in downtown Tulsa. Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. The all-white jury indicted more than 85 people, who were mostly Black. Some still unidentified men in khakis, who come up frequently in the testimony, looked down and asked, Are you Dr. Jackson? Learning it was, indeed, Dr. Jackson on the ground, one of them said, Oh shit, those boys have done it now!. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held a hearing about the Tulsa-Greenwood Race Massacre on 19 May 2021 in which three remaining known survivors - 107-year-old Viola Fletcher, Lessie Benningfield Randle (aged 106) and Hughes Van Ellis (aged 100) - experts and advocates called on Congress to This prosperity continued through the years even as racial terrorism around Tulsa grew, the Ku Klux Klan gained power, and Oklahomas Supreme Court regularly upheld voting restrictions such as poll taxes and literacy tests for Black voters. Hannibal B. Johnson, esquire, is chair of the Education Committee for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission and local curator of Greenwood Rising. In the commentary, the HBO producers mentioned that they lifted the idea of the bi-plane bombings from this book: "The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.". O. I think some readers are missing the point of this book: it's coverage *of the reporting* of the massacre, just like it says in the subtitle. It occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, beginning on May 31, 1921, and lasting for two days. But the ethos and bond that empowered residents to rebuild the community was strong. Details are difficult to gather, because many survivors of the massacre fled the city. The only African American in the legislature, Currin authored Oklahomas first civil rights bill, which lost ratification by one vote as the territorial government proceeded to disenfranchise Blacks and pass its first Jim Crow laws. This method became custom whenever Black people were on trial as they usually faced lynchings. In, This time, the police, fearing a lynching, moved Rowland from the regular jail to the top floor of the Tulsa County Courthouse for safekeeping. Identifier: 1989-004 An artificial collection comprised of research materials from a variety of sources, including recordings, photographs. 1,070 pages. Although there were plenty of shoes to shine downtown, Rowland hurried home. From May 31 to June 1, mobs of white Tulsa residents ransacked, pillaged, bombed, and burned over 1,000 homes, businesses, and churches and murdered scores of African Americans in the Tulsa's Black community of Greenwood. Hannibal Johnson, author of Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsas Historic Greenwood District, said the area thrived as an ancillary economy that kept money within the community. . 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. A Conversation with Hannibal B. Johnson: The Tulsa Race Tulsa Race Riot Commission Established, Renamed Sources During the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred over 18 hours from May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked residents, homes and. Black Wall Street did, eventually, rise from the ashes and Greenwood enjoyed another heyday in the 1940s, but integration and urban renewal in the 1960s and the 1970s led to new declines the neighborhood was unable to fully overcome, Johnson said. Tulsa race massacre of 1921, also called Tulsa race riot of 1921, one of the most severe incidents of racial violence in U.S. history. For decades after the decimation of Greenwood, a "conspiracy of silence" seemed to envelope Tulsa. Black wealth is generally one-tenth of white wealth. I hear the screams. A woman walks past a "Black Wall Street" mural during Juneteenth celebrations in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, the site of the 1921 race massacre, on June 19, 2020. . Omissions? Four sites were identified in the City's examination: Oaklawn Cemetery, Newblock Park, an additional area near Newblock Park, and Rolling Oaks Memorial . Tape (1999.069.02) - interviews with Ernestine Gibbs, Ruby McCormick, Wes Young, Otis Clark, and Joe Burns Dreisen Heath, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who authored the report, said law enforcements involvement in the massacre illustrates the demands of racial justice movements a century later. "The massacre was actively covered up in the white community in Tulsa for nearly a . To get started investing, check out . The white mob grew to more than 2,000 and Tulsa police did not disperse the crowd. John Williams, originally from Mississippi, opened an automobile repair shop and then Williams Dreamland Theatre, offering live stage shows and silent films, in addition to the air-conditioned Williams Confectionery. In many ways, it is poetic irony that science fiction has forced America to confront its very real history. While most mob members were not deputized, the general feeling was that they were acting under the protection of the government. W.) founded the Greenwood District. Earkysee Sutton (H1982.029) In the fall, rapper, activist, and entrepreneur Killer Mike, who extols the values of Black self-determination and independent institution-building, cofounded a Black and Latinx digital bank called Greenwood. Today marks 101 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre. The difference in mortality rate in North Tulsa is 11 percent fewer years than whites in South Tulsa. In the early hours of June 1, 1921, then-Gov. 107-year-old survivor of Tulsa Massacre Viola Fletcher calls on U.S. to acknowledge 1921 event, Looking back at the Tulsa Race Massacre a century later, Tulsa newspapers swiftly published incendiary articles. These African-American lawyers filed claims against the city of Tulsa and against its new Fire Ordinance No. Sheriff McCullough, hunkered down in the County Court House, kept Dick Rowland safe as the mobs fury was aimed at a Negro revolt in Greenwood. The Black residents of Greenwood did not passively endure the onslaught. . The setback has only compounded since then as Tulsa remains largely segregated and riddled with racial disparities. But on May 31 of that year,. According to Tim Madigans. Quraysh Ali Lansana, an Oklahoma native and the acting director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation at Oklahoma State University, Tulsa, is helping organize an exhibition about the historic Black Wall Street neighborhood, its destruction and its rebirth, for Tulsas Philbrook Museum of Art with Tri-City Collective. A Greenwood legend, Peg Leg Taylor, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, was said to have shot a dozen white men from a sniper position on Standpipe Hill. Less than a year before, in August 1920, a white drifter, Roy Belton, had been ripped from jail by a white mob and hung in public for killing the towns favorite cab driver. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot.. A Tulsa judge is allowing a lawsuit brought by plaintiffs including three living survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre to officially move forward. The other lingering issue is how Black wealth is generally one-tenth of white wealth. Sources: The Tulsa World has published many articles that were examined for the writing of this piece; Tulsa History Museum digital exhibit 1921 Tulsa Race MassacreTulsa Historical Society & Museum; A Long-Lost Manuscript Contains a Searing Eyewitness Account of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 May 27, 2016, Smithsonian magazine; Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 by Scott Ellsworth; From Slaves to Soldiers and Beyond by Tina Cahalan Jones; Tulsa, 1921: Reporting a Massacre by Randy Krehbiel and Karlos K. Hill; Fire on Mount Zion: My Life and History As a Black Woman in America by M. B. The Tulsa Race Massacre I lost myself in Tulsa in 1921 yesterday afternoon and into the evening. Thabiti Lewis is professor of English and associate vice chancellor of academic affairs at Washington State University. Hear from survivors, descendants of victims and thought . As city streets throbbed with protests (and what some might call uprisings) during the summer of 2020, two science fiction dramas recalled the massacre of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which took place 100 years ago this spring. However, no legislative action was ever taken on the recommendation, and the commission had no power to force legislation. Those indictments were largely dismissed or not pursued, according to the Human Rights Watch report. to this report. He was born in Huntsville, Alabama, on Christmas Day in 1868, and educated in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Blood on Black Wall Street: The Legacy of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The assembly was quiet until the arrival of the armed Negros, which precipitated and was the direct cause of the entire affair, the grand jury wrote. Tulsa had experienced rapid, dramatic change since the time white settlers first established themselves there in the 1880s. What happened next is still disputed, but Page told the police that Rowland, who had left the scene, grabbed her arm and made her scream. By 1921, according to historian Scott Ellsworth, a revived Tulsa Ku Klux Klan claimed an active membership of 3,200. All we are asking for is for the chance to be treated like a first-class citizen, that this is the land where there is liberty and justice for all. Brandy Thomas Wells, who provided historic context for and ramifications of the massacre; and Reverend Dr. Robert Turner of Historic Vernon Chapel A. M. E. Church, who shared the perspective of a community leader in Tulsa. In 2018, Radio Diaries in New York City received a $350,000 grant from NEH to support several episodes of its historical radio program and podcast, one of which, Surviving the Tulsa Race Riot, told the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre through the life and memories of Olivia Hooker, who was just six years old in 1921. Greenwood is just outside of North Tulsa, which is mostly Black, while South Tulsa is a mostly white area. The Greenwood district in Tulsa, Okla., prior to the 1921 massacre. Journal of American Ethnic History 1 January 2021; 40 (3): 130132. The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre May 31-June 1, 2021, marked the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Just decades after slavery in the United States left Black Americans in an economic and societal deficit, one bright spot stood out in Tulsa, Oklahoma its Greenwood District, known as the Black Wall Street, where Black business leaders, homeowners, and civic leaders thrived. Smitherman had chastised Blacks for allowing the lynching of Claude Chandler the year before in Oklahoma City, and he urged the men in the room to protect Rowland and themselves. Postcards, issued in 1911, featured the hanging of African-American farm wife Laura Nelson and her castrated son from a bridge in Okemah, Oklahomaan event that later inspired the activism of Woody Guthrie. Over 24 hours, Tulsa witnessed what is thought to be the worst single event of white supremacist violence against African Americans in the nation's history. The fact that after the disaster none of them were convicted of crimes vindicates that position. A. C. Jackson, physician and surgeon, saw patients at an office on Greenwood avenue and Archer Street. Extent. June 3, 1921June 10, 1921June 17, 1921June 24, 1921, The Morning Tulsa Daily WorldJune 1, 1921, extra editionJune 1, 1921, second extra editionJune 1, 1921, final edition, The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Heritage Preservation Grant Program, View the Tulsa Race Riot Commission Collection finding aid. NOTES. True deliverance for the people of Greenwood, however, came from within, as documented in their own record of the massacre and its aftermath. Work. Viola Ford Fletcher, 108 and . W.E.B. As city streets throbbed with protests (and what some might call uprisings) during the summer of 2020, two science fiction dramas recalled the massacre of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which took place 100 years ago this spring. The heart of the prosperous African-American district of Greenwood after the massacre. May 28, 2021 A century after armed white mobs killed between 100 and 300 Black people and destroyed Greenwood, a prominent Black community in Oklahoma, Americans are still grappling with the Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31 and June 1, 1921. The elevator operator was seventeen-year-old Sarah Page, a white girl. Fletcher's brother Hughes Van Ellis, 100, and a World War II veteran, said his childhood was hard as his family recovered from the massacre. I think some readers are missing the point of this book: it's coverage *of the reporting* of the massacre, just like it says in the subtitle. Related . Only in 2020, 99 years after the fact, did the Greenwood massacre become part of the Oklahoma school curriculum! View the Tulsa Race Riot Commission Collection finding aidThe Tulsa Race Riot Commission was created by the Oklahoma Legislature in 1997 under HB 2468. Several aspects of Tulsa's social structure served as causes of the Greenwood's destruction in 1921, including both demographic shifts and structural failures. These interviews were conducted in the 1990s. This thriving business district and surrounding residential area was referred to as "Black Wall Street.". 1,201 pages. Within a week of the massacre, at least 6,000 of the remaining residents were detained in internment camps. Rowland went inside the building to use the third-floor segregated restroom. Viewers wondered if the events depicted were more fiction than science. Meanwhile, the Tulsa Tribunes afternoon edition fanned the flames with the headline To Lynch Negro Tonight! as an ugly mob began to gather outside of the Tulsa Courthouse. . I still smell smoke and see fog. Many of the mob members were recently returned World War I veterans trained in the use of firearms and are said to have shot African Americans on sight. He is author of Black People Are My Business: Toni Cade Bambaras Practices of Liberation (2020) and Ballers of the New School: Race and Sports in America (2010). Great Value. In 2010 John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park was opened in the Greenwood District to memorialize the massacre. Randy Krehbiel has been a reporter for the Tulsa World since 1979 and now covers political and governmental affairs in Oklahoma and the United States. Tulsa Star via Tulsa Race Riot Photographs website. Through the Looking Glass Darkly, Part III (1973) (F2013.134.2.0026, WKY-TV Moving Image Collection) The story of Tulsas Greenwood community. Despite its severity and destructiveness, the Tulsa race massacre was barely mentioned in history books until the late 1990s, when a state commission was formed to document the incident. The mission of this organization was to study and provide a report of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 that would also help to give reparations for the tragic losses of those from the Greenwood District. . There were indictments of a few white officials, including Police Chief John Gustafson, and several Black Tulsans, among them publisher A.J. Tape 4 (1999.069.04) - interviews with Jobie Elizabeth Holderness, Eunice Jackson, Myrtle Rollerson, and Beulah Loree Smith, Most of the historic resources directly associated with Greenwood were destroyed during the massacre and many of the resources from the period of post-massacre reconstruction were destroyed by urban renewal in the 1970s. In 1921 Tulsa's Greenwood District, known then as the nation's "Black Wall Street," was one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States. Both survived the conflict. Corrections? Social media was abuzz with people trying to find out more about Tulsa. 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