In short order, the Greenwood District came alive once again, bigger and better than ever. Greenwood Avenue regained her vaunted status as America’s “Negro Wall Street.” By 1942, scores of businesses called the Greenwood District home once again, a tribute to the triumph of a determined community. That successful post-riot rebound gave way to decline in the 1960s and 1970s. Integration, urban renewal, changing economic conditions, and the lack of business mentoring all played a part in the erosion of this once-prominent entrepreneurial enclave.
In the early 1970s, Tulsa leaders began efforts to re-stitch the unraveling fabric of the Greenwood District. The Greenwood Cultural Center, begun in 1983, became the centerpiece of this community re-imagining. It soon evolved into more than a mere venue, taking on important programmatic leadership, particularly in the areas of educational and cultural experiences, intercultural exchanges, and cultural tourism.
The Greenwood District now sits poised for a renaissance, not necessarily of African American entrepreneurship, but of the human spirit. The community has begun its transformation into an arts, educational, cultural, and entertainment hub.
George Washington Carver School, pictured here around 1935, was formerly an all-black institution. The school, named for the famed American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor, was founded in 1928. It sits between North Hartford Avenue and North Greenwood Avenue, just south of East Pine Street. Today, Carver Middle School is an academic magnet school that follows the Middle Years Program (International Baccalaureate) framework. Students apply for admission and are screened by a selection committee. Selections are based on grades, test scores, attendance, behavior, and teacher recommendations. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
Tulsa’s leading black educational institution in 1921, Booker T. Washington High School earned a reputation for high-caliber teaching, academic rigor, and standards of excellence for its students. (Photograph from the 1921 Booker T. Washington High School yearbook, courtesy of Rudisill Regional Library, Tulsa.)
This c. 1940 photograph, looking north from Archer Street down Greenwood Avenue, captures the heart of Tulsa’s historic Greenwood District. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
The Brady Mansion, seen here in the 1920s, was home to Tulsa businessman Tate Brady. The home still stands at 620 North Denver Avenue. Brady has become a somewhat controversial figure after the discovery (or perhaps rediscovery) of his possible ties to the KKK and involvement in the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. Adding to the controversy, a now-booming arts and entertainment district in Tulsa bears the Brady name. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This 1915 group photograph shows the uniformed members of the Tulsa Fire Department. During the course of the riot, members of the mob that invaded the Greenwood District prevented firefighters from dousing the flames that ultimately ravaged the community. This blatant act of interference, like other unlawful acts during the riot, went unpunished. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
Pictured here is a panoramic view of the Tulsa skyline in 1911. The city’s remarkable growth in the ensuing decades was largely attributable to its ties to the oil industry. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
These three 1932 skyline views of Tulsa illustrate the remarkable rise of the city from a once-sleepy Indian Territory outpost to a mid-sized American metropolitan area and the “Oil Capital of the World.” (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
These Tulsa Chamber of Commerce images from the 1930s and 1940s further illustrate Tulsa’s trajectory into the American spotlight. The group, now the Tulsa Regional Chamber, continues to be a driving force behind the Tulsa area’s prominence as a business-friendly venue. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
Edward I. Hanlon, James Henaghan, and an unnamed pilot are seated in a pusher type hydroplane owned by the Harlan Oil Company. One of the persistent strains of oral history that endures from the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot recalls planes dropping incendiary devices on the Greenwood District. Authorities at the time admitted that planes flew over the community, but characterized the sorties as reconnoitering missions. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This c. 1940 photograph shows Greenwood Avenue south of Easton Street, looking north along the Sand Springs Railway interurban tracks. The Prince-Mackey (Mabel B. Little) House is visible on the left with a tile roof. The Prince-Mackey House stood on the southwest corner of Greenwood Avenue and Easton Street. It is now located slightly to the south and back from the street, and is part of the Greenwood Cultural Center. The slender building straight ahead is the Del Rio Hotel. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This c. 1940 photograph shows Greenwood Avenue south of Easton Street, looking south along the Sand Springs Railway tracks. Charles Page, a philanthropist and the founder of the city of Sand Springs, created the Sand Springs Railway in 1911. Operating on 8.6 miles of track, the Sand Springs Railway provided service between Tulsa and Sand Springs. The Tulsa passenger terminal was located at the corner of Archer Street and Boston Avenue. In 1955, the Sand Springs Railway discontinued passenger service and changed over to diesel locomotives as a freight line. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This c. 1940 photograph shows the Sand Springs Railway tracks near Brady Street and Greenwood Avenue, looking southwest. Hotel Tulsa is in the far background. Today, a minor league baseball ballpark, ONEOK Field, sits on the land just to the right of these tracks and is home to the Tulsa Drillers. Professional baseball began in Tulsa in 1905. The Drillers are the oldest professional sports franchise in the city. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This c. 1940 photograph shows the Sand Springs Railway tracks, looking north toward Brady Street and Greenwood Avenue, Busy Bee Lunch (in the Center Hotel building), and Vernon African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church to the north. Founded in 1905, Vernon AME was in the process of building a new facility at the time of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. Burned to the ground during the melee, the congregation tapped into its savings and secured additional donations in order to rebuild. By the end of 1922, workers completed Vernon AME’s basement on the burned site. By 1928, construction of the new Vernon AME had been completed; that structure remains a vital part of the Greenwood District today. Likewise, the building in the foreground remains. The area in between is now occupied by an overpass for Interstate 244. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
A bus services Easton Street, west of Greenwood Avenue, around the 1950s. African American businessman Simon Berry pioneered transportation service in the Greenwood District with jitney, bus, and charter plan services. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
Pictured here is Greenwood Avenue in the 1950s at its intersection with Greenwood Place, which parallels the Sand Springs Railway interurban tracks branching to the right. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This July 26, 1955, photograph looks east on Easton Street in the Greenwood District. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
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Greenwood Avenue and the Pine Street area on Tulsa’s north side are pictured in this c. 1950s photograph. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This April 16, 1953, photograph features a Sunset Cab in the Greenwood District. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This April 9, 1953, photograph shows the 600 block of East Pine Street in the Greenwood District. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This is Greenwood Place, just east of the intersection of Greenwood Avenue, around 1945. The Sand Springs Railway Car 62 is pictured in front of the Del Rio Hotel. Car 62, which was built in 1917, was acquired by the Sand Springs Railway in 1932 from the Cincinnati, Lawrenceburg & Aurora, and scrapped in 1947. At that time, the city acquired newer cars from the Oklahoma Union Railway, an interurban line connecting Nowata, Coffeyville, and Independence. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
This 1918 photograph of the American Red Cross in Tulsa foreshadows the dark days ahead. The Red Cross, led by St. Louis-based Maurice Willows, provided extensive post-riot relief in Tulsa, for which it was widely praised. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)
Post-riot rebuilding in the Greenwood District began almost immediately. In 1925, the Greenwood District hosted the conference of what might be called the Black Chamber of Commerce. The group, known as the National Negro Business League, was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1900 by Booker T. Washington with the support of Andrew Carnegie. The league promoted black commerce and economic uplift as a necessary prerequisite to equality for African Americans. It launched 320 chapters nationwide, with diverse members representing small businesses, professionals, farmers, craftsmen, and more. In 1966, the league reincorporated in Washington, DC, as the National Business League. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Tulsa’s historic Mount Zion Baptist Church was destroyed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot by a mob that believed the church was a storehouse for munitions secreted by the African Americans in the Greenwood District. Only the dirt-floor basement of the church remained after its burning. These photographs illustrate the rebuilding of this iconic religious structure. (Both, courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
The Williams Dreamland Theater, shown here under reconstruction in the mid-to-late 1920s, was one of several businesses owned and operated by John and Loula Williams. The Dreamland, located on Greenwood Avenue in the heart of the Greenwood District, was destroyed in the riot, but rebuilt in grand style. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Urban renewal, a controversial land redevelopment program, wreaked havoc on the Greenwood District, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s. Wrecking balls pummeled buildings, demolishing not just structures, but the history embedded in them. Some African American leaders pejoratively referred to the urban renewal efforts as “urban removal.” Here, a bulldozer fells a Greenwood District structure around 1970. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Jackson’s Ambulance, located on Archer Street, was a prominent Greenwood District business during the 1940s. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
This c. 1985 photograph looks northeast at the intersection of Archer Street and Greenwood Avenue. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Shown on the right in this c. 1940 image is George Monroe, a 1921 Tulsa Race Riot survivor and the first African American distribution and deliveryman for Coca-Cola in Tulsa. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
In the 1940s, this unidentified man is making a deposit in the Biblically-inspired Joash Chest, one of several creative fundraising initiatives sponsored by Mount Zion Baptist Church. Other initiatives included the White Elephants Drive and the Envelope System. Rioters destroyed the sparkling new Mount Zion structure in the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot after a rumor circulated that the church was being used to store arms for the African American community. Rioters succeeded in destroying the façade, but not the church—the people who gave life and spirit to the building. Eventually, Mount Zion managed to pay off the mortgage on the destroyed structure and build a new one. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
In the 1920s, Simon Berry was a Tulsa aviator and transportation magnate. In addition to his charter plane operations, Berry started a jitney service in the Greenwood District, founded a successful bus line, and served as the proprietor of the Royal Hotel. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Roy Johnson owned Kyle’s Sundry Store in the Greenwood District in the 1940s. Entrepreneurship flourished in the “Negro Wall Street.” (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Pictured here is an unidentified store in the Greenwood District in the 1940s, an example of the many small shops and professional service providers leading the entrepreneurial charge. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Here is another unidentified store in the Greenwood District in the 1940s. Segregation prevented African Americans from unfettered commerce with white businesses and professionals. Black businesses flourished in the closed economy. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Ramsey Drug Store, shown here in the 1960s, became a Greenwood District staple. Due to segregation, the Greenwood District, in many ways, functioned as a segregated city with Tulsa. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Thompson’s was another successful African American business in the Greenwood District in the 1960s. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Mount Zion Baptist Church suffered devastating damage during the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, but congregants rebuilt it. Pictured here in the 1990s, the church is now an integral part of the modern Greenwood District. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
For many years, the Greenwood District operated in some respects as an insular economy just beyond the boundaries of white Tulsa. Businesses like William’s Drug Co., pictured here in the 1960s, took advantage. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Thursday, “maid’s day off,” proved to be a popular shopping day in the Greenwood District. African American women who worked for white families strolled and shopped in the area during this brief respite from the workaday world. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Even as opportunities in the outside world remained limited, entrepreneurship flourished in the Greenwood District. Integration, urban renewal, the changing economy, and a lack of systematic business mentoring led to the decline of the Greenwood District in the ensuing decades. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Shown here is the interior of a grocery store in the Greenwood District. People around the country took note of the business opportunities available in this Tulsa neighborhood. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
The entrepreneurial spirit in the Greenwood District created a profound sense of place. In the mid-20th century, local businesses such as the Rex Theater, pictured here, populated the neighborhood. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Ferguson’s Drugs was one of the many local businesses that could be found in the Greenwood District. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Pictured here is the staff of Mann Brothers Grocery Store on Lansing Street in the Greenwood District in the 1940s. Small shops and professional service providers abounded. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
This c. 1920 photograph shows Grier Shoe Shop on Greenwood Avenue. The store’s motto appears prominently: “Try us once and you will try us twice.” (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
In the 1950s, Ramsey Drugs was but one of the many small businesses in the Greenwood District. Enterprises came together in this Tulsa neighborhood to create a national sensation. (Courtesy
of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
This undated photograph shows Busy Bee Recreation, at 616 East Archer Street in the Greenwood District. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
This undated photograph shows a seamstress shop in the Greenwood District. Entrepreneurship flourished, with small shops and professional service providers leading the charge. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Business and professional ventures came together in the Greenwood District to create a critical mass that served Tulsa’s African American community. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)
Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District Page 4
