Monday, February 4, 2008

The Black Wall Street.

I found this enlightening story with some black history I never knew. A lot of people know about The Rosewood Massacre, but you probably ain't know the story about The Black Wall Street...

During the oil boom of the 1910s, in the area of northeast Oklahoma flourished -— including the Greenwood neighborhood, which came to be known as “the Negro Wall Street” (now commonly referred to as “the Black Wall Street”). The area was home to several prominent black businessmen and families, many of them multimillionaires.


Due to the success of the Greenwood district, many whites in the Tulsa area became resentful and on June 1, 1921, after a series of race riots, “Black Wall Street” was bombed and burned to the ground.

In a period spanning fewer than 12 hours, a once thriving black business district lay in ruins. Among these were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half-dozen private airplanes and even a bus system. As many as 3,000 people were killed, and the property damage totaled $1.5 million. Despite the devastation, the community mobilized its resources and rebuilt the Greenwood area within the next five years, but the town never fully recovered.


Check out these two Youtube videos...





For more info.. go to WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Source: Concreteloop

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