TULSA HOPES TO REBUILD THE BLACK WALL STREET
A 1921 race riot destroyed it; now the city is hoping for a revival
An area of Tulsa, Okla., once known as Black Wall Street – a southwestern Harlem of sorts and once home to a middle and upper class of 9,000 African-Americans – was decimated in 1921 by one of the worst race riots in American history and the resulting fallout. Now, black leaders are working to bring 100 businesses back by the 100th anniversary of the riot.
N ot far from a gleaming $183 million arena and other signs of a midsize city striving to become something more, smooth pavement gives way to potholes, rusted fences and shuttered storefronts. They’re the remnants of what was once known as Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, before one of the worst race riots in U.S. history.
Businesses that still are open in this north-side section that some locals are adamant about reviving — the off-brand gas-and-go stores, the thrift shops and salvage yards — are often separated from the next open place by gnarled weeds, rusted fence and vacant lots.
Much of this — 35 square blocks of it — made up Black Wall Street, a southwestern Harlem of sorts and home to a middle and upper class of 9,000 African-Americans. Here, shop owners, doctors and entrepreneurs — some of them freed slaves looking for a new start in the recently incorporated oil boom town — thrived.
In 1921, over the course of roughly 16 hours, a race riot decimated the economic and cultural mecca. The tally of casualties seemed more in line with the aftermath of a military battle — 300 dead, 800 wounded, more than 8,000 left homeless.
Now black leaders want to bring 100 businesses here by 2021, the race riot’s 100th anniversary.
“How can we pay homage by building this community back up to what Black Wall Street was and embracing diversity?” said Reggie Ivey, who grew up in the area and is chief operating officer at the Tulsa Health Department.
Leaders here are seeking manufacturers, grocery store owners and housing developers. U.S. Sen. James Lankford, among the project’s higher-profile supporters, said the initiative is “not looking just for black businesses” but commercial development in general “to re-engage a community that is still scarred years later.”
“North Tulsa has a stigma of being one of the worst places in town,” said Donna Jackson, the project’s executive director. “We don’t have a grocery store, we don’t have shopping.”
Jackson’s pitch to prospective investors is to talk up the dozens of vacant parcels they could snap up for a fraction of what they’d pay downtown, just a couple miles away.
“I don’t think people know this is just sitting here,” Jackson said, surveying a quarter-mile long parcel of land on a recent afternoon. “All it takes is one company — just one company.”
In the early 1900s, with Tulsa and the rest of Oklahoma racially segregated, Black Wall Street was an island in a city, where residents operated their own post office, police force, school system and two newspapers. Some had modern amenities, like indoor plumbing, long before their white counterparts. The Stradford Hotel, Dreamland Theater and Mount Zion Baptist Church were some of the more prominent social centers in the community.
In 1921, rumors of an encounter between a black man and a white woman in a downtown elevator spread, sparking anger among white residents and Ku Klux Klan members. Accounts of what happened on the elevator varied, but angry residents weren’t willing to wait to sort it out.
A white mob descended on the area, looting businesses and leaving homes and churches smoldering. Leftover World War I planes that dropped bombs on the Germans just three years earlier were now employed to destroy the property of fellow Americans.
“What wasn’t torched to the ground, they blew up. They blew up just about everything,” said Laurel Stradford, whose greatgrandfather was one of the wealthiest men in town and owned the namesake hotel destroyed in the riot.
Blacks rebuilt the area in the decades that followed, only to see their work wiped out yet again, this time under the guise of urban renewal and a new highway that cut through the heart of the district.
In the 1970s and ’80s, black residents who could leave fled to the suburbs. One by one, the groceries, mom and pop diners and storefronts closed. Houses were boarded up, allowing blight and crime to creep in.
Counting existing businesses that recently have opened or are under construction and commitments secured to relocate here, Jackson estimates she’s 20 percent of the way to the goal.
Some businesses are warming to the idea. Pine Place Development envisions bringing shopping, dining, a cultural museum and upscale apartments to the area.
Tim Smallwood, who opened Tropical Smoothie Cafe in 2013, sees the potential for a rebirth. He said family members told him he was “crazy” to invest money there.
“In a lot of people’s minds, you are a poor community,” Smallwood said.
But his investment paid off: The cafe has seen double-digit gains.
Jackson, the project director who grew up here, knows the long odds, but draws upon what was possible here nearly a century ago.
“They paved a path. What they taught us was people from anywhere can do anything,” she said.