The Legacy of Black Wall Street (2021): Season 1, Episode 1 - Part 1 - full transcript
♪ Black Wall Street
was the soul ♪
♪ I imagine for the ♪
♪ Generation,
post-slavery utopia ♪
♪ Breathing came easy 'cause ♪
♪ God blessed the child
that had his own ♪
♪ And we own all of this ♪
♪ Imagine that ♪
♪ Negros running things ♪
Greenwood was a very
wealthy Black community
of 11,000 people.
Greenwood happened because
Black people can take America's worst
and make it excellent.
But the racism was
thick and real.
How dare these black folks go and
build a community for themselves.
They wanted to eliminate
the Black town.
The Greenwood district
is completely destroyed.
And they lost everything.
Black Wall
Street is important
to the imagination
of Black people.
The trajectory could've
been different.
And now the promises of the past
can become the social agenda
of the future.
The Greenwood district
was one of the most prominent and
affluent Black communities in the country.
It was a symbol of
what is possible
for Black people in America.
But to understand
the story of Black Wall Street,
we have to go back to
the Trail of Tears.
First Black people
to come to Oklahoma
were actually members of
the Native American tribes.
The five tribes, Choctaw,
Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole
were slave-holding tribes.
Some of them wanted to show
that they were in allyship
by mimicking what like the
white settlers are doing.
Indigenous people were
affected by anti-Black racism.
The process invited them into
the slave-holder culture,
even as they were subject
to the worst forms
of oppression and
discrimination of themselves.
When the Five Tribes
signed a Removal Treaty,
they had to remove
their Black slaves too.
The Indian
Removal Act of 1830
forcibly evicts Native American
tribes in the southeast,
and transfers their
lands to white farmers
to expand cotton plantations.
Over 100,000 Native Americans
and approximately 4,000
enslaved African-Americans
make the treacherous
journey to Indian territory,
now known as Oklahoma.
The over 5,000 mile
brutal and deadly removal
is known as the Trail
of Tears and Death.
When everybody
got to Oklahoma,
there were many
different ways...
Black people were
still enslaved here.
They still were property.
And they had to rebuild what the
Indian tribes had in the Deep South.
After the Civil War, you had
freed men living in Oklahoma.
You have a freed
Black population,
able to live on tribal
lands in a communal way.
The Dawes
Act passed in 1887,
allowing the Federal
government to break up
tribal lands into
individual plots.
Black people
in Oklahoma owned more land
than any other part
of the country.
About two million acres of land
were allotted to freed men.
So when you think about forty acres
and a mule, and that false promise
after the Civil War,
Black people actually
got that in Oklahoma.
Those land allotments become
the seeds of more than 50 Black towns
that emerge in Oklahoma.
More than any other
state in the country.
Once the five tribes
received their allotment,
then whatever was left,
that was deemed surplus
and the government opened it for
sale to whoever wanted to buy it.
OW Gurley was a Southerner
who hailed from Arkansas,
who came to Tulsa
to purchase land.
The land that
Greenwood exists on,
was not land that whites at
that time deemed as valuable,
but as land that could be
sold to "a negro buyer."
Gurley purchases an
allotment of land.
His goal was to incubate
a Black community.
OW Gurley opened a grocery
store on what would become Greenwood Avenue.
He was really able to tap into a lot of
dynamics happening throughout the state,
where people would be travelling
to meet different communities.
And some of the freed men went
up and set up on Greenwood.
They were able to provide
some of that nurturing wealth.
Land for
recently enslaved people
is everything.
Because we have
to imagine a world
in which an enslaved person did not
have property rights in themselves.
OW Gurley determined that
he would only sell that land
to Black buyers.
My
great-grandfather knew that
in Mississippi, folks would limit
you because of your skin color.
He wanted to go to a place where his
children could be better educated.
And that's how they
would come to Oklahoma.
It was known, if
you want to be free,
come to this territory.
So Black folks heard the call...
"Come to Greenwood."
There was a high level of independence and
autonomy among Black folks in Oklahoma.
It was a mixture of
this freed-man wealth
and freed-man land ownership.
There was sort of an openness
and they thought they would be
able to chart their own new course.
At the start of
the 20th century.
Black people went,
"Wow!
The Black people
here are land owners.
And they are prospering!"
My great-great-grandfather
took up camp in
Tallahassee, Oklahoma,
which is one of our
states oldest Black towns.
From there, some of the family
members migrated to Tulsa.
The funny thing is,
when the government put Native Americans
and freed-men on Indian territory,
they had no idea
what was on the land.
They discovered oil in Glenpool,
and that turned Tulsa into
the oil capital of the world.
African-Americans didn't
work in oil businesses,
but began working for the rich,
white folks in the oil business.
As more oil was found...
Tulsa becomes this boom town.
Greenwood
was on the ascent.
It grew so rapidly
and had so many people coming
here, who were so ambitious.
Greenwood was a district
that had been founded
by OW Gurley and JB Stradford.
They had a
particular mindset.
You come, you build and
help the community grow.
Mr. Stradford was a
business incubator of sorts.
He did the things that people
today have to go to business school
to learn how to do.
Microloans, start-up capital,
cooperative economics,
he did that innately.
They were able to build these
businesses from the ground up
in the Greenwood district.
Black people
see Tulsa as the place
where they can have prosperity,
can support their family,
have education
in relative safety,
as opposed to the Deep South.
Because Oklahoma did
not have statehood.
You're
in the Deep South,
you're living under
the boot of Jim Crow.
Where in Oklahoma territory,
the laws hadn't quite
been settled yet.
Oklahoma had to decide what
kind of city we're gonna be.
Are we going to be
a new kind of state?
Or are we going to be an
extension of the Jim Crow South?
Ambitious African-Americans
who wanted the territory
to join the Union,
asked that it be admitted
as a Black state.
Black people actually
travelled from Oklahoma to the White House
to meet with Teddy Roosevelt,
asking him not to allow Oklahoma to
become a state with Jim Crow policies.
But the powers that
be chose Jim Crow.
President Teddy
Roosevelt addressed a proud population
after officially signing the document
which brought Oklahoma into the Union.
The first laws that
are passed in Oklahoma in 1907
segregate the state.
Making it clear that Black
people and white people
were gonna live
in two societies.
You've got sundown towns,
where Black folks can't
be there after dark.
Policies and laws
walled Black people out.
But walled them in
with each other,
and they were able to
create an economic center
for Black Tulsa.
Black people could not shop
anywhere else in Tulsa
besides that 35-block area!
The Greenwood district
gets incubated
by these captive Black buyers.
You know, folks
made it work for them.
"Fine, then.
Actually, you're walling us in
and you're walling our money in.
We'll keep our
dollars circulating
and we'll build ourselves up."
We're able to build out and
develop our communities to
the fullest extent
that we desire.
The development
of that vibrant community
with its businesses
and with its cultural dimension,
that was certainly
part of the way
in which we learned
how to inhabit
a system of
segregation and racism.
And at the same time,
assert our own dignity.
And so, when you
have aspiring Black people
who want the nicest goods
and services of the day...
you get businesses, you
get fine establishments,
'cause you have not just
a small Black elite,
but you have a significant
Black middle-class.
Not only did
you see the doctors,
you got your pharmacists.
And along with it
now, understand...
Greenwood wasn't
all upwardly mobile.
You had your bootleggers, you had
folks that were running the numbers,
you have all of that going on.
It was a community.
So you had
numerous restaurants.
You had movie theaters,
law offices,
photography studios,
all bunched up in
this one little area.
And many would call
it "Little Africa."
They would dress in
their finest apparel.
And they would go
to the jazz clubs
and blues clubs
up and along Greenwood.
And kinda parade for each other.
It's simply amazing when
you look at the list
of the the Black-owned
businesses that existed here.
My great-grandfather,
Isaac Evitt,
he had a business on Greenwood
called the Zulu Lounge.
It wasn't a fancy place.
It was get that choc beer
and that dead-eye whiskey,
and have camaraderie
among friends.
It was the 1921 Greenwood
version of Cheers.
There was a Goodwin building.
And in the Goodwin building
was a Union grocery,
a Duncan Clinton restaurant
and a rooming house.
Then you had the
Stradford Hotel.
One of the finest hotels owned
by a Black man, JB Stradford,
that would rival any white hotel
in terms of the decor.
Crystal chandeliers, etc.
There were many businesses owned by
Black women in the Greenwood district.
Black women were just
as much entrepreneurs
as their male counterparts.
They were savvy business owners.
There were restaurants,
and beauty shops,
and clothing stores.
They contributed to the success
of the Greenwood district.
Loula Williams is a founder
of Black Wall Street.
She and JD Williams owned
the Dreamland Theater.
They owned an autobody shop.
These were industrious people
who figured out a
way out of no way
to make a Black life in America.
She is an exemplar
of Black Wall Street
and what was possible.
My great-grandparents
had two other theaters too,
but Dreamland was the main one.
Dreamland was a gathering place.
They had vaudeville shows and
featured the latest movies.
The Dreamland theater was the
finest Black entertainment establishment
And this is a
700-person theater!
In 1921!
There's not a theater like
that in Oklahoma today!
They were
setting their standards.
It was important to have a venue
where Black art and Black artists
could be featured.
There was a level of
cooperation in the Greenwood district
that was less about capitalism,
and more about
cooperative economics.
It was an energetic community
that was self-contained,
yet self-determined.
When Booker T. Washington
visits Oklahoma,
there's this kinetic
energy that's there.
And he's able to say this is a model
for other Black communities to follow,
to build an America
in which Black people
have independence.
This community becomes
known as Black Wall Street.
"Whenever there is a will,
there is a way.
We must double
our determination.
We must work incessantly
to see our hopes realized
and our labor
crowned with success.
I hope the day will soon come,
when our city will
be more liberal
with our colored citizens."
JB Stradford in a
letter to AJ Smitherman.
Tulsa really begins
to become a boom town
after oil is discovered.
Much of it was drilled on land owned
by indigenous and Black people.
Backed by the government, white settlers
tried to seize control of the land.
Oklahoma passed a law where
white guardians were appointed to children
whose land allotments
had struck oil.
Guardians handled the money
that was being brought
in from the oil.
We're talking about millions
and millions of dollars.
And not in today's money,
in that day's money.
Warrior Rentie, his
family's land had struck oil
and they had appointed a white
guardian to his children.
The argument was that the
parents were incompetent.
AJ was there.
They went over and spoke to
this newly appointed guardian.
And Warrior told him, "The day that
you are a guardian of my children
is the day you will die."
Warrior was arrested.
Thus the expose of the
guardianship racket began.
AJ not only managed to
prevail in the case,
so that Warrior was awarded
guardianship over all of his children.
They started the Negro
Guardianship League
so that they could help others who
were part of this awful racket.
AJ Smitherman, he met
with JB Stradford.
He told him his intention of
starting a Black newspaper.
And JB offered a $200 loan.
Fortunately, AJ found right away
a press plant and two employees.
And began The Tulsa Star.
The rest is history.
At that time, white newspapers
weren't covering Black lives
in any kind of
comprehensive way.
And so it fell on Black journalists
to be able to tell those stories.
AJ Smitherman brings some of
the conscience of Greenwood
across the United States.
AJ Smitherman was the president
of the Negro Press Association.
He was the original
Black social media.
He was the Black Twitter.
The pen warrior.
He had the first Black
female cartoonist.
A staff of Black women who
sold advertising for his paper.
He made his wife, my big
mommy, the social editor.
He constantly reported
on women organizations.
I just love him for
that.
Dr. AC Jackson... is maybe the
most incredible story of Greenwood.
He was a stellar student and
graduated from Meharry Medical School.
He moved to Greenwood
and opened his practice
at the corner of
Greenwood and Archer.
Dr. AC Jackson was recognized by
William and Charlie Mayo of Mayo Clinic,
as being the finest Black surgeon
in the country, if not the world.
I actually trained at Mayo.
I remember as a resident, reading about
the most famous physicians of modern times,
knowing who he was.
I can't imagine how
good he had to be
to get to that point then.
It's pretty powerful
to think about.
Black Wall Street gains
the consternation of whites
who were worried about the
strivings of Black people.
Who don't just want
to be economic equals,
they want to be social equals.
And this becomes a threat.
When Black
communities are successful,
and when they exhibit
a community spirit,
they will certainly be targeted.
No Black person ended up
in Oklahoma by chance.
You had a very specific group of
people who had come out to this place.
Asserting their
own independence,
their own equality
and their own human worth.
Augusta Stradford
was JB Stradford's wife.
And she refused to give
up her seat on a train.
JB Stradford and his wife, Augusta were
travelling from Kansas to Oklahoma.
Kansas did not
require Jim Crow cars.
At that time, Oklahoma did.
They were asked to move to a Jim Crow
car when they were past the state border,
and they refused to do so.
And were removed from the
car for insubordination.
JB ends up suing the
rail road company,
asserting that this policy was
racist and against the constitution.
Collective resistance
was absolutely necessary.
One cannot be free without
spreading that freedom
and encouraging the
development of that freedom.
What we have to understand
about America in the 1920s
is that racial violence against
Black people gets justified
by this idea that Black people,
specifically Black
men are criminal.
And there needs to be spectacular
violence done to them,
in order to control
the Black population.
In 1915, Woodrow Wilson called
for a screening in the White House
of Birth of a Nation.
And it was the emergence of a
white-supremacist United States of America.
It legitimized even the most
violent forms of white supremacy...
lynchings.
The visual representation
of lynchings
was actually key to
the racist violence
as the only way to guard
against Black leadership.
And Black Wall
Street, they were striving.
Not just for economic
independence.
Not just for prosperity.
But for equality.
This was understood.
And therefore,
created resentment
and trepidation amongst
whites in Tulsa.
Can you imagine, you're a
white man from Mississippi,
in a age where the white
man was superior to negros,
but you see that Greenwood
is full of wealthy people.
There was a lot of
animosity going on.
There was a sense of
jealousy in the air.
How dare these Black folks go and
build a community for themselves.
How dare there be Black folks
that are roaming
around in drop-tops,
when white folks have not amassed that
same amount of wealth at all levels.
They did not like
that these uppity negros
were able to make
all this money,
have nice fine items,
have nice cars,
nice furniture in their homes
and silverware and clothing.
They despised that.
Initially,
when African-Americans
began to build their
homes and businesses
at the corner of
Greenwood and Archer,
the city of Tulsa
wasn't too concerned.
But as that wealth trickled
into the Greenwood district,
there was an interest in
having African-Americans
sell their land in
the Greenwood district
and relocate farther north.
They were approached
and asked to relocate.
And they refused to do so.
"The Tulsa Star'ssynonymous
with any term meaning
the civil and political rights
of the American colored man.
In this, we are
not compromising."
AJ Smitherman wrote
that in The Tulsa Star.
In the State of Oklahoma, AJ Smitherman
was the first registered Black Democrat.
At that time, it'd
be very hard to find
other Black Democrats registered
throughout the United States.
The vast majority of Blacks
would always vote Republican.
Republicans could take for
granted the Black vote,
because Lincoln had
been Republican.
AJ started noticing that Republicans
were voting against Civil Rights.
It was a huge risk,
but he was on a mission to help
diversify the Black vote in America.
He's the
quintessential race man
taking issue with
discrimination and inequality
that Black people
experience in Tulsa.
He was a crusader
against lynching.
In many ways, he
represented the manhood.
I see him as the
guardian of Black Tulsa.
In the seven years that
he had that newspaper in Tulsa,
he turned the Black vote
to over 50% Democratic.
Here we are 100 years later, and
Blacks are primarily Democrats.
That movement was started by my
great-grandfather in the early 1900s.
The people of Greenwood were
beginning to show the white leaders
that they did have
power in numbers
and the power to vote.
And that was a threat.
So the way to eliminate
the Black vote...
was to get rid of
the Black town.
Just like today, there was a strategy
that had been taking place in the south.
Where white women accuse a Black
man in order to incite violence.
They keep following me.
They're threatening me.
I'm in trouble. There's an
African-American man threatening my life.
Sir, I'm asking to
stop recording me.
Please don't
come close to me.
Whiteness and white
supremacy gets threatened
if folks of color gain power.
Greenwood was a threat and
you have to squash threats.
The people of Greenwood
knew that racist white folks
were envious of this
prosperous Black community.
But they didn't know the
degree of the devastation
that would visit Greenwood.
It all started
with Dick Rowland.
Dick Rowland was a
shoeshine boy in downtown Tulsa.
He had dropped out of Booker
T. Washington High School
to shine the shoes of
rich, white oil men.
He made so much money
that he wore a
diamond-encrusted belt-buckle,
and his nickname
was Diamond Dick.
Dick Rowland needed
to go to the restroom
and the restroom was on the
fourth floor of the building.
There was a young
white girl named Sarah Page.
And it was her job to operate the
elevator from one floor to the next.
Everyday, Dick Rowland would
enter the Drexel Building
to go upstairs to
use the restroom.
He encountered Sarah Page
on numerous occasions.
At some point in the
elevator, Sarah Page screamed
and Dick Rowland ran
from the Drexel Building.
No one can say with 1000%
veracity what happened.
Dick Rowland
went into an elevator
and came out a man that
was falsely accused.
Dick
Rowland was arrested.
And he was taken
to the jailhouse
located above the courthouse.
The Tulsa
Tribune published an article
saying, "Nab the negro."
Rumors began to spread
that it wasn't just that Dick
Rowland had attacked Sarah Page,
he raped her.
The rape allegation
whips up a lot of excitement
on both sides of the tracks.
This becomes fodder for
white men in Tulsa to say,
"We have to stand up
against this community
in which this attack
emanates from.
And if you are a white
man worth his salt,
you would do what you could
to defend white
people, white society
and particularly, white women
from Black criminality."
A second inflammatory
article came out
that says, "Looks like there is going
to be a lynching in Tulsa tonight."
This was
inciting a violent mob
to gather before the courthouse
and to remove Dick Rowland from
the custody of the officials
in order to lynch him.
Whites had begun to
gather in front of the courthouse,
angry and upset about
what had happened,
and determined to take
matters into their own hands.
They had hung a white
man few months before.
So they know if they hung a white man,
they sure enough would hang a Black man.
In front
ofThe Tulsa Star,
AJ Smitherman gathered
World War I veterans,
Black men who had fought
overseas and had been trained,
with the intention of going to
protect Dick Rowland from a mob.
Some accounts say a
thousand white people
were outside of the
county courthouse.
Later, those people would
say that they were there
to observe what was
going to happen.
But, you know... What are
you expecting to happen
if you're outside of a courthouse in
the middle of the night, May 31st, 1921?
Wasn't something
that happened out of nowhere.
This is years of racial
tension and racial violence.
On that evening, my
grandfather, Ed Goodwin Senior,
he was a senior at Booker T.
They were supposed to be
preparing for their graduation.
While they were engaged
in what they were doing,
someone came to
them and they said,
"There's troubles coming."
A very large group
of white men were out there
and then armed Black men come
driving down from Greenwood
to the courthouse.
And I would imagine that
the white people there,
probably felt a mix of surprise, anger
and fear at what they were seeing.
This is not how they
expect society to function.
The ways in which the white
mob encircle the county courthouse
was part and parcel of
lynching culture in America.
There were
white folks saying,
"We're looking to lynch
Dick Rowland tonight."
Black World War I veterans said,
"Listen, we're not gonna allow
this young, Black man to be hung.
He needs to have
his day in court."
The tensions are high.
Black man had a gun.
The white man said, "What are
you gonna do with the gun?"
Black man says, "I'mma
use it if I have to."
They attempt to take the
gun from the Black man.
A shot rings out.
From that point...
all hell broke lose.
All of the major steps
in democratizing the
United States of America
have happened as a result of
the struggles of Black people.
And the efforts to prevent this,
of course, are extreme
and they are violent.
And one sees that after the
Wilmington, North Carolina massacre,
the Red Summer in 1919,
and then of course, Greenwood.
White people tried to
loot the National Guard armory.
They broke into a hardware store to take
as many weapons as they possibly could.
They were attempting to
be deputized by police.
This man names Laurel
Buck was at the courthouse
shortly before Black
men came in the cars,
sees everything unfold, and he just makes
a beeline for the police department.
What was said by the police was,
"Get a gun, get busy
and get a nigger."
The Sherriff's
department deputized over 500 white men
who were joined by
the police force.
Who were joined by
thousands of white rioters.
The Black people who were in downtown
had been pushed back into Greenwood.
They were having skirmishes across
rail road tracks with white groups.
The way that the massacre has been
portrayed often times in the media
has been that Blacks were
fleeing for their lives.
And it... omits the part
where African-American
men armed themselves.
And positioned themselves
in some strategic locations.
A gentlemen by the
name of "Peg Leg" Taylor,
who stood upon what we know
today as Standpipe Hill,
he was a veteran of World War I.
But he brought back as
one of his souvenirs,
a Gatling gun.
And there he was positioned
upon Standpipe Hill.
And as the mobsters came
into the Greenwood area,
he would fire upon
them, taking them out.
One by one.
My grandfather and
great-grandfather were holed up
in a room with guns
for basically 24 hours.
My grandfather would be reloading
my great-grandfather's guns,
and they were there
the entire time.
My great-grandfather ended up sending my
great-grandmother to her mother's house.
And at that point,
they had no idea
what was gonna happen
to any of them.
Along with these intermittent
skirmishes happening,
Black groups were trying
to defend the community.
The early morning
hours of June 1st,
the Blacks actually
ran the mob off.
People actually thought
that it might settle.
And that things would be okay.
The mob
went and organized
and galvanized,
with the government's
participation,
they met the Sheriff's offices
to carry out this mission
to obliterate the
entire district.
No one knows exactly the
context of why what happens next happened,
but around 5:00 am, an
industrial whistle was sounded
and a mob stormed Greenwood.
They came across the
rail road tracks,
came down Greenwood Avenue,
and they began entering buildings
and systematically burning them.
White people would take all
the furniture, clothing,
put it in the
middle of the room,
douse it in kerosene
and set it on fire.
And they'd be going around
in small groups doing this,
building by building,
throughout Greenwood and
down Greenwood Avenue.
The Tulsa Police deputized
250 to 500 white men
to arrest and if need be, kill
Black people who they
believe were in rebellion
against Tulsans.
This was not a riot...
This was a massacre.
Next
week. Part Two...
The Legacy of Black Wall Street.
Black Wall Street
was hundreds and thousands
of the very best business
owners and professionals
who made the most of the least.
Creating their best lives
and they were punished for it.
It was the deadliest,
most destructive
attack on a Black community
in American history.
For a very long time,
Black people remained
silent about this,
because they didn't
want the next generation
to have to undergo
the same violence.
By 1942,
the number of
businesses had grown.
It was a larger community.
It was a much more
affluent community.
Than it had ever been in 1921.
But they still faced discrimination
and rigid segregation.
A Black entrepreneur
requires a level of defiance.
There is also an anxiety.
Because, if you took
it out the first time,
and you took it out again,
what is that next thing that's
coming to destroy this again.
was the soul ♪
♪ I imagine for the ♪
♪ Generation,
post-slavery utopia ♪
♪ Breathing came easy 'cause ♪
♪ God blessed the child
that had his own ♪
♪ And we own all of this ♪
♪ Imagine that ♪
♪ Negros running things ♪
Greenwood was a very
wealthy Black community
of 11,000 people.
Greenwood happened because
Black people can take America's worst
and make it excellent.
But the racism was
thick and real.
How dare these black folks go and
build a community for themselves.
They wanted to eliminate
the Black town.
The Greenwood district
is completely destroyed.
And they lost everything.
Black Wall
Street is important
to the imagination
of Black people.
The trajectory could've
been different.
And now the promises of the past
can become the social agenda
of the future.
The Greenwood district
was one of the most prominent and
affluent Black communities in the country.
It was a symbol of
what is possible
for Black people in America.
But to understand
the story of Black Wall Street,
we have to go back to
the Trail of Tears.
First Black people
to come to Oklahoma
were actually members of
the Native American tribes.
The five tribes, Choctaw,
Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole
were slave-holding tribes.
Some of them wanted to show
that they were in allyship
by mimicking what like the
white settlers are doing.
Indigenous people were
affected by anti-Black racism.
The process invited them into
the slave-holder culture,
even as they were subject
to the worst forms
of oppression and
discrimination of themselves.
When the Five Tribes
signed a Removal Treaty,
they had to remove
their Black slaves too.
The Indian
Removal Act of 1830
forcibly evicts Native American
tribes in the southeast,
and transfers their
lands to white farmers
to expand cotton plantations.
Over 100,000 Native Americans
and approximately 4,000
enslaved African-Americans
make the treacherous
journey to Indian territory,
now known as Oklahoma.
The over 5,000 mile
brutal and deadly removal
is known as the Trail
of Tears and Death.
When everybody
got to Oklahoma,
there were many
different ways...
Black people were
still enslaved here.
They still were property.
And they had to rebuild what the
Indian tribes had in the Deep South.
After the Civil War, you had
freed men living in Oklahoma.
You have a freed
Black population,
able to live on tribal
lands in a communal way.
The Dawes
Act passed in 1887,
allowing the Federal
government to break up
tribal lands into
individual plots.
Black people
in Oklahoma owned more land
than any other part
of the country.
About two million acres of land
were allotted to freed men.
So when you think about forty acres
and a mule, and that false promise
after the Civil War,
Black people actually
got that in Oklahoma.
Those land allotments become
the seeds of more than 50 Black towns
that emerge in Oklahoma.
More than any other
state in the country.
Once the five tribes
received their allotment,
then whatever was left,
that was deemed surplus
and the government opened it for
sale to whoever wanted to buy it.
OW Gurley was a Southerner
who hailed from Arkansas,
who came to Tulsa
to purchase land.
The land that
Greenwood exists on,
was not land that whites at
that time deemed as valuable,
but as land that could be
sold to "a negro buyer."
Gurley purchases an
allotment of land.
His goal was to incubate
a Black community.
OW Gurley opened a grocery
store on what would become Greenwood Avenue.
He was really able to tap into a lot of
dynamics happening throughout the state,
where people would be travelling
to meet different communities.
And some of the freed men went
up and set up on Greenwood.
They were able to provide
some of that nurturing wealth.
Land for
recently enslaved people
is everything.
Because we have
to imagine a world
in which an enslaved person did not
have property rights in themselves.
OW Gurley determined that
he would only sell that land
to Black buyers.
My
great-grandfather knew that
in Mississippi, folks would limit
you because of your skin color.
He wanted to go to a place where his
children could be better educated.
And that's how they
would come to Oklahoma.
It was known, if
you want to be free,
come to this territory.
So Black folks heard the call...
"Come to Greenwood."
There was a high level of independence and
autonomy among Black folks in Oklahoma.
It was a mixture of
this freed-man wealth
and freed-man land ownership.
There was sort of an openness
and they thought they would be
able to chart their own new course.
At the start of
the 20th century.
Black people went,
"Wow!
The Black people
here are land owners.
And they are prospering!"
My great-great-grandfather
took up camp in
Tallahassee, Oklahoma,
which is one of our
states oldest Black towns.
From there, some of the family
members migrated to Tulsa.
The funny thing is,
when the government put Native Americans
and freed-men on Indian territory,
they had no idea
what was on the land.
They discovered oil in Glenpool,
and that turned Tulsa into
the oil capital of the world.
African-Americans didn't
work in oil businesses,
but began working for the rich,
white folks in the oil business.
As more oil was found...
Tulsa becomes this boom town.
Greenwood
was on the ascent.
It grew so rapidly
and had so many people coming
here, who were so ambitious.
Greenwood was a district
that had been founded
by OW Gurley and JB Stradford.
They had a
particular mindset.
You come, you build and
help the community grow.
Mr. Stradford was a
business incubator of sorts.
He did the things that people
today have to go to business school
to learn how to do.
Microloans, start-up capital,
cooperative economics,
he did that innately.
They were able to build these
businesses from the ground up
in the Greenwood district.
Black people
see Tulsa as the place
where they can have prosperity,
can support their family,
have education
in relative safety,
as opposed to the Deep South.
Because Oklahoma did
not have statehood.
You're
in the Deep South,
you're living under
the boot of Jim Crow.
Where in Oklahoma territory,
the laws hadn't quite
been settled yet.
Oklahoma had to decide what
kind of city we're gonna be.
Are we going to be
a new kind of state?
Or are we going to be an
extension of the Jim Crow South?
Ambitious African-Americans
who wanted the territory
to join the Union,
asked that it be admitted
as a Black state.
Black people actually
travelled from Oklahoma to the White House
to meet with Teddy Roosevelt,
asking him not to allow Oklahoma to
become a state with Jim Crow policies.
But the powers that
be chose Jim Crow.
President Teddy
Roosevelt addressed a proud population
after officially signing the document
which brought Oklahoma into the Union.
The first laws that
are passed in Oklahoma in 1907
segregate the state.
Making it clear that Black
people and white people
were gonna live
in two societies.
You've got sundown towns,
where Black folks can't
be there after dark.
Policies and laws
walled Black people out.
But walled them in
with each other,
and they were able to
create an economic center
for Black Tulsa.
Black people could not shop
anywhere else in Tulsa
besides that 35-block area!
The Greenwood district
gets incubated
by these captive Black buyers.
You know, folks
made it work for them.
"Fine, then.
Actually, you're walling us in
and you're walling our money in.
We'll keep our
dollars circulating
and we'll build ourselves up."
We're able to build out and
develop our communities to
the fullest extent
that we desire.
The development
of that vibrant community
with its businesses
and with its cultural dimension,
that was certainly
part of the way
in which we learned
how to inhabit
a system of
segregation and racism.
And at the same time,
assert our own dignity.
And so, when you
have aspiring Black people
who want the nicest goods
and services of the day...
you get businesses, you
get fine establishments,
'cause you have not just
a small Black elite,
but you have a significant
Black middle-class.
Not only did
you see the doctors,
you got your pharmacists.
And along with it
now, understand...
Greenwood wasn't
all upwardly mobile.
You had your bootleggers, you had
folks that were running the numbers,
you have all of that going on.
It was a community.
So you had
numerous restaurants.
You had movie theaters,
law offices,
photography studios,
all bunched up in
this one little area.
And many would call
it "Little Africa."
They would dress in
their finest apparel.
And they would go
to the jazz clubs
and blues clubs
up and along Greenwood.
And kinda parade for each other.
It's simply amazing when
you look at the list
of the the Black-owned
businesses that existed here.
My great-grandfather,
Isaac Evitt,
he had a business on Greenwood
called the Zulu Lounge.
It wasn't a fancy place.
It was get that choc beer
and that dead-eye whiskey,
and have camaraderie
among friends.
It was the 1921 Greenwood
version of Cheers.
There was a Goodwin building.
And in the Goodwin building
was a Union grocery,
a Duncan Clinton restaurant
and a rooming house.
Then you had the
Stradford Hotel.
One of the finest hotels owned
by a Black man, JB Stradford,
that would rival any white hotel
in terms of the decor.
Crystal chandeliers, etc.
There were many businesses owned by
Black women in the Greenwood district.
Black women were just
as much entrepreneurs
as their male counterparts.
They were savvy business owners.
There were restaurants,
and beauty shops,
and clothing stores.
They contributed to the success
of the Greenwood district.
Loula Williams is a founder
of Black Wall Street.
She and JD Williams owned
the Dreamland Theater.
They owned an autobody shop.
These were industrious people
who figured out a
way out of no way
to make a Black life in America.
She is an exemplar
of Black Wall Street
and what was possible.
My great-grandparents
had two other theaters too,
but Dreamland was the main one.
Dreamland was a gathering place.
They had vaudeville shows and
featured the latest movies.
The Dreamland theater was the
finest Black entertainment establishment
And this is a
700-person theater!
In 1921!
There's not a theater like
that in Oklahoma today!
They were
setting their standards.
It was important to have a venue
where Black art and Black artists
could be featured.
There was a level of
cooperation in the Greenwood district
that was less about capitalism,
and more about
cooperative economics.
It was an energetic community
that was self-contained,
yet self-determined.
When Booker T. Washington
visits Oklahoma,
there's this kinetic
energy that's there.
And he's able to say this is a model
for other Black communities to follow,
to build an America
in which Black people
have independence.
This community becomes
known as Black Wall Street.
"Whenever there is a will,
there is a way.
We must double
our determination.
We must work incessantly
to see our hopes realized
and our labor
crowned with success.
I hope the day will soon come,
when our city will
be more liberal
with our colored citizens."
JB Stradford in a
letter to AJ Smitherman.
Tulsa really begins
to become a boom town
after oil is discovered.
Much of it was drilled on land owned
by indigenous and Black people.
Backed by the government, white settlers
tried to seize control of the land.
Oklahoma passed a law where
white guardians were appointed to children
whose land allotments
had struck oil.
Guardians handled the money
that was being brought
in from the oil.
We're talking about millions
and millions of dollars.
And not in today's money,
in that day's money.
Warrior Rentie, his
family's land had struck oil
and they had appointed a white
guardian to his children.
The argument was that the
parents were incompetent.
AJ was there.
They went over and spoke to
this newly appointed guardian.
And Warrior told him, "The day that
you are a guardian of my children
is the day you will die."
Warrior was arrested.
Thus the expose of the
guardianship racket began.
AJ not only managed to
prevail in the case,
so that Warrior was awarded
guardianship over all of his children.
They started the Negro
Guardianship League
so that they could help others who
were part of this awful racket.
AJ Smitherman, he met
with JB Stradford.
He told him his intention of
starting a Black newspaper.
And JB offered a $200 loan.
Fortunately, AJ found right away
a press plant and two employees.
And began The Tulsa Star.
The rest is history.
At that time, white newspapers
weren't covering Black lives
in any kind of
comprehensive way.
And so it fell on Black journalists
to be able to tell those stories.
AJ Smitherman brings some of
the conscience of Greenwood
across the United States.
AJ Smitherman was the president
of the Negro Press Association.
He was the original
Black social media.
He was the Black Twitter.
The pen warrior.
He had the first Black
female cartoonist.
A staff of Black women who
sold advertising for his paper.
He made his wife, my big
mommy, the social editor.
He constantly reported
on women organizations.
I just love him for
that.
Dr. AC Jackson... is maybe the
most incredible story of Greenwood.
He was a stellar student and
graduated from Meharry Medical School.
He moved to Greenwood
and opened his practice
at the corner of
Greenwood and Archer.
Dr. AC Jackson was recognized by
William and Charlie Mayo of Mayo Clinic,
as being the finest Black surgeon
in the country, if not the world.
I actually trained at Mayo.
I remember as a resident, reading about
the most famous physicians of modern times,
knowing who he was.
I can't imagine how
good he had to be
to get to that point then.
It's pretty powerful
to think about.
Black Wall Street gains
the consternation of whites
who were worried about the
strivings of Black people.
Who don't just want
to be economic equals,
they want to be social equals.
And this becomes a threat.
When Black
communities are successful,
and when they exhibit
a community spirit,
they will certainly be targeted.
No Black person ended up
in Oklahoma by chance.
You had a very specific group of
people who had come out to this place.
Asserting their
own independence,
their own equality
and their own human worth.
Augusta Stradford
was JB Stradford's wife.
And she refused to give
up her seat on a train.
JB Stradford and his wife, Augusta were
travelling from Kansas to Oklahoma.
Kansas did not
require Jim Crow cars.
At that time, Oklahoma did.
They were asked to move to a Jim Crow
car when they were past the state border,
and they refused to do so.
And were removed from the
car for insubordination.
JB ends up suing the
rail road company,
asserting that this policy was
racist and against the constitution.
Collective resistance
was absolutely necessary.
One cannot be free without
spreading that freedom
and encouraging the
development of that freedom.
What we have to understand
about America in the 1920s
is that racial violence against
Black people gets justified
by this idea that Black people,
specifically Black
men are criminal.
And there needs to be spectacular
violence done to them,
in order to control
the Black population.
In 1915, Woodrow Wilson called
for a screening in the White House
of Birth of a Nation.
And it was the emergence of a
white-supremacist United States of America.
It legitimized even the most
violent forms of white supremacy...
lynchings.
The visual representation
of lynchings
was actually key to
the racist violence
as the only way to guard
against Black leadership.
And Black Wall
Street, they were striving.
Not just for economic
independence.
Not just for prosperity.
But for equality.
This was understood.
And therefore,
created resentment
and trepidation amongst
whites in Tulsa.
Can you imagine, you're a
white man from Mississippi,
in a age where the white
man was superior to negros,
but you see that Greenwood
is full of wealthy people.
There was a lot of
animosity going on.
There was a sense of
jealousy in the air.
How dare these Black folks go and
build a community for themselves.
How dare there be Black folks
that are roaming
around in drop-tops,
when white folks have not amassed that
same amount of wealth at all levels.
They did not like
that these uppity negros
were able to make
all this money,
have nice fine items,
have nice cars,
nice furniture in their homes
and silverware and clothing.
They despised that.
Initially,
when African-Americans
began to build their
homes and businesses
at the corner of
Greenwood and Archer,
the city of Tulsa
wasn't too concerned.
But as that wealth trickled
into the Greenwood district,
there was an interest in
having African-Americans
sell their land in
the Greenwood district
and relocate farther north.
They were approached
and asked to relocate.
And they refused to do so.
"The Tulsa Star'ssynonymous
with any term meaning
the civil and political rights
of the American colored man.
In this, we are
not compromising."
AJ Smitherman wrote
that in The Tulsa Star.
In the State of Oklahoma, AJ Smitherman
was the first registered Black Democrat.
At that time, it'd
be very hard to find
other Black Democrats registered
throughout the United States.
The vast majority of Blacks
would always vote Republican.
Republicans could take for
granted the Black vote,
because Lincoln had
been Republican.
AJ started noticing that Republicans
were voting against Civil Rights.
It was a huge risk,
but he was on a mission to help
diversify the Black vote in America.
He's the
quintessential race man
taking issue with
discrimination and inequality
that Black people
experience in Tulsa.
He was a crusader
against lynching.
In many ways, he
represented the manhood.
I see him as the
guardian of Black Tulsa.
In the seven years that
he had that newspaper in Tulsa,
he turned the Black vote
to over 50% Democratic.
Here we are 100 years later, and
Blacks are primarily Democrats.
That movement was started by my
great-grandfather in the early 1900s.
The people of Greenwood were
beginning to show the white leaders
that they did have
power in numbers
and the power to vote.
And that was a threat.
So the way to eliminate
the Black vote...
was to get rid of
the Black town.
Just like today, there was a strategy
that had been taking place in the south.
Where white women accuse a Black
man in order to incite violence.
They keep following me.
They're threatening me.
I'm in trouble. There's an
African-American man threatening my life.
Sir, I'm asking to
stop recording me.
Please don't
come close to me.
Whiteness and white
supremacy gets threatened
if folks of color gain power.
Greenwood was a threat and
you have to squash threats.
The people of Greenwood
knew that racist white folks
were envious of this
prosperous Black community.
But they didn't know the
degree of the devastation
that would visit Greenwood.
It all started
with Dick Rowland.
Dick Rowland was a
shoeshine boy in downtown Tulsa.
He had dropped out of Booker
T. Washington High School
to shine the shoes of
rich, white oil men.
He made so much money
that he wore a
diamond-encrusted belt-buckle,
and his nickname
was Diamond Dick.
Dick Rowland needed
to go to the restroom
and the restroom was on the
fourth floor of the building.
There was a young
white girl named Sarah Page.
And it was her job to operate the
elevator from one floor to the next.
Everyday, Dick Rowland would
enter the Drexel Building
to go upstairs to
use the restroom.
He encountered Sarah Page
on numerous occasions.
At some point in the
elevator, Sarah Page screamed
and Dick Rowland ran
from the Drexel Building.
No one can say with 1000%
veracity what happened.
Dick Rowland
went into an elevator
and came out a man that
was falsely accused.
Dick
Rowland was arrested.
And he was taken
to the jailhouse
located above the courthouse.
The Tulsa
Tribune published an article
saying, "Nab the negro."
Rumors began to spread
that it wasn't just that Dick
Rowland had attacked Sarah Page,
he raped her.
The rape allegation
whips up a lot of excitement
on both sides of the tracks.
This becomes fodder for
white men in Tulsa to say,
"We have to stand up
against this community
in which this attack
emanates from.
And if you are a white
man worth his salt,
you would do what you could
to defend white
people, white society
and particularly, white women
from Black criminality."
A second inflammatory
article came out
that says, "Looks like there is going
to be a lynching in Tulsa tonight."
This was
inciting a violent mob
to gather before the courthouse
and to remove Dick Rowland from
the custody of the officials
in order to lynch him.
Whites had begun to
gather in front of the courthouse,
angry and upset about
what had happened,
and determined to take
matters into their own hands.
They had hung a white
man few months before.
So they know if they hung a white man,
they sure enough would hang a Black man.
In front
ofThe Tulsa Star,
AJ Smitherman gathered
World War I veterans,
Black men who had fought
overseas and had been trained,
with the intention of going to
protect Dick Rowland from a mob.
Some accounts say a
thousand white people
were outside of the
county courthouse.
Later, those people would
say that they were there
to observe what was
going to happen.
But, you know... What are
you expecting to happen
if you're outside of a courthouse in
the middle of the night, May 31st, 1921?
Wasn't something
that happened out of nowhere.
This is years of racial
tension and racial violence.
On that evening, my
grandfather, Ed Goodwin Senior,
he was a senior at Booker T.
They were supposed to be
preparing for their graduation.
While they were engaged
in what they were doing,
someone came to
them and they said,
"There's troubles coming."
A very large group
of white men were out there
and then armed Black men come
driving down from Greenwood
to the courthouse.
And I would imagine that
the white people there,
probably felt a mix of surprise, anger
and fear at what they were seeing.
This is not how they
expect society to function.
The ways in which the white
mob encircle the county courthouse
was part and parcel of
lynching culture in America.
There were
white folks saying,
"We're looking to lynch
Dick Rowland tonight."
Black World War I veterans said,
"Listen, we're not gonna allow
this young, Black man to be hung.
He needs to have
his day in court."
The tensions are high.
Black man had a gun.
The white man said, "What are
you gonna do with the gun?"
Black man says, "I'mma
use it if I have to."
They attempt to take the
gun from the Black man.
A shot rings out.
From that point...
all hell broke lose.
All of the major steps
in democratizing the
United States of America
have happened as a result of
the struggles of Black people.
And the efforts to prevent this,
of course, are extreme
and they are violent.
And one sees that after the
Wilmington, North Carolina massacre,
the Red Summer in 1919,
and then of course, Greenwood.
White people tried to
loot the National Guard armory.
They broke into a hardware store to take
as many weapons as they possibly could.
They were attempting to
be deputized by police.
This man names Laurel
Buck was at the courthouse
shortly before Black
men came in the cars,
sees everything unfold, and he just makes
a beeline for the police department.
What was said by the police was,
"Get a gun, get busy
and get a nigger."
The Sherriff's
department deputized over 500 white men
who were joined by
the police force.
Who were joined by
thousands of white rioters.
The Black people who were in downtown
had been pushed back into Greenwood.
They were having skirmishes across
rail road tracks with white groups.
The way that the massacre has been
portrayed often times in the media
has been that Blacks were
fleeing for their lives.
And it... omits the part
where African-American
men armed themselves.
And positioned themselves
in some strategic locations.
A gentlemen by the
name of "Peg Leg" Taylor,
who stood upon what we know
today as Standpipe Hill,
he was a veteran of World War I.
But he brought back as
one of his souvenirs,
a Gatling gun.
And there he was positioned
upon Standpipe Hill.
And as the mobsters came
into the Greenwood area,
he would fire upon
them, taking them out.
One by one.
My grandfather and
great-grandfather were holed up
in a room with guns
for basically 24 hours.
My grandfather would be reloading
my great-grandfather's guns,
and they were there
the entire time.
My great-grandfather ended up sending my
great-grandmother to her mother's house.
And at that point,
they had no idea
what was gonna happen
to any of them.
Along with these intermittent
skirmishes happening,
Black groups were trying
to defend the community.
The early morning
hours of June 1st,
the Blacks actually
ran the mob off.
People actually thought
that it might settle.
And that things would be okay.
The mob
went and organized
and galvanized,
with the government's
participation,
they met the Sheriff's offices
to carry out this mission
to obliterate the
entire district.
No one knows exactly the
context of why what happens next happened,
but around 5:00 am, an
industrial whistle was sounded
and a mob stormed Greenwood.
They came across the
rail road tracks,
came down Greenwood Avenue,
and they began entering buildings
and systematically burning them.
White people would take all
the furniture, clothing,
put it in the
middle of the room,
douse it in kerosene
and set it on fire.
And they'd be going around
in small groups doing this,
building by building,
throughout Greenwood and
down Greenwood Avenue.
The Tulsa Police deputized
250 to 500 white men
to arrest and if need be, kill
Black people who they
believe were in rebellion
against Tulsans.
This was not a riot...
This was a massacre.
Next
week. Part Two...
The Legacy of Black Wall Street.
Black Wall Street
was hundreds and thousands
of the very best business
owners and professionals
who made the most of the least.
Creating their best lives
and they were punished for it.
It was the deadliest,
most destructive
attack on a Black community
in American history.
For a very long time,
Black people remained
silent about this,
because they didn't
want the next generation
to have to undergo
the same violence.
By 1942,
the number of
businesses had grown.
It was a larger community.
It was a much more
affluent community.
Than it had ever been in 1921.
But they still faced discrimination
and rigid segregation.
A Black entrepreneur
requires a level of defiance.
There is also an anxiety.
Because, if you took
it out the first time,
and you took it out again,
what is that next thing that's
coming to destroy this again.