Gear up for Black History Month with NYSUT's new poster highlighting the Greenwood
District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as Black Wall Street at the start of the 20th century.
It began in 1905 after entrepreneur O.W. Gurley purchased 40 acres in Tulsa and began selling plots to fellow Black settlers to establish a community at a time of widespread racial segregation due to Jim Crow laws. Black entrepreneurs and professionals flocked to the area, so much so that Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, dubbed Greenwood “Negro Wall Street.”
Problems began in 1921 when an accusation against a Black man, which was later dismissed, sparked two days of unprecedented racial violence. The riots left 10,000 homeless and property loss claims totaled $1.8 million, the equivalent of $27 million today.
Although the Greenwood District was rebuilt by the 1940s, it never regained its former prominence; and neither the survivors nor their families have ever received compensation from state or city officials.
Tulsa was one of several “Black Wall Streets” in the United States. Others include Bronzeville in Chicago, Illinois; Hayti in Durham, North Carolina; Sweet Auburn in Atlanta, Georgia; West Ninth Street in Little Rock, Arkansas and Farish Street in Jackson, Mississippi.
The free poster is available for download at nysut.org/publications.