What Really Caused the Destruction of Tulsa’s ‘Black Wall Street’
A new book looks beyond the Tulsa race massacre to understand the demise of the historic Greenwood neighborhood, once known as a hub for Black wealth.
A view of Greenwood Avenue before it was destroyed in the 1921 race massacre.
Source: Greenwood Cultural Center/Archive Photos
There are numerous dissections of what happened to the historic Black Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood, aka “Black Wall Street,” during the tragic race massacre of 1921, when more than 1,000 Black-owned homes and businesses were burned down by a white mob. There have been fewer accounts about what happened after the destruction of Greenwood, once home to some of the wealthiest African Americans in the US.
That void has been filled with the release of Victor Luckerson’s new book Built From the Fire, a nearly 500-page tome that comprehensively details the makings of Greenwood, the myth; Greenwood, the actual place; the massacre that reduced it to ashes; and the waves of re-destruction that occurred after it was rebuilt.