Many racists in America like to point out that African Americans should become entrepreneurs and build their own communities for prosperity, rather than rely on government assistance and settle for low-paying jobs. If you don’t know history, if you don’t understand the climate to prevent blacks from getting an affordable education today, housing, fair loans and not be herded off to prison for crimes overlooked for whites, you could not possibly understand that blacks HAVE successfully been independent of the system and thrived. All that was destroyed, not just in Tulsa, OK, but in several other communities. Jewish communities are all over the U.S. We have the Amish doing the same thing. Look at the Mormons. But blacks doing for themselves?  Oh no, we can’t possibly allow that. Yet these people and politicians will continue to point fingers and say blacks are lazy and apathetic.

Every American who cares about this nation should read this story. It will explain so many questions about what happened after slavery, Jim Crow and the escalation of racism today. It’s a story about power, envy, jealousy, hate, oppression…and evil. ~Marion Young

What happened to Black Wall Street on June 1, 1921?
San Francisco Bay View

Black Wall Street, 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.

The best description of Black Wall Street, or Little Africa as it was also known, would be to compare 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 could create a successful infrastructure. That’s what Black Wall Street was all about. 

The dollar circulated 36 to 100 times, sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the community. Now a dollar leaves the Black community in 15 minutes. As for 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, hefty pocket change in 1910.

These are Black-built, Black-owned buildings that were occupied by bustling Black businesses before envious whites rioted and destroyed them.

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 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. 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&B music group the GAP Band got its name. They’re from Tulsa.

At the end of the day, June 1, 1921, this is what remained of Black Wall Street. Lost forever were over 600 successful businesses, including 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores, two movie theaters, a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half dozen private airplanes and a bus system.

Black Wall Street was a prime example of the typical Black community in America that did business, 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” alongside 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.

 Here, the businesses that had been the economic engine of this most prosperous Black community in the U.S. are identified.

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 Wall Street.

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. On Black Wall Street, 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 led 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. The riots weren’t caused by anything Black or White. They were 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 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.

Read the rest of the story here.

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Filed under: African - African Americans - Africa, Civil Rights, disasters, equality, Grief-Depression, History, Military, Political, Racism, Terrorism | Tagged: 1921, 40 acres and a mule, african americans, Before They Die movie, Beulah Smith, black wall street, blacks, Dick Rowland, dynamite, economic movement, Eddie Faye Gates, envy, evil, explosive devices, farm land, gap band, global business, grenades, hate, jim crow, june 1, Kenny Booker, kkk, ku klux klan, little africa, lynching, massacre, model community, Molotov cocktails, native american indian, nepotism, oil, racism, Ruth Avery, tulsa oklahoma, Tulsa Race Riot Commission, Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery, ujamaa network, whites, world war I | Leave a Comment »