Tulsa’s Black Wall Street could soon become a national monument
More than a century after it was destroyed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the historic Greenwood neighborhood would become a national monument. The proposed legislation would designate the historic boundary of the Greenwood neighborhood in North Tulsa as a national monument, part of the National Park Service network of protected sites. The Historic Greenwood District-Black Wall Street National Monument Establishment Act would create an advisory commission, including seven descendants of massacre victims and survivors. The commission aims to preserve and interpret the history of Greenwood, Black Wall Street and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Activists have urged President Biden, who visited Tulsa three years ago on the 100th anniversary of the massacre, to establish the monument using his executive authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act. The details of the history remain to be determined.
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The legislation would delineate the historic boundary of the Greenwood neighborhood in North Tulsa as a national monument, part of the National Park Service network of protected sites. People on Capitol Hill with knowledge of the proposed bill say that a vote in the Senate is expected this summer. A companion bill in the House is expected to be introduced this month.
Some activists have called on President Biden, who visited Tulsa three years ago on the 100th anniversary of the massacre, to establish the monument by using his executive authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act that protects cultural and natural resources of historical or scientific interests.
The Historic Greenwood District-Black Wall Street National Monument Establishment Act proposed in Congress would create an appointed advisory commission, including seven descendants of massacre victims and survivors. The aim is to preserve and interpret the history of Greenwood, Black Wall Street and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, though the details of how the history would be commemorated remain to be determined.
“Over 100 years ago, a violent mob destroyed the thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in one of the worst incidents of racial violence in our history,” Booker said in a statement. “When I visited Tulsa in 2019, I felt pain and anguish for the hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children who were murdered, the more than 1,250 homes that burned, and for the thousands of victims who survived this act of hatred.”
“I am grateful for the tireless efforts of so many in North Tulsa and in our state to make sure our children today and the generations yet unborn remember those lost, understand the stain of racism, and learn the powerful story of rebuilding and resilience,” Lankford said.
Tiffany Crutcher, a descendant of a Tulsa Race Massacre survivor and co-chair of the Historic Greenwood District-Black Wall Street National Monument Coalition, said the legislation would move “the nation closer to acknowledging the truth — that this is sacred ground, blood was shed here, and justice has continually been denied.”
The massacre — one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history — began on May 31, 1921, when a White mob descended on Greenwood, a prosperous African American community. Over the next 48 hours, as many as 300 Black people were killed and more than 10,000 were displaced, after businesses and homes were burned to the ground. Tulsa was one of the first U.S. cities bombed from the air, according to historians, when witnesses reported seeing airplanes dropping kerosene bombs.
Witnesses said bodies were thrown into the Arkansas River and buried in mass graves. On June 1, martial law was declared. National Guard troops rounded up Black survivors and detained them in concentration camps throughout the city.
Since 2020, the city has conducted several excavations in a search for massacre victims and discovered dozens of remains in unmarked graves. Scientists continue to analyze remains for signs of burns, gunshots and trauma that could connect them to the rampage. In September 2023, Tulsa began a third excavation at Oaklawn Cemetery, where 18 known victims of the massacre were buried, according to Tulsa officials. Fifty grave shafts were discovered in that excavation.
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