Let me introduce you to the most infamous of them all that
was located in Tulsa Oklahoma that came to be known as “Black Wall Street”. The
name was fittingly given to the most affluent all-black community in America. This
community was the epitome of success proving that African Americans had a
successful infrastructure known as the golden door of the Black community
during the early 1900’s. Although, it was in an unusual location Black Wall
Street was a prime example of the typical Black community in America that did
business far beyond expectations.
The state of Oklahoma was set aside to be a Black and Indian
state that included over 28 Black townships. Another point worth noting, nearly
a third of the people who traveled in the terrifying "Trail of Tears"
alongside the Indians from 1830 to 1842 were Black people. The citizens of
Oklahoma chose a Black governor; there were PhD’s, Black attorneys, doctors and
professionals from all walks of life contributing to the successful development
of this community. One such luminous figure was Dr. Berry who also owned the
bus system generating an average income of $500 a day in 1910. During this time
physicians owned medical schools to empower and develop African Americans.
The area encompassed 36 square blocks, over 600 businesses
with a population of 15,000 African Americans. There were pawn shops
everywhere, brothels, jewelry stores, churches, restaurants and movie theaters.
Their success was monumentally evident in that the entire state of Oklahoma had
only two airports, yet six blacks owned their own planes. Just to show how
wealthy many Black people were, there was a banker in a neighboring town who
had a wife named California Taylor. Her father owned the largest cotton gin
west of the Mississippi. 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 in the west. When he harvested, he would fill 100
boxcars a day. Another Black man not far away was doing the same thing with a
spinach farm. The typical family averaged five children or more, though the
typical farm family would have 10 kids or more who made up the nucleus of the
labor.
What was significant about Black Wall Street was they
understood an important principle - they kept the money in the community. The
dollars circulated 36 to 1000 times within the community, sometimes taking a
year for currency to leave the community. Something the African America
community of today does not fully appreciate or practice because a dollar will
leave the Black community today in 15 minutes. This community was so tight and
wealthy because they traded dollars hand-to-hand because they were dependent
upon one another as a result of the Jim Crow laws.
Another powerful image, and extremely significant, was
education. The foundation of the community was to educate every child because
they understood that education is the single most important ingredient
necessary to neutralize those forces that breed poverty and despair. When
students went to school they wore a suit and tie because of the morals and
respect they were taught at a young age. In addition, nepotism contributed
greatly to the success of this community as a way to help one another – a
tactic that needs to be instilled in our culture today.
A postscript to Tulsa’s legacy is the world renowned R&B
music group the GAP Band. The group of brothers Charlie, Ronnie & Robert
Wilson chose the group’s name taken from the first letters of the main
thoroughfare Greenwood Avenue that intersects with Archer and Pine Streets;
from those letters you get G.A.P. Another legendary figure from Tulsa is their
favorite son, basketball great and jazz musician the late Wayman Tisdale. These
are just a few luminaries that Tulsa has produced, surely the most recognized
today.
An unprecedented amount of global business was conducted
from within the Black Wall Street community, which flourished from the early
1900 until 1921. Then the unthinkable happened and the community faced a valley
or more accurately stated feel of a cliff. The Black Wall Street community
suffered the largest massacre of non-military Americans in the history of this
country.
As you might well imagine, the lower-economic Europeans
looked over and saw how prosperous the Black community had become and destroyed
it. I don’t know the true reason, jealousy was mentioned, but racism was
certainly at its core. Lead by the infamous KKK, working in concert with
ranking city officials, and many other sympathizers.
The destruction began Tuesday evening, June 1, 1921, when
"Black Wall Street," the most affluent all-black community in
America, was bombed from the air and burned to the ground by mobs of resentful
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 Africa-American economic movement resoundingly defused. The night's
carnage left some 3,000 African Americans dead and over 600 successful
businesses lost.
Among them 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 the
bus system. This historic event, you would think should be common knowledge –
but not so. One would be hard-pressed to find any documentation concerning the
incident, let alone an accurate accounting of it.
Not in any reference or American history book documenting
the worst incidents of violence ever visited upon people of African descent.
This night of horror was unimaginable. Try if you will to imagine seeing 1,500
homes being burned and looted, while white families with their children standing
around the borders of the community watching the massacre much in the same
manner they would watch a lynching. It must have been beyond belief for the
victims.
I wonder if you aware of this little known history fact,
where the word "picnic" came from? It was typical to have a picnic on
a Friday evening in Oklahoma. The word was short for "pick a nigger"
to lynch. They would lynch a Black male and cut off body parts as souvenirs.
This went on every weekend in many part of the country with thousands lynched
in the first part of the last century. Unfortunately, that is where the word
actually came from.
The riots weren't caused by anything Black or white. It was
caused as a result of Black prosperity. A lot of white folks had come back from
World War I and they were poor. When they looked over into the Black Wall
Street community and saw that Black men who fought in the war came home as
heroes also contributed to the destruction. It cost the Black community
everything - justice and reconciliation are often incompatible goals because
not a single dime of restitution was ever provided, to include no insurance
claims have been awarded to a single victims.
As I began, there are milestones, mountains, and valleys
which surely encompassed this community and its people. This is why it is so
important to teach these lessons because those who neglect the lessons of the
past are doomed to see it repeated. Life is not a race you run, it is a relay
and it is your responsibility to pass the baton. Our youth, the next generation,
must be prepared and know when they look at our communities today that they
came from a people who built kingdoms.
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