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| LittleAfrica has provided this reference to provide an historical example of how African-Americans, working together, can make a tremendous difference in their lives and community. Black Wallstreet was physically destroyed by jealous whites, the message here; however, is not about anger or revenge--It is a simple plea to recapture that thriving community's pride and spirit. Moreover, we hope that this example encourages you to replicate its cultural and economic success. |
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The highlighted (blue) passages focus attention on the success of our people and provides additional perspective that you should keep in mind as you think about the opportunity that the Block IV Corporation articulates in the Village GoldMine. The Block IV Corporation has also injected additional comments (red) throughout the text. |
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Black Wallstreet
The date was June 1, 1921, when "Black Wallstreet," the name fittingly given to one of the
most affluent all-Black communities in America, (This was not the only thrinving black community.) was bombed from the air and burned to the
ground by mobs of envious whites. In a period spanning fewer than 12 hours, a once
thriving 36-Block business district in northern Tulsa lay smoldering--A model community
destroyed, and a major African-American economic movement resoundingly defused.
The nights carnage left some 3,000 African Americans dead, and over 600 successful
businesses lost. Among these 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 a bus system. As could have been expected the impetus
behind it all was the infamous Ku Klux Klan, working in consort with ranking city officials,
and many other sympathizers.
In their self-published book, Black Wallstreet: A Lost Dream, and its companion video
documentary, Black Wallstreet: A Black Holocaust in America!, the authors have chronicled
for the very first time in the words of area historians and elderly survivors what really
happened there on that fateful summer day in 1921 and why it happened. Wallace similarly
explained to BE why this bloody event from the turn of the century seems to have had a
recurring effect that is being felt in predominately Black neighborhoods even to this day.
The best description of Black Wallstreet, or Little Africa as it was also known, would be
liken it to a mini-Beverly Hills. It was the golden door of the Black community during the
early 1900s, and it proved that African Americans had successful infrastructure. That's what
Black Wallstreet was all about.
The dollar circulated 36 to 100 times, sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the
community. Now in 1995, a dollar leaves the Black community in 15-minutes. (Black economic success depends on us spending our money with us.) As far as
resources, there were Ph.D.'s residing in Little Africa, Black attorneys and doctors. One
doctor was Dr. Berry who owned the bus system. His average income was $500 a day, a
hefty pocket change in 1910. (We provided for ourselves the same services that we currenly rely on others to provide.)
During that era, physicians owned medical schools. There were also pawn
shops everywhere, brothels, jewelry stores, 21 churches, 21 restaurants and two movie
theaters. It was a time when the entire state of Oklahoma has only two airports, yet six
Blacks owned their own planes. It was a very fascinating community.
The area encompassed over 600 businesses and 36 square blocks with a population of 15,000
African Americans. And when the lower-economic Europeans looked over and saw what the
Black community created, many of them were jealous. When the average student went to
school on Black Wallstreet, he wore a suit and tie because of the morals and respect they
were taught at a young age.
The mainstay of the community was to educate every child. Nepotism was the one word they
believed in. And that's what we need to get back to in 1995. The main thoroughfare was
Greenwood Avenue, and it was intersected by Archer and Pine Streets. From the first letters
in each of those three names, you get G.A.P., and that's where the renowned R and B music
group The Gap Band got its name. They're from Tulsa.
Black Wallstreet was a prime example of the typical. Black community in America that did
businesses, but it was in an unusual location. You see, at the time, Oklahoma was set aside
to be a Black and Indian state. There were over 28 Black townships there. One third of the
people who traveled in the terrifying "Trail of Tears" along side the Indians between 1830 to
1842 were Black people.
The citizens of this proposed Indian and Black state chose a Black governor, a treasurer from
Kansas named McDade. But the Ku Klux Klan said that if he assumed office that they
would kill him within 48 hours. A lot of Blacks owned farmland, and many of them had
gone into the oil business. The community was so tight and wealthy because they traded
dollars hand-to-hand, and because they were dependent upon one another as a result of the
Jim Crow laws.
It was not unusual that if a resident's home accidentally burned down, it could be rebuilt
within a few weeks by neighbors. This was the type of scenario that was going on day-
to-day on Black Wallstreet. When Blacks intermarried into the Indian culture, some of
them received their promised '40 Acres and A Mule' and with that came whatever oil was
later found on the properties.
Just to show you how wealthy a lot of Black people were, there was a banker in the
neighboring town who had a wife named California Taylor. Her father owned the largest
cotton gin west of the Mississippi [River]. 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 west of the Mississippi. When he harvested, he would fill 100 boxcars a day. Another
brother not far away had the same thing with a spinach farm. The typical family then was
five children or more, though the typical farm family would have 10 kids or more who made
up the nucleus of the labor.
On Black Wallstreet, a lot of global business was conducted. The community flourished from
the early 1900s until June 1, 1921. That's when the largest massacre of non-military
Americans in the history of this country took place, and it was lead by the Ku Klux Klan.
Imagine walking out of your front door and seeing 1,500 homes being burned. It must have
been amazing.
Survivors we interviewed think that the whole thing was planned because during the time
that all of this was going on, white families with their children stood around the borders of
their community and watched the massacre, the looting and everything--much in the same
manner they would watch a lynching.
In my lectures I ask people if they understand where the word "picnic" comes 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 this country, and it was all across the county. That's
where the term really came from.
The riots weren't caused by anything Black or white. It was caused by jealousy. A lot of
white folks had come back from World War I and they were poor. When they looked over
into the Black communities and realized that Black men who fought in the war had come
home heroes that helped trigger the destruction.
In 1910, our forefathers and mothers owned 13 million acres of land at the height of racism
in this country, so the Black Wallstreet book and videotape prove to the naysayers and
revisionists that we had our act together. Our mandate now is to begin to teach our children
about out own, ongoing Black holocaust. They have to know when they look at our
communities today that we don't come from this.
Excerpt from Black Elegance Magazine (issue unknown)
Title: Ron Wallace Co-Author of Black Wallstreet: A Lost Dream Chronicles a Little
Known Chapter of African-American History in Oklahoma
By line: As Told To Ronald E. Childs