What Happened to Black Wall Street
And why they never taught you about it.
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I recently made a video suggesting MAGA supporters cannot answer three basic questions.
One of them was: What happened to Black Wall Street?
Predictably, they lined up in my comments to prove my point.
“There’s no such thing as Black Wall Street.”
“Liberal progressive Democrats burned it down.”
That’s the level of discourse we’re working with.
But here's the truth—what actually happened on Black Wall Street—and why you probably never learned about it.
Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1921.
Population: just over 100,000.
Greenwood District: around 10,000 Black residents.
A thriving, self-sufficient, Black-owned business community—so successful, it was nicknamed “Black Wall Street.”
Greenwood had restaurants, shops, newspapers, churches, libraries, and law offices. It was a working model of Black prosperity in the middle of the Jim Crow South.
And white Tulsa hated it.
The Spark: May 30, 1921
Dick Rowland, a young Black shoe shiner, stepped into an elevator operated by a white woman named Sarah Page. Accounts differ, but the most accepted explanation is that he tripped and accidentally stepped on her foot. She screamed.
The next day, newspapers reported that he had attempted to rape her. The Tulsa Tribune even allegedly published an editorial titled “To Lynch Negro Tonight.” That editorial has never been recovered.
By nightfall on May 31, hundreds of white men gathered outside the courthouse, demanding Rowland be handed over.
Twenty-five Black men, many of them World War I veterans, came to offer their help to the authorities to prevent a lynching.
They were turned away.
Later that night, a second group of 75 Black men returned after hearing rumors that the mob had stormed the jail. Again, they offered to help. Again, they were refused.
As they turned to leave, a white man tried to disarm a Black veteran.
A shot was fired.
And the massacre began.
What Happened Next Was Not a Riot. It Was a War.
White mobs surged into the streets. They murdered a Black man inside a movie theater. Carloads of whites began the first recorded drive-by shootings in Black neighborhoods. They looted homes, set businesses ablaze, and shot anyone they found.
According to the Oklahoma Historical Society:
“Indeed, shortly after the outbreak of gunfire at the courthouse, Tulsa police officers deputized former members of the lynch mob and, according to eyewitnesses, instructed them to ‘get a gun and get a n****r.’”
Let that sink in.
The city deputized a lynch mob and sent them into a Black neighborhood with guns.
By dawn, thousands of armed whites had gathered for a full-scale invasion of Greenwood.
They had machine guns.
They had airplanes.
They dropped firebombs from the sky.
At least one renowned Black surgeon, A.C. Jackson, surrendered with his hands up and was murdered on the spot.
By the time the National Guard finally showed up—after protecting white neighborhoods from a phantom “Black uprising”—Greenwood had already been reduced to rubble.
The Aftermath
Over 1,000 homes and businesses destroyed
Estimated 50 to 300+ deaths
Thousands displaced
No white perpetrators were ever convicted
Dick Rowland, by the way, was exonerated. But the grand jury—composed entirely of white men—blamed the Black community for the violence.
Greenwood was erased.
And then, it was buried.
Not just under ash—but under silence.
No one talked about it.
Not in schools. Not in textbooks.
Not even in families.
The Erasure Was Intentional
I was in advanced placement classes. We studied U.S. history, World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement. But not once did anyone mention the Tulsa Race Massacre.
I asked a former classmate—also an AP student—when they learned about Black Wall Street.
They said, “Well, I guess now. I’m 48.”
And that’s the power of historical erasure. That’s what it means when people say, “They don’t teach this stuff in schools.”
They’re not exaggerating. They’re describing a crime in progress.
Not an Isolated Incident
This wasn’t the only time a prosperous Black community was destroyed. It happened in Wilmington. In Rosewood. In East St. Louis. In Chavez Ravine. And elsewhere.
This was a pattern:
A Black community gains independence.
White America feels threatened.
Accusation.
Mob.
Massacre.
Silence.
Want to See It Brought to Life?
Watch Watchmen on HBO.
Regina King stars in a fictional world built on the real violence of Tulsa in 1921.
It’s one of the few dramatizations that gets it emotionally—and historically—right.
Because sometimes, fiction is the only way to sneak the truth past the censors.
Final Thoughts
What happened in Greenwood wasn’t a riot.
It was a massacre.
It was state-sanctioned.
It was covered up.
And now it’s back.
Because we’re remembering.
Because we’re naming it.
Because we refuse to let silence win.
If this moved you, do something.
Share it.
Teach it.
Fight the erasure—loudly.