Who Killed Greenwood?
[Reprinted from Issues & Views SUmmer 1997]
In the 1993 Issues & Views' booklet, "Keeping the Spotlight on
Failure," we discussed the tendency of those blacks who fixate on past
catastrophes that have befallen the race. Whereas members of other groups
celebrate their individual and collective victories over natural and manmade
disasters, most blacks seem to enjoy wearing past injustices like badges of
honor. Although every group on earth has its share of woeful stories to tell,
most of the others lack an elite who might profit from the repetitious telling
of these maudlin tales.
From time to time, in criticism of Issues & Views' emphasis on the great
successes of blacks even during the "worst of times," we receive a
letter, stuffed with newspaper clippings or photostat copies of book pages,
recounting some racist horror story from the American past. A favorite theme
revolves around the destruction of black property and/or lives. These missives
come with an implied or sometimes outright message: "See what they did to
us, when we tried to do something for ourselves? So what's the use?"
A favorite tale of woe is the story of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Earlier in this
century, Tulsa was home to a vibrant, economically prospering community of
blacks, whose Greenwood business district consisted of almost every kind of
business--from groceries, clothing stores, gas stations, hotels, restaurants to
doctors, dentists and lawyers. This commercial activity, along with some
oil-rich land, generated wealth for many residents. In June, 1921, sparked by
an inaccurate and exaggerated newspaper account of an altercation between a
black man and a white woman on an elevator, a white mob descended on Greenwood.
They looted and set fires to stores and nearby homes. When the dust had
settled, 300 people were dead (black and white), over 4,000 blacks were
homeless, and the entire business district was destroyed.
The destruction of Tulsa's Greenwood section certainly rates high on any
list of horror stories. Yet the part of the story that no one sends us
clippings about is the part truly worth celebrating. Not only did blacks
rebuild the homes that had been destroyed, but by 1923, the Greenwood business
district was on its way to becoming even bigger than it was before the riot.
Historian John Sibley Butler, in Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Among Black
Americans, writes, "Mostly because of self-help and the pooling of money
for the capitalization of business enterprises," Tulsa's blacks outdid
themselves in their determination to overcome the tragedy.
So, what finally happened to this commercial gem? The same thing that
happened to viable black communities everywhere. Blacks themselves abandoned
it. Butler writes, "In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the enterprises of
the once proud district began to suffer because blacks won the right to spend
their money freely anywhere in Tulsa." The loss of a consumer base, which
also spelled the loss of capital, and the later intrusion of urban renewal in
the 1960s, effectively put an end to the blossoming restoration. One could say that
Greenwood died two deaths, one at the hands of envious whites and the second at
the hands of indifferent blacks. Through their dollars, blacks became
instrumental in increasing the prosperity and wealth of other parts of the
city, while neglecting their own.
Throughout the country, this became the pattern in one town and city after
another. It is this scenario that did more to slow down black economic progress
than any wicked deeds dreamed up by the Klan. Although no white mobs ever
torched the successful black financial centers of Durham or Portsmouth (VA) or
Memphis or Birmingham, these cities suffered the same fate as Tulsa. With the
clamor for integration, money ceased to circulate in black communities, which
guaranteed swift and sure economic decline.
Copyright 1997 Issues & Views
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