The Historic Greenwood District

The Historic Greenwood District. Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the early 1900s, Tulsa's black community, the "Greenwood District," gained national renown. Dubbed "Black Wall Street," the neighborhood teemed with entrepreneurial and business activity: doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, dentists, beauty parlors, barbershops, dance halls, pool halls, movie theaters, restaurants, grocery stores, and so much more. Its nerve center, Greenwood Avenue, drew favorable comparisons to Beale Street in Memphis and State Street in Chicago., The calamitous 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the worst of the twentieth century "race riots," temporarily stilled the Greenwood District. Marauding rioters seized upon this segregated enclave, leaving in their wake death and destruction. It was the worst incident of mass racial violence against a black community in United States history., In a remarkable resurrection, the Greenwood District rose from the ashes, peaking in the 1940s. Beginning in the 1960s, integration and urban renewal changed the social and economic conditions at local, state, and national levels, sparking a steep downward spiral., Today, the Greenwood District is resurgent. The new Black Wall Street is a collaborative community consisting of residential, commercial, artistic, educational, cultural, entertainment, and religious elements working together to reclaim part of the past glory of this special, and for some, sacred, place. , Authored by Hannibal B. Johnson