BHCC #11 The Historic Legacies and Overlooked Stories of America’s ‘Black Wall Streets’

BHCC #11
The Historic Legacies and Overlooked Stories of America’s ‘Black Wall Streets’

Between May 31 and June 1, 1921, as many as 300 people were killed in one of the deadliest race massacres in U.S. history. Riled up by rumors of a Black man raping a young white woman, a white mob burned down the Tulsa, Okla., neighborhood of Greenwood—a.k.a. “Black Wall Street,” the affluent commercial and residential neighborhood founded in the city by Black Americans who went west after the Civil War.
Now, 100 years after the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, awareness of this American tragedy has grown thanks to the work of activists and descendants of victims, local political support, and depictions in the HBO series Watchman and Lovecraft Country. But Tulsa’s was not the only Black Wall Street. The history of other such districts nationwide is still not widely known beyond their home cities, though they were many: Bronzeville in Chicago; Hayti in Durham, N.C.; Sweet Auburn in Atlanta; West Ninth Street in Little Rock, Ark.; and Farish Street in Jackson, Miss.