O doon demand at cspan. Org or listen on the go we the fro cspan radio app. The Africanamerican Community here in tulsa was started by a real estate person from arkansas, and his name was ow gurley, and he bought 40produce 40plus ache carries in this area in the early 21st century and began to develop this area, selling real estate to individual blacks who wanted to own property and the historic greenwood area is the area where he bought this property. It became known as the black wall street because of the number of Business Developers and entrepreneurs that came to the greenwood area to start a business. There was a lot of promise here because although blacks were not allowed to work in the oil fields, there was a lot of opportunity for those people who worked for the wealthier people who were in the oil business, and so there was a lot of promise there. There was a lot of promise. Good jobs. Good paying jobs. And the people took advantage of it. And in the greenwood area you had doctors, you had lawyers, you had pharmacies, you had educators, anything that went into sustaining a quality of life for a community could be found in the greenwood area, and that was the origin of it. People were looking for opportunities and there was land available here in tulsa, and so subsequently it just flourished, and when they arrested this young man for this alleged assault on the elevator in this Downtown Department store, the word got around that they were going to try to lynch him, and quite naturally the community said, you know, that, no, there isnt going to be a lynching. The first night they went down and nothing happened. But the second night they went down, a shot was fired and from that the melee started. Just chaos broke out everywhere, and as a result the whole greenwood area was burn to the ground. The only building left standing was the high school, and that is where the red cross director, who was sent to tulsa from st. Louis, set up the aid station that was set up by the red cross. The aftermath of that was that people did not have anyplace to live, and the city passed an ordinance that said that you could not rebuild unless you used brick, okay . Well, brick using brick was a prohibitive cost, and so buck c. Franklin, who was an attorney that had just recently moved to tulsa, he filed a lawsuit against the city and he eventually got the law taken off of the that ordinance taken off the books and people were able to rebuild their homes using wood or brick. The Greenwood District was by the middle of the 30s, like 1935, they had rebuilt the Greenwood District. And that is what this story should be all about, and thats the resilience of the people and them being able to recover from such a disaster. Now we are standing in reconciliation park. The purpose of the park was to call the attention to the people who do not know about the 1921 race riot, for people to remember that such a disaster happened and hopefully will never happen again. So our whole effort here in tulsa now is reconciliation. Were all about reconciliation. If you look at the tower of reconciliation, it gives you a history of coming to indian territory and people working and living together, and then up at the top youll see people reaching down, helping other individuals up to the top, and that is really what we ought to be all about all of the time, okay . Is man should treat man like theyre all were all human beings, okay . Live this saturday, at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, the Poor Peoples Campaign rally, an online gathering of people from across the country speaking out against social injustice. Speakers include activist cornell west, actor danny glover, comedian wanda sikes, debra messing, former president al gore his daughter, and actress and activist, jane fonda. Live, saturday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, the Poor Peoples Campaign rally against social injustice, on cspan, online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Lonny bunch. Discussed june teach. He is also the Foundation Director of the National Museum of africanamerican history and culture. Spoke to the Washington Post by video conference. Juneteenth. Good morning, welcome to Washington Post live. Lionie bunch the 14th 14th secretary of the libraries in smithsonian institution. When he assume that position a year ago this week, bunch became the first historian to hold the post, but more importantly, bunch became the first
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