Black Wall Street

Black Wall Street, former byname of the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where in the early 20th century African Americans had created a self-sufficient prosperous business district. The neighborhood was targeted by a white mob in the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, in which more than 1,400 homes and businesses were burned, and nearly 10,000 people were left homeless. The area eventually recovered, but declined following desegregation in the late 1950s. The name has also been applied more generally to districts of Black American high economic activity.

Historically, African Americans worked mainly as servants in Tulsa, where they developed their own insular society with its own economy. African Americans acquired the land that would become Greenwood in 1905, and Black businesses soon clustered on the strip. Early businesses included a grocery store and a barbershop, followed by doctors and real estate agents. The neighborhood also had its own newspaper and schools.

Black Wall Street was thriving at the time of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. The violent incident, however, took a heavy financial toll on African American survivors. Many homes and businesses were destroyed. Moreover, following the massacre, residents of Greenwood met resistance to rebuild. Nonetheless, Black American professionals and entrepreneurs slowly began to rebuild. Lawyers offered legal assistance to African Americans jailed in the massacre and helped them sue the city for compensation. A massive reconstruction of the district was completed in 1922, only one year after the massacre and without the help of the greater Tulsa community. Eighty businesses were opened by the end of 1922.

The community thrived throughout the first half of the century, even during the Great Depression. In addition to the usual businesses, the area formerly known as Black Wall Street contained a business college and the reopened offices of the African American newspaper. Many middle- and upper-class African Americans lived there. In addition, it provided the backbone for greater civic and political participation by Tulsa’s African American residents.

By the end of the 1950s, however, more than half of the businesses had closed. Desegregation allowed the entry of businesses owned by whites, while increasing numbers of African Americans in the community invested in entities outside Greenwood. By 1961, 90 percent of African American income in Tulsa was spent outside the Greenwood District.

The creation of the Greenwood Cultural Center, formed in the late 1970s, attracted tourism to the area. In addition to addressing African American culture and working on creating more harmonious race relations in the city, the cultural center was charged with preserving Black Wall Street. In 2010 John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park was opened in the Greenwood District. It commemorates the massacre and its victims, as well as noted historian and civil rights leader Franklin, who grew up in Tulsa. The story of the massacre is also told at Greenwood Rising, a history center created by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission.