February 11, 2008...2:09 pm
Profile: Black Wall Street
Third profile. Black Wall Street was at the centre of a major event in US history, the Tulsa Race Riot, on June 1, 1921.
“Black Wall Street” (also “Little Africa”) was the name given to Greenwood District, a wealthy black neighbourhood in northern Tulsa, Oklahoma. The neighbourhood came to existence during a heavily segregated era in US history, forcing blacks to develop their own community and businesses. During the oil boom of 1910, the area flourished, and Black Wall Street became home to prominent African Americans, including many multimillionaires, a rarity during those days. There were Ph.D’s, attorneys, doctors and other highly educated professionals. In a time where the entire state of Oklahoma had two airports, six blacks owned their own airplanes. The neighbourhood included 600 businesses, and a thriving population of 15,000 African Americans. Black Wall Street became an extremely prosperous business district that was the envy of the country.
It was on Black Wall Street, on June 1, 1921, where the Tulsa Race Riot took place. Angry mobs of white Americans went into the neighbourhood, looting and burning all black businesses, homes and churches. Resistors were thrown into the fire. With the assistance of the Klu Klux Klan and the US National Guard, thousands of men, women and children were rounded up and detained, and many killed. Notable news sources, including the Chicago Tribune, reported that airplanes were used to drop bombs and kerosene on the neighbourhood. By the next morning, Black Wall Street had been turned into ashes. Official government documents place the death toll at 39, but it’s believed that up to 3,000 African Americans were killed, and none of those responsible were ever prosecuted. It was the worst race riot in US history, and often considered to be the largest massacre of non-military Americans in the history of the United States. Most sources that care to mention Black Wall Street drastically downplay it’s history and the number of deaths that came with the riots, but more often than not, their stories have been wiped out of the history books.
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