The Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Okla., was so prosperous at the start of the 20th century that Booker T. Washington, the educator and author, called it Negro Wall Street, which later morphed into Black Wall Street. A white mob burned it down in 1921 and killed hundreds of people. Now there’s an effort to revive Black Wall Street, creating opportunities for Black venture capitalists and entrepreneurs not just in Tulsa but also across the United States. I recently interviewed Ashli Sims, a longtime Tulsa resident who is leading the project.
Sims told me that when she was growing up in Tulsa in the 1980s and ’90s, the race massacre of 1921 was spoken of in hushed tones. “There was a lot of focus on the tragedy and not on the excellence that came before, how much wealth there was,” she explained. She said that as the years went by she realized that Greenwood could be not just a warning but also an inspiration to Black people. Her message: “You are destined for greatness because this is where you came from.”
The organization of which she is managing director, Build in Tulsa, staged its first Black Venture Summit last year, on the centennial of the massacre, with Black-led firms looking to invest and Black-led start-ups looking for investors. The second summit, a larger, three-day affair, ends on Friday.
#OTD in 1921, 36 blocks of Black owned businesses known as Black Wall Street in Tulsa, OK was burned down & destroyed by a mob of white men. pic.twitter.com/mMEY7iLvUO
— Dirrick Butler (@sirdbutler) June 1, 2017