The Legacy of Black Wall Street (2021): Season 1, Episode 2 - Part 2 - full transcript
[narrator] ...on The Legacy
of Black Wall Street.
[Karlos] In Tulsa in 1910,
there's less than 10,000 people.
Ten years later, there's
a hundred thousand people.
And 10,000 of those
people are Black people.
They make a way for
themselves in Tulsa
and build a community
that becomes
known as Black Wall Street.
You had numerous restaurants,
movie theaters, law offices,
all bused up in this
one little area.
And it was known, if
you want to prosper,
come to Greenwood.
[Raven] They were
beginning to show
the White leaders that
they did have power
and that was a threat.
So the way to eliminate
the Black threat
was to get rid of
the Black town.
[Victor] What was said
by the police was,
"Get a gun, get busy,
and get a nigger."
The trajectory could
have been different,
and the promises of the past
can become the social
agenda of the future.
[upbeat music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
[Drusilla] The
Negro is sleeping
over a volcano today.
He has done enough running.
This is not a White
man's country.
It is as much ours
by right of toil.
[Regina] The shooting
began that night
down at the courthouse and
people actually thought
that it might settle
and that was it.
[Raven] The White mob
mobilized with the government.
They met at the
sheriff's offices
and deputized
thousands of armed men
to obliterate the
entire district.
The police
commissioner would say
he didn't even know
the names of everyone
that was deputized, so
they were truly random
White men in Tulsa being given
the power of law enforcement.
[whistle blows]
They'd blow a whistle at
about 5:00 the next morning,
that's when they
went all-out attack.
It was war on the
Greenwood community.
[people clamoring]
[Eldoris] And I was
awakened by my mother,
I was real frightened.
I just got up and
was real afraid.
And she says, "We have
to go out. Get out."
I say... She says
the White people
are killing the colored people.
Over the track off [indistinct]
was a small chicken coop.
The bullets were just
raining down over us.
Airplanes was up and
I could see them,
and I heard them,
and I was still trying...
I pull away from
my parents and ran
into this chicken coop
with all the other people.
And I got into the
corner of that,
just scared as I could be.
[Raven] My great
uncle Toussaint
saw White men coming
down the street.
And he told his
mother they're coming.
Her husband wasn't
there to protect them.
He was off fighting to
protect the community.
So the next best bet
for them was to hide.
Just in the nick of
time they made it
and my great aunt, she
was eight at the time
she describes how her
mother got her dressed
and ushered them all
into the basement.
They had to be absolutely silent
and muzzle my grandmother.
They had to control her screams
and make sure they
weren't discovered.
And you can just imagine
just how frightening
that would be
to hear men come into your house
with the intent to kill
you and your children,
trying to pray to God
to protect you.
But then to hear them
ransacking through
your belongings,
playing a phonograph of a song,
and then seeing that coal oil
drip down from the top
down to the basement
so that they could
set the house on fire.
Only by the grace of God
did my family escape
that flaming house.
And only by the grace of God
am I here to describe
it right now.
[Michelle] Our
survivors have spoken
of machine guns that were used
and bombs being
dropped from the air.
There is an oil company
here in Oklahoma
that allowed riders to use
at least one of their planes.
[Regina] BC Franklin,
Buck Colbert Franklin,
he was an attorney.
He was an eyewitness
to the planes
that were flying overhead.
And he watched them
drop turpentine balls
on top of the buildings,
and the buildings
would begin to burn
from the top down.
[Jerica] To hear
of family members
being shot dead in the
middle of the street
for no reason,
how do you process that?
[woman] This was clearly
not about Dick Rowland.
This was a deliberate
and calculated
ground and air attack
to destroy the
Greenwood community.
[Michelle] Our community
was outnumbered
and outgunned.
The sheriff's
department was joined
by thousands of White rioters
who eventually
invaded and killed
innocent men,
women, and children.
[Raven] Through the
streets we all were driven
at the point of sword or gun.
Women, men, and little children,
scarcely clothing
on their backs.
[Michelle] They
began to incarcerate
every single
African-American person
in the Greenwood district.
The entire population of
the Greenwood community
was between 10,000 and 12,000
men, women, and children.
6,000 people were arrested
and detained at one of three
internment centers
in the City of Tulsa.
It left their homes and
businesses defenseless
so that White
rioters could go in
and take whatever
valuables they wanted
and then set everything on fire.
By the following day,
more than 1,000 homes
had been burned to the ground.
More than 300
Black-owned businesses
completely destroyed.
Several thousand
people unaccounted for
and we believe at least
300 people murdered.
[Karlos] What
occurred in Tulsa
was the deadliest,
most destructive attack
on a Black community
in American history.
Black Wall Street
is completely destroyed.
[Regina] The Goodwin building
burned to the ground.
[Karlos] The Stratford
Hotel, the Gurley Hotel,
and the Dreamland Theatre
burned to the ground.
[Gloria] My main
thought when I see
all those photographs
and the devastation
that everyone shows is,
how did they ever
make it out of there?
It is horrendous
the way that African-American
residents were murdered
and their bodies
left in the street.
The entire Greenwood community
was to live out of tents
that had been distributed
by the American Red Cross.
And it was the first time
that they had ever responded
to an incident
that was not caused
by a natural disaster.
They were forced to wear
green identification badges.
But the bottom states who
was responsible for them,
it's a badge that
basically gave them
permission to be in public,
to be on the streets.
[Venita] People
need to understand
that there was a
highly traumatic event,
one of the worst incidents
of racial violence,
maybe the worst in the
history of our country.
And that we today
are a product of that.
[woman] We have nothing
to lose but our chance.
- What do we want?
- [crowd] Justice!
- [woman] Where do we want it?
- [crowd] Now!
[Victor] This is a
quote from AJ Smitherman
in The Tulsa Star.
Mob law is dangerous
and will undermine
the foundations of any
government that permits it.
Unless this monster is
subdued in this country,
serious trouble
is sure to follow.
His words still
ring out true today.
Watching those people
storm the capitol
reminded me of the
massacre itself
and this notion that
what they were doing
was not going to be punished.
They really felt like
they were in control
of that situation in the
same way that the mob
in Tulsa thought they were
in control of Greenwood.
[dramatic music playing]
[Jabraan] First thing I
think about is the stress,
the anxiety, the depression,
that takes a toll
mentally and physically.
And then the fact that
they might not know
where their next meal
is gonna come from,
they might not know
where they're gonna lie
their head down that night,
let alone finding support
and food for the family
that they're responsible for.
Months later when
African-Americans
were released from
those internment sites,
they returned to what remained
which was nothing.
[dramatic music playing]
[Karlos] 10,000 people
were made homeless.
$26 million in Black wealth
went up in flames in 1921.
[Onikah] We have to figure out
how to calculate that loss.
One of the things
that isn't considered
is the compound benefit
of homeownership
or compound benefit
of owning a business
over generations.
Recent economic analysis
of the massacre suggests
dampened innovation
among Black people,
lowered rates of
Black patenting,
multi-generational effects
of income loss and status loss.
You see declines
in homeownership,
occupational downgrading,
impacts on educational
attainment,
and you see a big increase
in labor force participation.
There's this ripple effect
and it echoed and resonated.
[dramatic music playing]
[Raven] They wanted
the Blacks in Greenwood
to lose everything
including their finest citizens
and they were very successful.
My family lost The Tulsa Star
which was destroyed and
burned to the ground.
They had other property,
more than just a house
or a press plant.
They lost everything.
They drove out JB Stratford,
they drove out my
great grandfather,
AJ Smitherman, OW
Gurley eventually left,
and they just shot AC
Jackson cold-blooded.
[Jabraan] It is so hard
to imagine the success
that Dr. AC Jackson
had in his time.
The Greenwood
community felt upset
and concerned and scared
to know that someone
who had reached
the epitome of success
can just be gunned
down in the streets.
[Karlos] The photos
that White Tulsans took
in 1921
were meant to tell
a story of conquest.
We successfully put down
a Negro rebellion.
If you look at the postcards
and the inscriptions,
many of them are celebratory.
It was the opinion
by many Whites in Tulsa
that Blacks have brought
this upon themselves,
that this was in
some way our fault.
[Raven] People who
interpret it as such
were the ones who were
trying to protect themselves
and so they put the finger
on my great grandfather,
AJ Smitherman,
and 55 others.
[Michelle] JB Stratford
was one of those
who fled Tulsa who
went to Chicago
where he had family.
He was charged with
inciting a riot.
[Raven] AJ Smitherman
reached out to the NAACP.
He had to figure out what
his next moves would be.
So they're advise
was for him to flee
and go to Canada.
He knew he would never
face a fair trial
had he come back to Tulsa
and that he would most likely be
the next potential
victim of a lynching.
The City of Tulsa is at fault
for failing to
protect its citizens.
The Black community
had every right
to protect Dick Rowland
from being lynched.
They risked their lives.
That speaks to an
unbelievable courage.
[Onikah] What is
most atrocious about
the destruction of
Black Wall Street
was the concerted efforts
to prevent the rebuilding
of Black Wall Street.
Putting in a place policies
that were supposed to
prevent redevelopment.
[Michelle] The ordinances
that the City of Tulsa passed
said that, if Blacks
were gonna rebuild,
they had to rebuild
using fire retardant materials.
And yet building
supply companies here
often refused to
sell those materials
to African-Americans.
It was called a riot
and that served to
hold the narrative
of the White folks who
perpetrated the violence.
It also served to
ensure that Black folks
couldn't actually
access their insurance.
[Michelle] Nearly $2
million in insurance claims
were filed by homeowners
and business owners.
[Karlos] And not
a single penny
has ever been repatriated
to the Black survivors
and descendants
of those survivors
who lost it.
[Regina] My grandmother
was fierce enough
to go into the courtrooms
after Black folks
have been murdered.
And she wanted to make claims,
wants insurance
companies to pay.
The suits were thrown
at a court outright.
I just love that
she had the audacity
to go and say,
"You took something
that we worked for,
that belonged to us."
The insurance companies
paid out the pawnshops
where the guns were
stolen to arm vigilantes,
those are the folks that
actually got reimbursed.
[Karlos] The Tulsa
Race Massacre
is not just about
death and destruction,
it's about the liquidation
of Black wealth
and the transfer of their wealth
to White people.
White people not only burned
down Black Wall Street,
they looted it as well.
They carried away Black wealth.
[Stefan] They did everything
that this country
asked them to do.
And they were punished for it.
Respectability can't save you,
no matter how good you do,
all it takes is racist behavior
to cut the legs out from
all of this progress.
[people clamoring]
[Onikah] Even though
Black Wall Street
was destroyed,
we have resilience,
Greenwood lived again.
BC Franklin and
his team of lawyers
refused to accept
the City of Tulsa's
rezoning ordinance
that would have made it
prohibitively expensive
for Black residents to rebuild.
They fought it, they won,
and that paved the
way for the community
to be rebuilt.
[Regina] My great grandmother,
my great grandfather said,
"We're gonna rebuild."
Well, some folks
never came back,
and can you blame them?
[Michelle] The Blacks
that survived the massacre
were forced to exist
with thousands of White rioters,
who had destroyed
their community.
Blacks would see
a White woman wearing her hat,
her gloves, something
from her home.
There was at least one woman
that saw a White
woman wearing her hat
and demanded that she return it.
It's one of the
aspects of the massacre
that makes their ability
to move forward so incredible.
The fact that they
knew some of the people
that participated
in the massacre
and knew that there
would be no consequences.
[Gloria] Our great
grandmother suffered
a lot of mental issues
because of all the devastation
and the massacre.
She never got back to
being quite the Loula
she was before.
But she did rebuild
the Dreamland Theatre,
used the income from
her other two theaters
to supplement the rebuilding.
But she still pulled through,
served her city,
and tried to help
those less fortunate.
To think that your entire
community is bombed
and not only did you have
this level of destruction,
of death, of property looting,
but there was a huge effort
on the part of the state
to pretend that
it didn't happen,
and to silence everyone who
dared to speak about it.
People from all over the country
were offering Oklahoma
and the City of Tulsa help,
which they refused.
And they were denying
the dead bodies,
diminishing the damage
to hide the story
of what had happened
here in Tulsa.
Survivors did not talk
about the massacre,
not to each other,
not to their children,
there was a silence.
[Regina] People didn't talk
about it because they knew
their lives would
still be threatened
because of the very White folks,
including the police,
including the state,
including the city,
they're all complicit in murder.
So who you gonna run
to if you need help?
So either you're gonna talk
about it and risk your life,
or you gonna be quiet about it
and try to get on
with your life.
[dramatic music playing]
[Angela] It has to do
with the kind of fear
that is connected
with giving voice
to something.
Black people remained
silent about this
because they didn't
want the next generation
to have to undergo
the same violence.
They didn't want the past
to become the present
and the future.
[man] 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.
[upbeat music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[Bobby] Oh, boy.
I got the latter
part of Greenwood.
We used to go into
the Rex Theatre,
to King Park and swim,
and there was so much
joy, so much fun,
so much innocence, you know.
And it was still a
thriving community,
you know, back in those days.
[upbeat music playing]
[man] Democracy was on
the march in Washington
as 200,000 people
converge on The Capitol
- to rally for civil rights.
- [Ellora] In the 1960s,
the Civil Rights
Movement was demanding
economic and political rights.
Black Americans in Tulsa
were addressing inequality,
poverty, and segregation.
[Bobby] My dad was
the first Black man
during the Civil Rights Movement
in North Tulsa, Oklahoma
who got arrested
and went to jail, for
standing for rights.
He was just like a soldier.
He was what I call the
Malcolm X of Tulsa,
you know, that's
what he was like.
[upbeat music playing]
[Michelle] Black
Wall Street thrived
until the end of segregation.
When African-Americans were
able to spend their money
outside of their community,
they began to do so.
It wasn't that the
product or the services
was any better, it was simply
that now they have the right
to walk into a
White-owned establishment,
and they wanted to
experience that,
not understanding
how those businesses
on Greenwood would suffer.
As a young person who never
experienced segregation,
Black Wall Street revealed to me
that there were positive
aspects about living
in these all-Black enclaves.
But I think we need to sort
of to look at the success
of many of these
Black entrepreneurs
and the independence they were
able to have at that time,
and how hard that is to recreate
in a White-controlled society.
You see that there
are some drawbacks.
[indistinct chatter]
[Lyndon] Our task is to help
replace their despair
with opportunity.
And this administration today,
here and now,
declares unconditional war
on poverty in America.
[crowd applauding]
There are some
forms of inequality
that are so
influenced by history
and the wealth gap is
actually one of those.
The so-called war on poverty
was really a war on Black folks.
And that war had
many expressions
including tearing down
of historical habitations
that has happened in Greenwood.
[upbeat music playing]
[Michelle] Urban
renewal came through
with the promise to help rebuild
the Greenwood district,
and that's not
exactly what happened.
[James] It was something
called urban renewal,
which means moving
the Negros out,
getting... It means
Negro removal.
That is what it means.
And the federal government
is an accomplice to this fact.
[Michelle] The City of Tulsa
would build the expressway
through the heart of
the Greenwood District,
which caused property
values to decline.
[indistinct chatter]
[man speaking]
Yes [indistinct]
[man] Yeah.
[man] I see.
If the attacks on
Black communities
by White supremacists
did not push back
the resistance,
then they would use
city governments
and zoning laws and freeways
to guarantee that this community
did not continue.
[J. Kavin] I-44 sits
upon the footprints
of my great
grandfather's business.
And I was starting to believe
that was a message
that was sent out,
"You better not try to
rebuild this Greenwood again
or we'll come back
and tear it up again."
[upbeat music playing]
[Bobby] Gap Band stands
for Greenwood, Archer,
and Pine Street Band.
The Wilson brothers,
Charlie, Robert,
and Ronnie Wilson.
They grew up right
here in Tulsa,
they made a lot of
platinum and gold records.
♪ You were the girl for me ♪
[Bobby] I witnessed some
of those songs being made.
♪ I stand accused ♪
♪ You were the first for me ♪
♪ But you Turned me out, baby ♪
You dropped a bomb on me, baby.
♪ You dropped a bomb on me ♪
[Bobby] And that's
what happened here
on Black Wall Street.
[singer] ♪ You were my pills ♪
[Bobby] That's what
it's in reference to.
And a lot of people
didn't know that.
When that song came
out, they looked at it,
"Okay. It's just
a jamming song,"
that had some hidden
meaning to a lot of people
back in those days.
♪ Then you turned me on ♪
♪ You dropped a bomb on me ♪
[dramatic music playing]
We are still trying to,
a hundred years later,
recover from the
trauma of the past.
[Raven] Our family has sued
for reparations and lost.
The City of Tulsa,
the State of Oklahoma
sent my great aunt a medallion.
That was their way
of saying sorry.
[dramatic music playing]
[Raven] A healing
cannot take place
without an accountability.
So my appeal to the
leaders of Tulsa
and the State of Oklahoma,
to say how long is
it going to take?
We've been fighting
for a hundred years.
It's on you.
[Venita] There's not enough
consequence right now
for what has happened.
They were supposed to receive
reparations, the families,
and they never received
those reparations.
And that's part of
the trauma, right,
of like never seeing
your perpetrators
be held accountable,
the devaluing of your life.
[suspenseful music playing]
There are direct parallels
between 2021 and 1921.
We're still talking
about police misconduct.
Police were a part of the group,
the mob, who shot
and killed, right,
defenseless Black people.
[Stefan] I recognize
this clearly
on the streets of Ferguson
when people weren't allowed
to be on their own lawns,
the collusion of state
violence and racism.
And in Greenwood, this
was what was at stake,
this collusion of police,
of politics, of culture,
neighbor against neighbor.
All of these things came
to mean in the destruction
of what was otherwise
a most beautiful American story.
[Jabraan] I actually
remember the very moment
I learned about Greenwood.
It was actually in school.
Our teacher took us to the
Tulsa City County Library.
We spent one full day
learning about the atrocities
that happened on Greenwood.
And I have never heard of it.
And look at all of the old
newspaper clippings.
The newspaper had no record
of the race massacre.
The first several
pages of that newspaper
had been removed as
if it never existed.
I will never forget how strange
that idea was to me
even as a seventh grader
that someone would
want to remove
such a profound point
in history.
[upbeat music playing]
[Venita] I wanted to
be on Black Wall Street
for a variety of reasons.
Obviously, the history
is very compelling to me.
I didn't know about
Grier Shoe Shop
until actually we had opened
and a journalist came
and interviewed me
and, you know, she was like,
"How does it feel to be where
the Grier Shoe Shop was?"
And I was like, "Oh,
my God. That's crazy."
We have a framed photo
of an advertisement
for the Grier Shoe Shop
from The Tulsa Star.
[Onikah] Being a
Black entrepreneur
requires a level of defiance.
And I'm proud of the shoulders
that I stand on.
Lulu Williams for
having been a teacher,
also creating space
where folks could gather,
where folks could watch cinema,
engage in discussion,
it's a similar vein in
terms of what I wanted
to create in Fulton Street.
The parallels are very strong.
And that's the beautiful thing
about being a Black
business owner now
is knowing that
there is precedent
for what I'm building.
But there's also an anxiety
because if you took
it out the first time
and you took it out again,
if I look toward the horizon,
I'm worried about what
is that next thing
that's coming to
destroy this again?
[Jerica] The fact
of the matter is,
is that Greenwood is
what humanity looked like
for those that had to
stretch to find it.
The matter is that,
Greenwood understood
that Black Lives Matter
before it was an it thing
and yet ironically
enough, Black Lives Matter
can even be placed boldly
in the heart of the space
so I guess the
more things change,
the more they stay the same.
[Onikah] When I think of
gentrifying neighborhoods,
gentrification and
noise complaints
go hand in hand,
noise complaints
serve as a means
to police Black
and Brown bodies.
You have White folks
moving in to communities,
calling police on
their "neighbors"
and those neighbors
being over-policed.
[Jerica] The Black
Lives Matter mural,
it was a beautiful experience.
The community came together.
But then the city then began
receiving complaints.
As a result, that
street was repaved.
The energy and the expediency
put in place to remind
us that your Black life
does not matter in
Greenwood District,
not now, not never.
That was a slap in the face.
[Onikah] It's hard
to be something
or aspire to be something
in which you don't see
yourself reflected.
In the Greenwood District,
it is becoming harder and
harder to see ourselves
in a space that used to be...
us.
[woman] There are efforts to
rebuild Black Wall Street.
But today's entrepreneurs
are facing the same issues
that Black communities in cities
have faced for decades.
When you look at who
owns the physical spaces
our businesses inhabit,
or accessing capital,
those are not Black folks.
We are digging
ourselves out of a ditch
that we did not
create for ourselves.
I was in Vail and walking down,
you know, kind of
the shopping area,
one of the folks
we were with said,
"Hey, that's my
uncle's ski shop."
You know, I had just
one of those moments
where it hit you
like a ton of bricks.
There is nowhere
in this country,
in this world, right,
that I could walk by
and be like my, insert
whoever, owns this.
[upbeat music playing]
[Jerica] I was parking my car
and a White man came
up to my window.
He knocked on it and he said,
"Uh, you can't park here,"
not knowing that I had
access to the space.
And I got completely enraged,
"Why can't I park here?
We used to own all
of this." Like...
[upbeat music playing]
[Angela] Land,
it's so important
because without land,
there's no possibility
of sustenance.
Black landowners have decreased
in such phenomenal numbers.
And that is another
example of the assertion
of White supremacy.
[dramatic music playing]
[Bobby] It's sad.
When I go down Greenwood,
and look at the emptiness.
I can see some of the buildings
and some of the stuff
that was down there
in my eyes.
But my children, you know,
they'll never know.
[dramatic music playing]
[Onikah gasps] It's
the black sheep.
My daughter, Hodessa,
is a new form of
inspiration for me.
What is she gonna
see her mom build,
you know, throughout
her lifetime?
Being in the seat to think about
those who are coming after me
and more specifically
my own child,
gives me inspiration
to go further.
[Venita] Right now
there's this clot of land
in Greenwood.
The city owns it right now and
they're trying to figure out
what to do with it. They
wanna develop on it.
We're talking about land
that was owned, you know,
commercial properties
that were owned
by Black people.
The land needs to go
to the Black community.
That's the answer.
To lean on the
words of Malcolm X,
"If you stab me in
my back nine inches
and you pull that
knife out six inches,
that is not progress."
If you pull it all the way
out, that's not progress.
The progress is healing
the wound that the blow...
That the blow made.
[Onikah] We can't start
to call it progress
until we've started
to heal the wound
that was brought
on this community.
- [crowd] George Floyd!
- [man] Say his name!
- [crowd] George Floyd!
- [man] Say her name!
- [crowd] Breonna Taylor!
- [man] Say her name!
- [crowd] Breonna Taylor!
- [man] Say her name!
- [crowd] Breonna Taylor!
- [man] Say her name!
[Venita] It will be a
hard and strenuous fight.
We have grown used to
strenuous existence
and rather enjoy tackling
the big, difficult
things of life,
especially when the
necessary attending hardships
and sacrifice mean a step
forward for the race.
[woman] We educate it,
we mobilize, we organize,
and we got people
out to the poles.
AJ Smitherman, 1918.
[upbeat music playing]
Black Wall Street is
important to the imagination,
imagining what life
would have been like
for Black people who made
the most of the least.
I would put JB
Stratford and OW Gurley
against the Vanderbilts,
and the Rockefellers
and the Carnegies who
did not have the barriers
to success that AC Jackson
or OW Gurley or
JB Stratford had.
Their achievements
need to be understood
in light up the barriers,
the everyday racial abuse
they were able to overcome
to achieve success and wealth.
[dramatic music playing]
[Venita] A beautiful
community was built
on the backs of Black
men and Black women
who have inspired in me
the sense of possibility.
If there are more Black kids
who could hear those stories,
we'd be setting more
generations up for success.
[dramatic music playing]
[Jabraan] To be able
to imagine yourself
being successful, it
really helps to see people
who look like you be successful.
In Greenwood, our
businesses have always been
more than about gaining capital.
It's more about
how does this stand
to serve community.
You have a dream, I'm
investing in that dream
instead of interrogating it
because I believe our community
is gonna be better for it.
The more business
owners we have,
I think we'll start
to slowly eat away
at some of those barriers
that our young entrepreneurs
are facing.
The spirit of
Greenwood is universal
and anyone can
take that blueprint
and use it for
their own success.
[Venita] Even though
that physical location
no longer exist and
probably will never return
to what it once was,
in many ways it's greater
because it's now in
all types of places.
People all across the country
and all across the
world can be inspired
by this story and
create something.
[upbeat music playing]
[Ellora] We should
elevate those stories
of Black possibility
that we see so clearly
in Tulsa before the massacre
and in many, many points
throughout US history,
so that we unlearn the idea
that we're in the place
that we should be in.
There are voices that
were waiting to be heard.
[Ellora] There's
another kind of life
that we can live.
We're here for business
and I'm really ready
- to get started.
- [Ellora] As a society,
we need to work
towards that vision
and that possibility.
[upbeat music playing]
[Raven] Generations
of people realize
that it's not okay what
has happened in the past
and so we're gonna do
something different
in the future.
[Angela] Greenwood is
about the flourishing
of the community.
And that should inspire us.
We can certainly reconnect
with that spirit
and that impulse
100 years later
and try to fulfill the promises
of those who did the work
to generate such
a powerful example
of what it meant to be free.
That is the task that
is before us today.
Greenwood has always
been the trendsetter.
The world is
watching and waiting
and we are going to make
it worth their while.
Greenwood,
rich with the heritage
and a knowing,
got my heart swooning
over the possibilities.
It's got me open to
the probabilities
and I'm not the only one I know.
You know how I know?
My city told me.
[upbeat music playing]
of Black Wall Street.
[Karlos] In Tulsa in 1910,
there's less than 10,000 people.
Ten years later, there's
a hundred thousand people.
And 10,000 of those
people are Black people.
They make a way for
themselves in Tulsa
and build a community
that becomes
known as Black Wall Street.
You had numerous restaurants,
movie theaters, law offices,
all bused up in this
one little area.
And it was known, if
you want to prosper,
come to Greenwood.
[Raven] They were
beginning to show
the White leaders that
they did have power
and that was a threat.
So the way to eliminate
the Black threat
was to get rid of
the Black town.
[Victor] What was said
by the police was,
"Get a gun, get busy,
and get a nigger."
The trajectory could
have been different,
and the promises of the past
can become the social
agenda of the future.
[upbeat music playing]
[dramatic music playing]
[Drusilla] The
Negro is sleeping
over a volcano today.
He has done enough running.
This is not a White
man's country.
It is as much ours
by right of toil.
[Regina] The shooting
began that night
down at the courthouse and
people actually thought
that it might settle
and that was it.
[Raven] The White mob
mobilized with the government.
They met at the
sheriff's offices
and deputized
thousands of armed men
to obliterate the
entire district.
The police
commissioner would say
he didn't even know
the names of everyone
that was deputized, so
they were truly random
White men in Tulsa being given
the power of law enforcement.
[whistle blows]
They'd blow a whistle at
about 5:00 the next morning,
that's when they
went all-out attack.
It was war on the
Greenwood community.
[people clamoring]
[Eldoris] And I was
awakened by my mother,
I was real frightened.
I just got up and
was real afraid.
And she says, "We have
to go out. Get out."
I say... She says
the White people
are killing the colored people.
Over the track off [indistinct]
was a small chicken coop.
The bullets were just
raining down over us.
Airplanes was up and
I could see them,
and I heard them,
and I was still trying...
I pull away from
my parents and ran
into this chicken coop
with all the other people.
And I got into the
corner of that,
just scared as I could be.
[Raven] My great
uncle Toussaint
saw White men coming
down the street.
And he told his
mother they're coming.
Her husband wasn't
there to protect them.
He was off fighting to
protect the community.
So the next best bet
for them was to hide.
Just in the nick of
time they made it
and my great aunt, she
was eight at the time
she describes how her
mother got her dressed
and ushered them all
into the basement.
They had to be absolutely silent
and muzzle my grandmother.
They had to control her screams
and make sure they
weren't discovered.
And you can just imagine
just how frightening
that would be
to hear men come into your house
with the intent to kill
you and your children,
trying to pray to God
to protect you.
But then to hear them
ransacking through
your belongings,
playing a phonograph of a song,
and then seeing that coal oil
drip down from the top
down to the basement
so that they could
set the house on fire.
Only by the grace of God
did my family escape
that flaming house.
And only by the grace of God
am I here to describe
it right now.
[Michelle] Our
survivors have spoken
of machine guns that were used
and bombs being
dropped from the air.
There is an oil company
here in Oklahoma
that allowed riders to use
at least one of their planes.
[Regina] BC Franklin,
Buck Colbert Franklin,
he was an attorney.
He was an eyewitness
to the planes
that were flying overhead.
And he watched them
drop turpentine balls
on top of the buildings,
and the buildings
would begin to burn
from the top down.
[Jerica] To hear
of family members
being shot dead in the
middle of the street
for no reason,
how do you process that?
[woman] This was clearly
not about Dick Rowland.
This was a deliberate
and calculated
ground and air attack
to destroy the
Greenwood community.
[Michelle] Our community
was outnumbered
and outgunned.
The sheriff's
department was joined
by thousands of White rioters
who eventually
invaded and killed
innocent men,
women, and children.
[Raven] Through the
streets we all were driven
at the point of sword or gun.
Women, men, and little children,
scarcely clothing
on their backs.
[Michelle] They
began to incarcerate
every single
African-American person
in the Greenwood district.
The entire population of
the Greenwood community
was between 10,000 and 12,000
men, women, and children.
6,000 people were arrested
and detained at one of three
internment centers
in the City of Tulsa.
It left their homes and
businesses defenseless
so that White
rioters could go in
and take whatever
valuables they wanted
and then set everything on fire.
By the following day,
more than 1,000 homes
had been burned to the ground.
More than 300
Black-owned businesses
completely destroyed.
Several thousand
people unaccounted for
and we believe at least
300 people murdered.
[Karlos] What
occurred in Tulsa
was the deadliest,
most destructive attack
on a Black community
in American history.
Black Wall Street
is completely destroyed.
[Regina] The Goodwin building
burned to the ground.
[Karlos] The Stratford
Hotel, the Gurley Hotel,
and the Dreamland Theatre
burned to the ground.
[Gloria] My main
thought when I see
all those photographs
and the devastation
that everyone shows is,
how did they ever
make it out of there?
It is horrendous
the way that African-American
residents were murdered
and their bodies
left in the street.
The entire Greenwood community
was to live out of tents
that had been distributed
by the American Red Cross.
And it was the first time
that they had ever responded
to an incident
that was not caused
by a natural disaster.
They were forced to wear
green identification badges.
But the bottom states who
was responsible for them,
it's a badge that
basically gave them
permission to be in public,
to be on the streets.
[Venita] People
need to understand
that there was a
highly traumatic event,
one of the worst incidents
of racial violence,
maybe the worst in the
history of our country.
And that we today
are a product of that.
[woman] We have nothing
to lose but our chance.
- What do we want?
- [crowd] Justice!
- [woman] Where do we want it?
- [crowd] Now!
[Victor] This is a
quote from AJ Smitherman
in The Tulsa Star.
Mob law is dangerous
and will undermine
the foundations of any
government that permits it.
Unless this monster is
subdued in this country,
serious trouble
is sure to follow.
His words still
ring out true today.
Watching those people
storm the capitol
reminded me of the
massacre itself
and this notion that
what they were doing
was not going to be punished.
They really felt like
they were in control
of that situation in the
same way that the mob
in Tulsa thought they were
in control of Greenwood.
[dramatic music playing]
[Jabraan] First thing I
think about is the stress,
the anxiety, the depression,
that takes a toll
mentally and physically.
And then the fact that
they might not know
where their next meal
is gonna come from,
they might not know
where they're gonna lie
their head down that night,
let alone finding support
and food for the family
that they're responsible for.
Months later when
African-Americans
were released from
those internment sites,
they returned to what remained
which was nothing.
[dramatic music playing]
[Karlos] 10,000 people
were made homeless.
$26 million in Black wealth
went up in flames in 1921.
[Onikah] We have to figure out
how to calculate that loss.
One of the things
that isn't considered
is the compound benefit
of homeownership
or compound benefit
of owning a business
over generations.
Recent economic analysis
of the massacre suggests
dampened innovation
among Black people,
lowered rates of
Black patenting,
multi-generational effects
of income loss and status loss.
You see declines
in homeownership,
occupational downgrading,
impacts on educational
attainment,
and you see a big increase
in labor force participation.
There's this ripple effect
and it echoed and resonated.
[dramatic music playing]
[Raven] They wanted
the Blacks in Greenwood
to lose everything
including their finest citizens
and they were very successful.
My family lost The Tulsa Star
which was destroyed and
burned to the ground.
They had other property,
more than just a house
or a press plant.
They lost everything.
They drove out JB Stratford,
they drove out my
great grandfather,
AJ Smitherman, OW
Gurley eventually left,
and they just shot AC
Jackson cold-blooded.
[Jabraan] It is so hard
to imagine the success
that Dr. AC Jackson
had in his time.
The Greenwood
community felt upset
and concerned and scared
to know that someone
who had reached
the epitome of success
can just be gunned
down in the streets.
[Karlos] The photos
that White Tulsans took
in 1921
were meant to tell
a story of conquest.
We successfully put down
a Negro rebellion.
If you look at the postcards
and the inscriptions,
many of them are celebratory.
It was the opinion
by many Whites in Tulsa
that Blacks have brought
this upon themselves,
that this was in
some way our fault.
[Raven] People who
interpret it as such
were the ones who were
trying to protect themselves
and so they put the finger
on my great grandfather,
AJ Smitherman,
and 55 others.
[Michelle] JB Stratford
was one of those
who fled Tulsa who
went to Chicago
where he had family.
He was charged with
inciting a riot.
[Raven] AJ Smitherman
reached out to the NAACP.
He had to figure out what
his next moves would be.
So they're advise
was for him to flee
and go to Canada.
He knew he would never
face a fair trial
had he come back to Tulsa
and that he would most likely be
the next potential
victim of a lynching.
The City of Tulsa is at fault
for failing to
protect its citizens.
The Black community
had every right
to protect Dick Rowland
from being lynched.
They risked their lives.
That speaks to an
unbelievable courage.
[Onikah] What is
most atrocious about
the destruction of
Black Wall Street
was the concerted efforts
to prevent the rebuilding
of Black Wall Street.
Putting in a place policies
that were supposed to
prevent redevelopment.
[Michelle] The ordinances
that the City of Tulsa passed
said that, if Blacks
were gonna rebuild,
they had to rebuild
using fire retardant materials.
And yet building
supply companies here
often refused to
sell those materials
to African-Americans.
It was called a riot
and that served to
hold the narrative
of the White folks who
perpetrated the violence.
It also served to
ensure that Black folks
couldn't actually
access their insurance.
[Michelle] Nearly $2
million in insurance claims
were filed by homeowners
and business owners.
[Karlos] And not
a single penny
has ever been repatriated
to the Black survivors
and descendants
of those survivors
who lost it.
[Regina] My grandmother
was fierce enough
to go into the courtrooms
after Black folks
have been murdered.
And she wanted to make claims,
wants insurance
companies to pay.
The suits were thrown
at a court outright.
I just love that
she had the audacity
to go and say,
"You took something
that we worked for,
that belonged to us."
The insurance companies
paid out the pawnshops
where the guns were
stolen to arm vigilantes,
those are the folks that
actually got reimbursed.
[Karlos] The Tulsa
Race Massacre
is not just about
death and destruction,
it's about the liquidation
of Black wealth
and the transfer of their wealth
to White people.
White people not only burned
down Black Wall Street,
they looted it as well.
They carried away Black wealth.
[Stefan] They did everything
that this country
asked them to do.
And they were punished for it.
Respectability can't save you,
no matter how good you do,
all it takes is racist behavior
to cut the legs out from
all of this progress.
[people clamoring]
[Onikah] Even though
Black Wall Street
was destroyed,
we have resilience,
Greenwood lived again.
BC Franklin and
his team of lawyers
refused to accept
the City of Tulsa's
rezoning ordinance
that would have made it
prohibitively expensive
for Black residents to rebuild.
They fought it, they won,
and that paved the
way for the community
to be rebuilt.
[Regina] My great grandmother,
my great grandfather said,
"We're gonna rebuild."
Well, some folks
never came back,
and can you blame them?
[Michelle] The Blacks
that survived the massacre
were forced to exist
with thousands of White rioters,
who had destroyed
their community.
Blacks would see
a White woman wearing her hat,
her gloves, something
from her home.
There was at least one woman
that saw a White
woman wearing her hat
and demanded that she return it.
It's one of the
aspects of the massacre
that makes their ability
to move forward so incredible.
The fact that they
knew some of the people
that participated
in the massacre
and knew that there
would be no consequences.
[Gloria] Our great
grandmother suffered
a lot of mental issues
because of all the devastation
and the massacre.
She never got back to
being quite the Loula
she was before.
But she did rebuild
the Dreamland Theatre,
used the income from
her other two theaters
to supplement the rebuilding.
But she still pulled through,
served her city,
and tried to help
those less fortunate.
To think that your entire
community is bombed
and not only did you have
this level of destruction,
of death, of property looting,
but there was a huge effort
on the part of the state
to pretend that
it didn't happen,
and to silence everyone who
dared to speak about it.
People from all over the country
were offering Oklahoma
and the City of Tulsa help,
which they refused.
And they were denying
the dead bodies,
diminishing the damage
to hide the story
of what had happened
here in Tulsa.
Survivors did not talk
about the massacre,
not to each other,
not to their children,
there was a silence.
[Regina] People didn't talk
about it because they knew
their lives would
still be threatened
because of the very White folks,
including the police,
including the state,
including the city,
they're all complicit in murder.
So who you gonna run
to if you need help?
So either you're gonna talk
about it and risk your life,
or you gonna be quiet about it
and try to get on
with your life.
[dramatic music playing]
[Angela] It has to do
with the kind of fear
that is connected
with giving voice
to something.
Black people remained
silent about this
because they didn't
want the next generation
to have to undergo
the same violence.
They didn't want the past
to become the present
and the future.
[man] 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.
[upbeat music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[Bobby] Oh, boy.
I got the latter
part of Greenwood.
We used to go into
the Rex Theatre,
to King Park and swim,
and there was so much
joy, so much fun,
so much innocence, you know.
And it was still a
thriving community,
you know, back in those days.
[upbeat music playing]
[man] Democracy was on
the march in Washington
as 200,000 people
converge on The Capitol
- to rally for civil rights.
- [Ellora] In the 1960s,
the Civil Rights
Movement was demanding
economic and political rights.
Black Americans in Tulsa
were addressing inequality,
poverty, and segregation.
[Bobby] My dad was
the first Black man
during the Civil Rights Movement
in North Tulsa, Oklahoma
who got arrested
and went to jail, for
standing for rights.
He was just like a soldier.
He was what I call the
Malcolm X of Tulsa,
you know, that's
what he was like.
[upbeat music playing]
[Michelle] Black
Wall Street thrived
until the end of segregation.
When African-Americans were
able to spend their money
outside of their community,
they began to do so.
It wasn't that the
product or the services
was any better, it was simply
that now they have the right
to walk into a
White-owned establishment,
and they wanted to
experience that,
not understanding
how those businesses
on Greenwood would suffer.
As a young person who never
experienced segregation,
Black Wall Street revealed to me
that there were positive
aspects about living
in these all-Black enclaves.
But I think we need to sort
of to look at the success
of many of these
Black entrepreneurs
and the independence they were
able to have at that time,
and how hard that is to recreate
in a White-controlled society.
You see that there
are some drawbacks.
[indistinct chatter]
[Lyndon] Our task is to help
replace their despair
with opportunity.
And this administration today,
here and now,
declares unconditional war
on poverty in America.
[crowd applauding]
There are some
forms of inequality
that are so
influenced by history
and the wealth gap is
actually one of those.
The so-called war on poverty
was really a war on Black folks.
And that war had
many expressions
including tearing down
of historical habitations
that has happened in Greenwood.
[upbeat music playing]
[Michelle] Urban
renewal came through
with the promise to help rebuild
the Greenwood district,
and that's not
exactly what happened.
[James] It was something
called urban renewal,
which means moving
the Negros out,
getting... It means
Negro removal.
That is what it means.
And the federal government
is an accomplice to this fact.
[Michelle] The City of Tulsa
would build the expressway
through the heart of
the Greenwood District,
which caused property
values to decline.
[indistinct chatter]
[man speaking]
Yes [indistinct]
[man] Yeah.
[man] I see.
If the attacks on
Black communities
by White supremacists
did not push back
the resistance,
then they would use
city governments
and zoning laws and freeways
to guarantee that this community
did not continue.
[J. Kavin] I-44 sits
upon the footprints
of my great
grandfather's business.
And I was starting to believe
that was a message
that was sent out,
"You better not try to
rebuild this Greenwood again
or we'll come back
and tear it up again."
[upbeat music playing]
[Bobby] Gap Band stands
for Greenwood, Archer,
and Pine Street Band.
The Wilson brothers,
Charlie, Robert,
and Ronnie Wilson.
They grew up right
here in Tulsa,
they made a lot of
platinum and gold records.
♪ You were the girl for me ♪
[Bobby] I witnessed some
of those songs being made.
♪ I stand accused ♪
♪ You were the first for me ♪
♪ But you Turned me out, baby ♪
You dropped a bomb on me, baby.
♪ You dropped a bomb on me ♪
[Bobby] And that's
what happened here
on Black Wall Street.
[singer] ♪ You were my pills ♪
[Bobby] That's what
it's in reference to.
And a lot of people
didn't know that.
When that song came
out, they looked at it,
"Okay. It's just
a jamming song,"
that had some hidden
meaning to a lot of people
back in those days.
♪ Then you turned me on ♪
♪ You dropped a bomb on me ♪
[dramatic music playing]
We are still trying to,
a hundred years later,
recover from the
trauma of the past.
[Raven] Our family has sued
for reparations and lost.
The City of Tulsa,
the State of Oklahoma
sent my great aunt a medallion.
That was their way
of saying sorry.
[dramatic music playing]
[Raven] A healing
cannot take place
without an accountability.
So my appeal to the
leaders of Tulsa
and the State of Oklahoma,
to say how long is
it going to take?
We've been fighting
for a hundred years.
It's on you.
[Venita] There's not enough
consequence right now
for what has happened.
They were supposed to receive
reparations, the families,
and they never received
those reparations.
And that's part of
the trauma, right,
of like never seeing
your perpetrators
be held accountable,
the devaluing of your life.
[suspenseful music playing]
There are direct parallels
between 2021 and 1921.
We're still talking
about police misconduct.
Police were a part of the group,
the mob, who shot
and killed, right,
defenseless Black people.
[Stefan] I recognize
this clearly
on the streets of Ferguson
when people weren't allowed
to be on their own lawns,
the collusion of state
violence and racism.
And in Greenwood, this
was what was at stake,
this collusion of police,
of politics, of culture,
neighbor against neighbor.
All of these things came
to mean in the destruction
of what was otherwise
a most beautiful American story.
[Jabraan] I actually
remember the very moment
I learned about Greenwood.
It was actually in school.
Our teacher took us to the
Tulsa City County Library.
We spent one full day
learning about the atrocities
that happened on Greenwood.
And I have never heard of it.
And look at all of the old
newspaper clippings.
The newspaper had no record
of the race massacre.
The first several
pages of that newspaper
had been removed as
if it never existed.
I will never forget how strange
that idea was to me
even as a seventh grader
that someone would
want to remove
such a profound point
in history.
[upbeat music playing]
[Venita] I wanted to
be on Black Wall Street
for a variety of reasons.
Obviously, the history
is very compelling to me.
I didn't know about
Grier Shoe Shop
until actually we had opened
and a journalist came
and interviewed me
and, you know, she was like,
"How does it feel to be where
the Grier Shoe Shop was?"
And I was like, "Oh,
my God. That's crazy."
We have a framed photo
of an advertisement
for the Grier Shoe Shop
from The Tulsa Star.
[Onikah] Being a
Black entrepreneur
requires a level of defiance.
And I'm proud of the shoulders
that I stand on.
Lulu Williams for
having been a teacher,
also creating space
where folks could gather,
where folks could watch cinema,
engage in discussion,
it's a similar vein in
terms of what I wanted
to create in Fulton Street.
The parallels are very strong.
And that's the beautiful thing
about being a Black
business owner now
is knowing that
there is precedent
for what I'm building.
But there's also an anxiety
because if you took
it out the first time
and you took it out again,
if I look toward the horizon,
I'm worried about what
is that next thing
that's coming to
destroy this again?
[Jerica] The fact
of the matter is,
is that Greenwood is
what humanity looked like
for those that had to
stretch to find it.
The matter is that,
Greenwood understood
that Black Lives Matter
before it was an it thing
and yet ironically
enough, Black Lives Matter
can even be placed boldly
in the heart of the space
so I guess the
more things change,
the more they stay the same.
[Onikah] When I think of
gentrifying neighborhoods,
gentrification and
noise complaints
go hand in hand,
noise complaints
serve as a means
to police Black
and Brown bodies.
You have White folks
moving in to communities,
calling police on
their "neighbors"
and those neighbors
being over-policed.
[Jerica] The Black
Lives Matter mural,
it was a beautiful experience.
The community came together.
But then the city then began
receiving complaints.
As a result, that
street was repaved.
The energy and the expediency
put in place to remind
us that your Black life
does not matter in
Greenwood District,
not now, not never.
That was a slap in the face.
[Onikah] It's hard
to be something
or aspire to be something
in which you don't see
yourself reflected.
In the Greenwood District,
it is becoming harder and
harder to see ourselves
in a space that used to be...
us.
[woman] There are efforts to
rebuild Black Wall Street.
But today's entrepreneurs
are facing the same issues
that Black communities in cities
have faced for decades.
When you look at who
owns the physical spaces
our businesses inhabit,
or accessing capital,
those are not Black folks.
We are digging
ourselves out of a ditch
that we did not
create for ourselves.
I was in Vail and walking down,
you know, kind of
the shopping area,
one of the folks
we were with said,
"Hey, that's my
uncle's ski shop."
You know, I had just
one of those moments
where it hit you
like a ton of bricks.
There is nowhere
in this country,
in this world, right,
that I could walk by
and be like my, insert
whoever, owns this.
[upbeat music playing]
[Jerica] I was parking my car
and a White man came
up to my window.
He knocked on it and he said,
"Uh, you can't park here,"
not knowing that I had
access to the space.
And I got completely enraged,
"Why can't I park here?
We used to own all
of this." Like...
[upbeat music playing]
[Angela] Land,
it's so important
because without land,
there's no possibility
of sustenance.
Black landowners have decreased
in such phenomenal numbers.
And that is another
example of the assertion
of White supremacy.
[dramatic music playing]
[Bobby] It's sad.
When I go down Greenwood,
and look at the emptiness.
I can see some of the buildings
and some of the stuff
that was down there
in my eyes.
But my children, you know,
they'll never know.
[dramatic music playing]
[Onikah gasps] It's
the black sheep.
My daughter, Hodessa,
is a new form of
inspiration for me.
What is she gonna
see her mom build,
you know, throughout
her lifetime?
Being in the seat to think about
those who are coming after me
and more specifically
my own child,
gives me inspiration
to go further.
[Venita] Right now
there's this clot of land
in Greenwood.
The city owns it right now and
they're trying to figure out
what to do with it. They
wanna develop on it.
We're talking about land
that was owned, you know,
commercial properties
that were owned
by Black people.
The land needs to go
to the Black community.
That's the answer.
To lean on the
words of Malcolm X,
"If you stab me in
my back nine inches
and you pull that
knife out six inches,
that is not progress."
If you pull it all the way
out, that's not progress.
The progress is healing
the wound that the blow...
That the blow made.
[Onikah] We can't start
to call it progress
until we've started
to heal the wound
that was brought
on this community.
- [crowd] George Floyd!
- [man] Say his name!
- [crowd] George Floyd!
- [man] Say her name!
- [crowd] Breonna Taylor!
- [man] Say her name!
- [crowd] Breonna Taylor!
- [man] Say her name!
- [crowd] Breonna Taylor!
- [man] Say her name!
[Venita] It will be a
hard and strenuous fight.
We have grown used to
strenuous existence
and rather enjoy tackling
the big, difficult
things of life,
especially when the
necessary attending hardships
and sacrifice mean a step
forward for the race.
[woman] We educate it,
we mobilize, we organize,
and we got people
out to the poles.
AJ Smitherman, 1918.
[upbeat music playing]
Black Wall Street is
important to the imagination,
imagining what life
would have been like
for Black people who made
the most of the least.
I would put JB
Stratford and OW Gurley
against the Vanderbilts,
and the Rockefellers
and the Carnegies who
did not have the barriers
to success that AC Jackson
or OW Gurley or
JB Stratford had.
Their achievements
need to be understood
in light up the barriers,
the everyday racial abuse
they were able to overcome
to achieve success and wealth.
[dramatic music playing]
[Venita] A beautiful
community was built
on the backs of Black
men and Black women
who have inspired in me
the sense of possibility.
If there are more Black kids
who could hear those stories,
we'd be setting more
generations up for success.
[dramatic music playing]
[Jabraan] To be able
to imagine yourself
being successful, it
really helps to see people
who look like you be successful.
In Greenwood, our
businesses have always been
more than about gaining capital.
It's more about
how does this stand
to serve community.
You have a dream, I'm
investing in that dream
instead of interrogating it
because I believe our community
is gonna be better for it.
The more business
owners we have,
I think we'll start
to slowly eat away
at some of those barriers
that our young entrepreneurs
are facing.
The spirit of
Greenwood is universal
and anyone can
take that blueprint
and use it for
their own success.
[Venita] Even though
that physical location
no longer exist and
probably will never return
to what it once was,
in many ways it's greater
because it's now in
all types of places.
People all across the country
and all across the
world can be inspired
by this story and
create something.
[upbeat music playing]
[Ellora] We should
elevate those stories
of Black possibility
that we see so clearly
in Tulsa before the massacre
and in many, many points
throughout US history,
so that we unlearn the idea
that we're in the place
that we should be in.
There are voices that
were waiting to be heard.
[Ellora] There's
another kind of life
that we can live.
We're here for business
and I'm really ready
- to get started.
- [Ellora] As a society,
we need to work
towards that vision
and that possibility.
[upbeat music playing]
[Raven] Generations
of people realize
that it's not okay what
has happened in the past
and so we're gonna do
something different
in the future.
[Angela] Greenwood is
about the flourishing
of the community.
And that should inspire us.
We can certainly reconnect
with that spirit
and that impulse
100 years later
and try to fulfill the promises
of those who did the work
to generate such
a powerful example
of what it meant to be free.
That is the task that
is before us today.
Greenwood has always
been the trendsetter.
The world is
watching and waiting
and we are going to make
it worth their while.
Greenwood,
rich with the heritage
and a knowing,
got my heart swooning
over the possibilities.
It's got me open to
the probabilities
and I'm not the only one I know.
You know how I know?
My city told me.
[upbeat music playing]