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U.S. NEWS Thursday 23 February 2017

Tulsa’s former Black Wall Street tries to remake itself

JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS Attempting to make ple miles away. ger among white residents the decades that followed,
Associated Press good on failed hopes of “I don’t think people know and Ku Klux Klan members. only to see their work wiped
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Not far an eventual renaissance, this is just sitting here,” Jack- Accounts of what hap- out yet again, this time un-
from a gleaming $183 mil- black leaders want to son said, surveying a quar- pened on the elevator der the guise of urban re-
lion arena and other signs bring 100 businesses here ter-mile long parcel of land varied, but angry residents newal and a new highway
of a midsize city striving to by 2021, marking the race on a recent afternoon. “All weren’t willing to wait to that cut through the heart
become something more, riot’s 100th anniversary. it takes is one company — sort it out. A newspaper ar- of the district.
smooth pavement gives “How can we pay homage In the 1970s and ‘80s, black
way to potholes, rusted by building this community residents who could leave
fences and shuttered store- back up to what Black Wall fled to the suburbs. One by
fronts. They’re the remnants Street was and embrac- one, the groceries, mom
of what was once known ing diversity?” said Reggie and pop diners and store-
as Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, Ivey, who grew up in the fronts closed. Houses were
before one of the worst area and is chief operating boarded up, allowing blight
race riots in U.S. history. officer at the Tulsa Health and crime to creep in.
Businesses that are still Department. Counting existing busi-
open in this north-side sec- Those leading the North- nesses that have recently
tion that some locals are Tulsa100 initiative acknowl- opened or are under con-
adamant about reviving — edge it’s an ambitious, struction and commitments
the off-brand gas-and-go perhaps audacious, en- secured to relocate here,
stores, the thrift shops and deavor. The project is sure Jackson estimates she’s 20
salvage yards — are often to be met with difficulties, percent of the way to the
separated from the next as cities around the country goal, which must be met in
open place by gnarled confront similar challenges A memorial to Tulsa’s Black Wall Street sits outside the Green- four years.
weeds, rusted fence and with getting businesses to wood Cultural Center on the outskirts of downtown Tulsa, Okla. Some businesses are warm-
vacant lots. move back into African- A once-prosperous section of Tulsa that became the site of one ing to the idea. Pine Place
Much of this — 35 square American communities, of the worst race riots in American history is attempting to re- Development envisions
make itself again after decades of neglect. Black leaders want
blocks of it — made up particularly poorer ones. to bring 100 new companies to the former Black Wall Street in bringing shopping, dining,
Black Wall Street, a south- Leaders here are seeking north Tulsa by 2021, the 100th anniversary of its fall. a cultural museum and
western Harlem of sorts and manufacturers, grocery (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki) upscale apartments to the
home to a middle and up- store owners and housing area.
per class of 9,000 African- developers. U.S. Sen. James just one company.” ticle titled “Nab Negro for Tim Smallwood, who
Americans. Here, shop Lankford, among the proj- In the early 1900s, with Tulsa Attacking Girl in Elevator” opened Tropical Smoothie
owners, doctors and entre- ect’s higher-profile support- and the rest of Oklahoma fanned the flames. Cafe in 2013, also sees the
preneurs — some of them ers, says the initiative is “not racially segregated, Black A white mob descended potential for a rebirth. He
freed slaves looking for a looking just for black busi- Wall Street was an island on the area, looting busi- said family members told
new start in the recently in- nesses” but commercial in a city, where residents nesses and leaving homes him he was “crazy” to in-
corporated oil boom town development in general operated their own post and churches smoldering. vest money there.
— thrived. “to re-engage a commu- office, police force, school Leftover World War I planes “In a lot of people’s minds,
In 1921, over the course of nity that is still scarred years system and two news- that dropped bombs on you are a poor communi-
roughly 16 hours, a race riot later.” papers. Some had mod- the Germans just three ty,” Smallwood said.
decimated the economic “North Tulsa has a stigma ern amenities, like indoor years earlier were now em- But his investment paid off:
and cultural mecca. The of being one of the worst plumbing, long before their ployed to destroy the prop- The cafe has seen double-
tally of casualties seemed places in town,” said Don- white counterparts. The erty of fellow Americans. digit gains.
more in line with the after- na Jackson, the project’s Stradford Hotel, Dream- “What wasn’t torched to Ralph Knight, a retired
math of a military battle — executive director. “We land Theater and Mount the ground, they blew up. airline mechanic whose
300 dead, 800 wounded, don’t have a grocery store, Zion Baptist Church were They blew up just about mother was 6 when the ri-
more than 8,000 left home- we don’t have shopping.” some of the more promi- everything,” says Laurel oting began, said a turn-
less. Jackson’s pitch to prospec- nent social centers in the Stradford, whose great- around could remedy
Blacks rebuilt the area in tive investors is to talk up community. In 1921, rumors grandfather was one of some of the blight that now
the decades that followed, the dozens of vacant par- of an encounter between the wealthiest men in town pocks the community and
only to see their work wiped cels they could snap up for a black man and a white and owned the namesake give a younger generation
out during the so-called ur- a fraction of what they’d woman in a downtown el- hotel destroyed in the riot. reason to hope — and stay
ban progress of the 1960s. pay downtown, just a cou- evator spread, sparking an- Blacks rebuilt the area in — in north Tulsa.q