In the 1920s, there was a Strong Black Community here in tulsa called greenwood. These people were the core of black entrepreneurship. People call it The Black Wall Street. Greenwood was like putting harlem, Bourbon Street, and Chocolate City all in one place. But White Tulsans talked about greenwood as Little Africa or [bleep] land. Tulsa was a powder keg, needing only something to set the community alight. Between 100 and 300 people, most of them black, were killed. Today we call it a massacre. They were hastily trying to get rid of the bodies by dumping them in mass graves around the city. We have tulsans of an undetermined number who were murdered. It should not have taken 99 years. Anybody who thinks that this crime scene is not going to speak doesnt have the ears to hear. The ancestors are awake and the earth is shaking. I came to tulsa when i was in the sixth grade. So thats been, whew, i dont know how many years. My mother is from oklahoma. There was a Strong Black Community in
a black man named o.w. gurley came to oklahoma from arkansas. he bought land. he sold land to other african-americans. established his first business in 1906. businesses just proliferated and they became prosperous. creating and living in this insular economic community called the greenwood district. the greenwood district was like main street. mom-and-pop type operations, small businesses, hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, theaters, nightclubs. you have the offices of african-american lawyers. there are more than 12