Black Wall Street
1n the summer of 1921, represents one of the most occasions of the racial violence that has ever happened in the American history that erupted in the heart of what was considered one of most affluent Black communities in the nation. It was also known as the Black Wall Street because of the black resident’s state of wealthy, the Greenwood neighborhood of Oklahoma, a place known for the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. The massacre acted as a center for Black success that featured Black-owned homes, and their establishment is of banks, restaurants, and hotels, which took place in a community that had accomplished doctors, lawyers, and dentists. The area was among the Black areas that flourished economically after the Civil War to the 20th century, a period when racial discrimination was rampant in the nation. However, due to the organization and success of the black communities in Tulsa’s Greenwood District, the nearby residents of whites envied the independence and success of the black. An allegation of the assault of a white woman at the hand of a black man. This incident is regarded as the catalyst to the devastation of over 1200 homes and businesses across the 35-city block. The destruction from the massacre is estimated to be over $200 million in today’s dollar. The research paper mainly focuses on demonstrating that the fall of Black Wall Street not only took the lives of hundreds inclusive of both black and white people and destroyed homes and businesses. The situation also devastated the Greenwood District’s economy in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and black entrepreneurs and the investors who lived there (Conner, 2018). Additionally, the paper will also delve into the social, economic events that led to the prosperity of Tulsa’s Greenwood District.
Ottawa W. Gurley, also known as O.W, who was an educator, entrepreneur, and landowner, was born from a former enslaved African. After O.W had retired from the government of president Grover Cleveland administration, he moved to his home in Arkansas to Perry, Oklahoma, to engage in the land grab in 1889. He located to Tulsa together with his wife Emma to seize the economic opportunities. After arriving in the place, O.W purchased a 40-acre tract of land that was undeveloped and built a grocery store where the place was a dirt road that transverse the city in the north. Additionally, O.W, while there, he collaborated with black businessman John the Baptist Stradford, also known as J.B, whom they had a distrust for the white people with. They both used their initial names rather than full names as a sign of protest. This was because their first name addressed the adult black men as assign of emasculation by the men from the South.
The origin of the Greenwood came after O.W built several square two-story bring boarding houses in a close place to his grocery store, and he called the structure Greenwood Avenue, after the Mississippi town where many early residents hailed (Wills, 2020). The place became to be known as Greenwood. Hundreds of African Americans migrated to Greenwood for the oil boom. Both J.B and O.W became wealthier. O.W leveraged his affluence and launched an employment agency and a black Masonic lodge, and began the efforts of bankrolling as a way to resist black voter suppression in the state. Sooner the whites began to follow O.W and J.B by the purchasing of lands north of the rail tracks and later sold them back to the black community members. In 1905, the blank dentist and black doctors had launched there the practice. More schools, hardware stores, and a Baptist church were created here. By this time, racial segregation was becoming more predominant, and as a result, many blacks converged on the north side of the train tracks, whereas the whites stayed in the South.
The racial segregation began in 1907 when the Oklahoma territory attained its statehood. Oklahoma was a socially, racially, and politically tense atmosphere. The new state legislature passed the racial segregation laws, also referred to as the Jim Crow laws, as the first-order laws in business. The blacks faced violence and freedom restrictions, including being denied the right to vote and experiencing other forms of racial segregation and race-based segregation (Wills, 2020). The injustices confirmed O.W and J.B’s decision in creating the black-centric communities in which the black men and women were protected from the racial hostilities. That is to say, if the white people threatened the blacks racially, Greenwood’s black residents would respond violently.
With increased racial segregation, Greenwood’s black business district prospered; due to the black residents fed, their purchasing dollars reversed to the local economy and earned their incomes from the white employers. Tulsa was home to the oil fields, and this gave many blacks economic opportunities. The state of Oklahoma became a state of significance with this opening of the oil fuels, including Glenn Pool in 1905, Cushing in 1912, and the Healdton in 1913 (Johnson,1998). During this time, the Private fortunes were created, boomtowns were born, and finally, in 1907 onwards, Oklahoma asserted itself and made a position in one of the country’s oil-producing states. Most of the African Americans shifted to Oklahoma to act as the booster to the oil discoveries. These acted as an escape for the racism and barbarism they had faced in the home states.
However, not all blacks lived in all-black towns. African-America landowners were also found in other communities. Previously, over 500 African Americans owned land rich in oil Oklahoma Territory. Incremental increases in prices of the oil gave rise to the surge of wealth more landowners, bitterness, and the racial strife increased (Johnson, 1998). Jealousy was more prominent in Oklahoma’s white communities. Racial politics instead increased the consumer markets and forced the development of the African American economy. The affluent class of African Americans entrepreneurs was developed. This was in Tulsa, where African entrepreneurs were congregated in a single business district that initiated an intersection in Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street. Greenwood Avenue became the Negro Wall Street.
Tulsa race massacre
Before the destruction of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Greenwood was one of the most prosperous black communities in the country that bore the name Black Wall Street because of its concentrated wealth. The black communities in Greenwood faced a lot of racism from the whites in the South, and the tension increased when Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old a black man who was apprehended by the police after he was accused of assaulting a 17-year-old white woman elevator operator Sarah Page in the South Main Street (Lawrence, 2020). Most of the historians state that Rowland had stepped on her foot when entering the elevator; this caused her to scream. The incidence ignited an outrage that caused a conflict between the whites who rioted through the Black Wall Street. However, the neighborhood has never recovered from the incident.
After the elevator’s incidence, white Tulsa erupted; after 16 hours that evening, the hundreds of white converged outside the courthouse where Rowland was apprehended. Three white men went in the courthouse and demanded the officials to handover Rowland to them, but the officials refused. From there, the whites of Tulsa invaded Black Tulsa, where they looted, bombed the area using the planes, and committed arson, and a lot of killings in the next 12 hours (The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and its enduring financial fallout. 2019). The white mob destroyed a lot of the black’s homes by burning them down. Over 10000 black Tulsans lost their shelter and livelihoods, and hundreds lost their lives as well. Over 150 to 300 deaths occurred in the Tulsa race massacre.
After the massacre, over 35 city blocks remained as charred ruins, and 10000 people were rendered homeless. Most of the Black Tulsa fled their homes after the rampage to run for their safety. Many of the Bland and white residents that remained in Tulsa after the massacre remained silent about the tragedy for decades (Bell, 2002). Some of the African Americans underwent double loss; they incurred losses from their businesses and lost their homes in the riot. Among the most affected blacks was O.W Gurley and his wife Emma, where they had the first businesses to locate on Greenwood Avenue. Even after been disheartened by the loss of the business and home, they had worked hard for the Gurley family did not rebuild.
In the Tulsa race riot over and the Greenwood District’s burning sustained an estimated loss of about $400 million dollars, among the finest hotels that the Negros own in America were burned down and among the other business premises were also destroyed. Losses incurred in Greenwood were devastating. The economic losses in Greenwood were significantly important, and the neighborhood never bothered how to recover its status from the American’s Black Wall Street.
For instance, most African Americans kept their money in their homes; the reason being they did not trust the white-owned banks. During the looting, the Whites stole most of the things that belonged to the blacks from their households, such as their money and the other valuables. Due to the destruction of the black homes, some of the African American families that had lost their homes from Greenwood became American refugees in America and started lining in the Red Cross tents. The Police and the National Guard imprisoned some of the blacks, but the rest fled from Tulsa.
After the Tulsa massacre, that Greenwood was reconstructed from the ground, and it thrived again by the 1940s. However, the progress was never good since the black dollar did not remain within the community, since the black community had more options to shop from and hence took their patronage elsewhere. Thus, this weakened the African American businesses and their financial stability to the neighborhood (Lawrence, 2020). The urban renewal projects of the 1960s made substandard buildings, such as those in Greenwood, which were torn down to establish new highways. The large retailers fixed the small businesses out, and the black business owners were greatly affected. Due to this by 1970, nothing important was available in the district.
Over the decades since the massacre happened, African Americans have remained to struggle with the countless inequalities. As of today, most of the city’s low-income black people are located to the north, and poor housing and death of the grocery stores and white the white communities reside in the South. However, these have affected the quality of life, job opportunities to the blacks, and the life expectancy. Meanwhile, the Greenwood city had majored with its rebirth with the aim of reconciling for its dark past. However, most of the communities have continued seeking help to see if the city would pay for the massacre’s reparations. In 2003, the Reparations Coordinating Committee made efforts to ensure the reparation of members who had lost businesses and homes from the attack (Campbell, 2016). Racial bias is an issue that is common in the lending industry, despite the legislation efforts of preventing it. 1992 in a landmark study done by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has observed that over 4500 mortgage loan applications and noted that the black borrowers were likely to be rejected from loans than the white borrowers, a situation that has remained so from the histories.
Conclusion
The Black Wall Street history study is of great importance since I can understand all the history of racial segregation from how it began and how it affected many of the African American communities and the whole of America. The history of the Greenwood city shows the importance of keeping peace among the neighborhood communities and ourselves. Conflicts among the communities have a lot of negative impacts, and some may lead to long-lived consequences. Other lessons from the historical events are that from any negative things we learn to see the positive sides of the things as the black Americans did after the whites looted their business premises, they found other markets to sell locally within themselves. From the events is that as an entrepreneur, we learn always to be prepared for all forms of risks that may occur in the course of running businesses.
From the historical events, it has changed the way of thinking concerning the same. From the start, my thought was that the African Americans were the main beneficiaries of the Tulsa’s massacre racial war. This came to be because of the benefits they gained from the fled away of the whites and purchasing locally among themselves. They mostly benefited from the oil fields opportunity in Tulsa and banked in their black banks. However, the case was reversed, I have released that they were affected mainly by the massacre. Most of the lives that were killed were the blacks, and most of the businesses that they were looted belonged to the African American. Though they were able to thrive in their communities, racial segregation had a long-term effect on them, and it still exists in some states. The whites continue to oppress the blacks racially, politically, and socially.
From above-studied history, the historian can do further studies and continue with the researches. Some of these further studies would explain the effects of Tulsa’s massacre on the country’s economy. However, one would also consider finding a solution on how the whites would unite with African Americans. Further, I would look at how the African Americans emerged from being slaves to being the fortune communities in the state of Oklahoma.
References
Johnson, H. B. (1998). Black Wall Street: From riot to renaissance in Tulsa’s historic Greenwood district. Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum.
Wills, S. (2020). Origins of Black Wall Street. Investopedia. Retrieved 23 August 2020, from https://www.investopedia.com/insights/origins-black-wall-street/.
Lawrence, S. (2020). “Black Wall Street” Once Existed, But Was Burned to the Ground by Racists. Retrieved 23 August 2020, from https://www.teenvogue.com/story/black-wall-street-and-the-tulsa-race-massacre
The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and its enduring financial fallout. (2019). Retrieved 23 August 2020, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/06/the-1921-tulsa-race-massacre-and-its-enduring-financial-fallout/
Campbell, A. (2016). The Rise and Fall of Black Wall Street. Retrieved 23 August 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/the-end-of-black-wall-street/498074/
Conner, J. (2018). Dr. Olivia Hooker, 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Survivor and One of the First Black Women to Join the U.S. Coast Guard, Dies at 103. Retrieved 23 August 2020, from https://www.theroot.com/dr-olivia-hooker-1921-tulsa-race-massacre-survivor-an-1830631406
Bell, G. S. (2002). In the black: A history of African Americans on Wall Street. John Wiley & Sons.