Warning: The following account contains graphic descriptions that may trigger some readers. Discretion is advised.
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Warning: The following account contains graphic descriptions that may trigger some readers. Discretion is advised.
















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O.W. Gurley, a wealthy Black entrepreneur from Arkansas, moved to racially segregated Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1906 and bought 40 acres of land. On it, he built three two-story buildings and five homes for Black people who were not allowed to live on the white side of town.

Soon, word spread across the country about opportunities for Black people in the segregated section of Tulsa, which Gurley named “Greenwood” after a town in Mississippi.

Other prominent Black businesspeople followed suit.

J.B. Stradford, who was born into slavery in Kentucky but later became a lawyer and activist, built a 55-room luxury hotel in Greenwood – the largest Black-owned property of its kind in the country at the time.

A.J. Smitherman founded the Black-owned Tulsa Star , informing Black people about their legal rights, along with news about court rulings and legislation that could help or harm them.

Eventually, Greenwood Avenue was lined with luxury shops, restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, jewelry and clothing stores, movie theaters, barbershops and salons. The district, which ultimately came to be known as the “Black Wall Street,” also had a library, pool halls and nightclubs as well as offices for doctors, lawyers and dentists.

Working-class Black people were not excluded. Janitors, dishwashers, porters and domestic workers spent the money they made in other parts of town in Greenwood.

“It is said within Greenwood every dollar would change hands 19 times before it left the community,” Michelle Place, executive director of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum, told History.com <[link removed]>.

But 99 years ago <[link removed]>, in one of the worst massacres in American history, all of Greenwood came crumbling down. From May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob killed hundreds of Black people, burned down what was then the most affluent Black community in America and left thousands of people homeless.

Nearly a century later, the country was confronted with those horrific events once again when President Trump announced <[link removed]> that he would hold a campaign rally in Tulsa on June 19, also known as Juneteenth <[link removed]> and Emancipation Day – the date in 1865 when a Union general traveled to Galveston, Texas, to read President Abraham Lincoln’s orders to free enslaved Africans. Critics were enraged.

“This isn’t just a wink to white supremacists – he’s throwing them a welcome home party,” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., tweeted <[link removed]> last week.

Trump later rescheduled the rally for Saturday, June 20.

But the news was a grim reminder of the Tulsa massacre, which was sparked by the false accusation that a Black man had sexually assaulted a white woman.

Such allegations are a recurring theme in the mass lynchings of Black people <[link removed]> throughout American history, including the Emanuel Nine <[link removed]> massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, where five years ago a white supremacist, acting on false information that Black men were raping white women in large numbers, killed nine Black people in a Bible study.

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