The 1921 attack by a White mob on the all-Black Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood was one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history. As the city marks the massacre’s 100th anniversary this week, this is what happened and what was lost.
9 Entrepreneurs Who Helped Build Tulsa s Black Wall Street
Before the Tulsa Race Massacre, the cityâs African American district thrived as a community of business leaders and visionaries.
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Customers stand outside Berry s Service Station in Tulsa. Credit: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Princetta R. Newman
Before the Tulsa Race Massacre, the cityâs African American district thrived as a community of business leaders and visionaries.
As more is learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, including the discovery of mass graves, the stories of the African Americans who turned the city’s Greenwood district into “Black Wall Street” are equally as revealing. Before a white mob decimated 35 blocks of a thriving community, African Americans had migrated to Tulsa, pooling their resources and building wealth to create successful businesses amid Jim Crow discrimination.