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The date
was June 1, 1921 when "BLACK WALLSTREET", the
name fittingly given to one of the most affluent all-BLACK
communities in America, was bombed from the air and burned
to the ground by mobs of envious whites. In a period spanning
fewer than 12 hours, a once thriving Black business district
in northern Tulsa lay smoldering--a model community destroyed,
and a major African-American economic movement resoundingly
defused. The night's carnage left some 3,000 African Americans
dead, and over 600 successful businesses lost. Among these
were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and
two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office,
libraries, schools, law offices, a half dozen private airplanes
and even a bus system. As could have been expected, the
impetus behind it all was the infamous Ku Klux Klan, working
in consort with ranking city officials and many other sympathizers.
In their self-published book, BLACK WALLSTREET: A Lost Dream
and its companion video documentary, BLACK WALLSTREET: A
BLACK Holocaust in America! The authors have chronicled
for the very first time in the words of area historians
and elderly survivors what really happened there on that
fateful summer day in 1921 and why it happened. Wallace
similarly explained to be why this bloody event from the
turn of the century seems to have had a recurring effect
that is being felt in predominately BLACK neighborhoods
even to this day. The best description of BLACK WALLSTREET,
or little Africa as it was also known, would be liken it
to a mini-Beverly Hills. It was the golden door of the BLACK
community during the early 1900s, and it proved that African
Americans had successful infrastructure. That's what BLACK
WALLSTREET was all about. The dollar circulated 36 to 100
times, sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the
community. Now in 1995, a dollar leaves the BLACK community
in 15-minutes. As far as resources, there were Ph.D.'s residing
in little Africa, BLACK attorneys and doctors. One doctor
was Dr. Berry who owned the bus system. His average income
was $500 a day, a hefty pocket change in 1910. During that
era physicians owned medical schools. There were also pawn
shops everywhere, brothels, jewelry stores, 21 churches,
21 restaurants and two movie theaters, It was a time when
the entire state of Oklahoma had only two Airports, Yet
six BLACKS owned their own planes. It was a very fascinating
community. The area encompassed over 600 businesses and
36 square blocks with a population of 15,000 African Americans.
And when the lower-economic Europeans looked over and saw
what the BLACK community created, many of them were jealous.
When the average student went to school on BLACK WALLSTREET,
he wore a suit and tie because of the morals and respect
they were taught at a young age. The mainstay of the community
was to educate every child. Nepotism was the one word they
believed in. and that's what we need to get back to in 1995.
The main thoroughfare was Greenwood Avenue, and it was intersected
by Archer and Pine Streets. From the first letters in each
of those three names, you get G.A.P., and that's where the
renowned R and B music group the GAP Band got its name.
They're from Tulsa. BLACK WALLSTREET was a prime example
of the typical, BLACK community in America that did businesses,
but it was in an unusual location. You see, at the time,
Oklahoma was set aside to be a BLACK and Indian state.
There were over 28 BLACK
townships there, One third of the people who traveled in
the terrifying "Trail of Tears" along side the
Indians between 1830 and 1842 were BLACK people. The citizens
of this proposed Indian and BLACK state chose a BLACK governor,
a treasurer from Kansas named McDade. But the Ku Klux Klan
said that if he assumed office that they would kill him
within 48 hours. A lot of BLACKS owned farmland, and many
of them had gone into the oil business. The community was
so tight and wealthy because they traded dollars hand-to-hand,
and because they were dependent upon one another as a result
of the Jim Crow Laws. It was not unusual that if a resident's
home accidentally burned down, it could be rebuilt within
a few weeks by neighbors. This was the type of scenario
that was going on day-to-day on BLACK WALLSTREET. When BLACKs
intermarried into the Indian culture, some of them received
their promised '40 acres and a mule' and with that came
whatever oil was later found on the properties. Just to
show you how wealthy a lot of BLACK people were, there was
a banker in the neighboring town who had a wife named California
Taylor. Her father owned the largest cotton Gin west of
the Mississippi (River). When California shopped, she would
take a cruise to Paris every three months to have her clothes
made. There was also a man named Mason in nearby Wagner
County who had the largest potato farm west of the Mississippi.
When he harvested, he would fill 100 boxcars a day, Another
brother not far away had the same thing with a spinach farm.
The typical family then was five children or more, though
the typical farm family would have 10 kids or more who made
up the nucleus of the labor. On BLACK WALLSTREET, a lot
of global business was conducted, The community flourished
from the early 1900s until June 1, 1921. That's when the
largest massacre of nonmilitary Americans in the history
of this country took place, and it was lead by the KU KLUX
KLAN. Imagine walking out of your front door and seeing
1,500 homes being burned. It must have been amazing. Survivors
we interviewed think that the whole thing was planned because
during the time that all of this was going on, white families
with their children stood around the borders of their community
and watched the massacre. The looting and everything--much
in the same manner they would watch a lynching. In my lectures
I ask people if they understand where the word "PICNIC"
comes from. It was typical to have a picnic on a Friday
evening in Oklahoma. The word was short for "PICK A
NIGGER" to lynch. This went on every weekend in this
country and it was all across the country. That's where
the term really came from. The riots weren't caused by anything
black or white. It was caused by jealousy. A lot of white
folks had come back from World War I and they were poor.
When they looked over into the BLACK communities and realized
that BLACK men who fought in the war had come home heroes
that helped trigger the destruction. It cost the BLACK community
everything, and not a single dime of restitution--no insurance
claims-- has been awarded the victims to this day. Nonetheless,
they rebuilt. We estimate that 1,500 to 3,000 people were
killed and we know that a lot of them were buried in mass
graves all around the city. Some were thrown into the river.
As a matter of fact, at 21st street and Yale Avenue, where
there now stands a Sears parking lot, that corner used to
be a coal mine. They threw a lot of the bodies into the
shafts. BLACK Americans don't know about this story because
we don't apply the word HOLOCAUST to our struggle. Jewish
people use the word HOLOCAUST all the time. White people
use the word HOLOCAUST. It's politically correct to use
it. But we BLACK folks use the word, people think we're
being cry babies or that we're trying to bring up old issues.
No one comes to our support. In 1910, our forefathers and
mothers owned 13 million acres of land at the height of
racism in this country, so the BLACK WALLSTREET and VIDEOTAPE
prove to the naysayers and revisionists that we had our
act together. Our mandate now is to begin to teach our children
about our own, ongoing BLACK HOLOCAUST. They have to know
when they look at our communities today that we don't come
from this.
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