Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - The Resilience of Black Wall Street

Episode Date: February 26, 2023

One of the most important events of America’s economic and racial history is one that hasn’t been discussed often. Gary Lee is the managing editor of the Oklahoma Eagle, a Tulsa-based and black-owned media company. Lee joined The Motley Fool’s Bill Mann to talk about: - The history of Black Wall Street, and the rise of the Greenwood community. - The legacy of the Tulsa Race Massacre and Tulsa’s path forward. Host: Bill Mann Guest: Gary Lee Producer: Ricky Mulvey Engineer: Tim Sparks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Because we have your number. incredibly the community was rebuilt it was the rebuilding pretty much started right away so people didn't hang around saying you know woe is me they said okay you know we've got to rebuild and and gradually by the 1940s this is from 20 so in the next two decades it became bigger and more thriving than it had been before the massacre one of the most important events in america's economic and racial history is one that hasn't been discussed often gary lee is the managing editor of the oklahoma eagle a tulsa-based and black-owned media company lee joined the motley fool's bill mann to talk about the history of

black wall street and the rise of the greenwood community and the legacy of the tulsa race Massacre and the City of Tulsa's Path Forward. I wanted for us to spend some time talking about the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa and a period of history that even as someone who was a student of history, to me was not particularly talked about, which was the rise of Black Wall Street, which is the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa. And then in 1921, the Tulsa race massacres. So what can you tell me about the rise of Greenwood and why it was so important? Yes. So this is something that's on my mind daily because I work right in the middle of that neighborhood. And the community that the Oklahoma Eagle really serves is that same Greenwood

community. So let me see where to start. There was, I'll try to make a really long and colorful story as concise as I can, but. We are your canvas, Gary. So please just take, please take your time. I really want people to hear from you. So. Right. So leading, so Oklahoma became a state in 1907 and leading up to its statehood, there were all kinds of thoughts about what to do with this part of the country. It was called Indian Territory. And so one of the ideas was to create a black state. And there was a process that went on of people here started recruiting blacks from the South, from different places, to come to Oklahoma. And Tulsa was one of the centers. It was places where they were trying to attract people. And lots of people came. There was already a very

strong Black community based on what people call the Trail of Tears, Indian tribes coming from the South who brought with them Blacks as slaves. And when they came to Oklahoma, they had Blacks, which they couldn't have slaves in what was a federal territory at the time. So there was that groundswell of Blacks, plus those who came, that basically had an incredible entrepreneurial spirit. And they started to apply that to this neighborhood, which became known as Greenwood. And it was eventually it became shop after shop, business after business of all black black run businesses, which, you know, which was the center of this incredibly thriving community. And that was driven in part by segregation that Jim Crow lost.

So the blacks who came and did commerce and had hotels and boarding houses really traded among each other so that there was no trade with the white community. Some people worked as basically in the service class in the white community in Tulsa. And this was all going on more or less parallel with the growth of Tulsa's oil boom. You know, Tulsa at one point was considered the oil capital of the world. So that was kind of parallel to this going on. So that's what gave way to what then was known as the Negro Wall Street. That's kind of how long ago. So the name Black Wall Street was really applied later to it. But that's that was the basis of the growth of the community.

So sorry, go right ahead. So one other thing that I have to mention is that parallel to these entrepreneurial growths, There was also the growth of white supremacy on the Klan that was developing in Oklahoma and around Tulsa. And that community had a clear and a great deal of animosity towards the boom of this black community right in the middle of the city. And that basically led to the Tulsa Race Massacre, which you mentioned, of 1921. in which what was then known as the Greenwood community was pretty much devastated. And I think approximately 300 people were killed. They're still looking at mass graves to see that.

But the whole community or pretty much most of it was destroyed in fires. People were killed. There was a white mob that kind of attacked the neighborhood. Then I'll just add one other thing and we can go on. And then, incredibly, the community was rebuilt. it was the rebuilding pretty much started right away so people didn't hang around saying you know woe is me they said okay you know we've got to rebuild and and gradually by the 1940s this is from 20 so in the next two decades it became bigger and more thriving than it had been before

the massacre so there's more history to sell but i'll i'll stop there and notice it so the when the massacre happened there were and they i don't believe they ever figured out how many people perished but it was more than a thousand homes were destroyed what was your you are you you're exactly right given the jim crow laws that there you know that there was a great separation between you know the black commercial community and the the white commercial community what were the actual origins of the animosity that led to led to this violent act. Right. Was it just sheer jealousy or was there a belief that black owned businesses were taking over the town? What what was the source? Well, good question, Bill. So there was an event that triggered it, the massacre. And that

is that there was an incident where a young black guy got into an elevator in downtown Tulsa. There was a young woman who was white, who was the elevator operator. And the story is not quite clear, but what kind of spread in the media is that the young black guy had aggressed the young woman in some way he was maybe i don't know tried to come on to her uh that story's never been clarified but anyway he was taken to jail and then the leaders in the black community said well you know this is wrong and they marched down to the courthouse and tried to release him from jail and there was a backlash against that so that was the incident that started it that was kind of what you'd call the match, you know, the construct.

But leading up to that time, a couple of things were going on. One is that the prosperity in that Greenwood community was overshadowing a lot of the things going on in white neighborhoods in Tulsa. So you had, you know, in Oklahoma, you had lots of people who were coming from other places kind of looking to make a better living. And many of them were not faring that well. And so there was that, I wouldn't say necessarily jealousy, but competition or why are they doing so well and we're doing so poorly. So there was that.

Plus, you did have a fairly active growing Ku Klux Klan movement in the area at the time. So there was that, you know, political oppression. And also, I think that the third thing, which is still something of an issue, is that that land where then the Greenwood community, which is vast track of land, is something that business people in that time and other, the city leadership, had been eyeing for a long time. And they wanted to figure out a way to get at it. So these kind of three things came together in a way to lead to the race massacre. And let me add one other thing is that you were right. You are right, Bill, in mentioning that they haven't figured out how many people died. And so one of the lingering aspects, this is now more than 100 years ago.

One of the lingering aspects is that there is a search for graves of people who went missing in that period who have not been discovered. This mass graves search, which is administered by the city. And it's actually not the main site that they're looking at called Oak Lawn Cemetery. It's not very far from where I'm sitting right now. So one of the areas that I would love for you to delve in, and I understand that some of this, it would be conjectural. What do you think that Tulsa and Oklahoma, we know very directly what the people who were attacked lost. lost. I mean, that is. They lost their lives, they lost their livelihoods, they lost their homes. It was absolutely devastating. There is something powerful in being around an economically

vibrant area. What do you think that Tulsa lost and Oklahoma lost as a result of the massacre? uh bill that's really a great question i think to answer it you'd have to frame up a little bit what oklahoma had yeah yeah sure right so oklahoma was the you know frontier state it was a place where i mentioned that tulsa became known as the oil capital of the world and for a lot in lots of sectors business was booming people came they were making and lots of money. So it was, in some ways, considered the American dream destination. You could come here, you could make lots of money, you could get a, you know, a big house, and all those things that people, you know, in American history have wanted to have. And

all that growth was going on at the time, and it was booming, and for many, a relative harmony in it. And I think that with the massacre, Tulsa lost its innocence in that regard. So it lost its feeling that it was, in a sense, that this was a destination that was open for anybody to come and thrive in and and i feel if i could maybe compare it a bit with what happened in new orleans uh with katrina that we all kind of thought of new orleans as wow this fantastic french quarter we love it go down get some drinks and then katrina kind of exposed that that really wasn't true for a lot of people. And I think the massacre exposed that that really wasn't true for Tulsa. And then once I think the outside world had the opportunity to look at Tulsa from that

angle, then other inequities started to surface. You know, I mentioned this was known as Indian territory before, and injustices to Indians started to emerge as well. So that's a big part of what Tulsa lost. Let me mention one other thing that's really super important. And that is that for decades, nobody really talked about the massacre. So people didn't, it was hush, hush, it was hush hush and the white community was hush hush in the black community you mean in tulsa in tulsa i remember even as a kid 11 year old kind of wannabe journalist kid like that i would ask my relatives even my uncle my dad you know and they would say well you know we're really not supposed to talk about uh what happened there and that went on that that kind of veil of secrecy

was all over the city until the early 1990s. There was a woman named Susan Savage who became mayor. And she said, basically, what's going on? We should be looking at this. And she appointed a commission to really examine what had happened. And it's really in that time that people started telling the story. One of the things that came out of that was the creation of something called the John Hope Franklin Center for Racial Healing. And that center, among other institutions, has been devoted to, okay, what can we recapture that we lost? And, you know, as you know, you know, from Adam and Eve and whatever,

once you lose certain things, you really can't recapture them. But I have to say that there is an effort going on in the city to try at least to acknowledge, okay, what happened, who's responsible, etc. So really good question. Yeah. And the Katrina allegory is interesting to me because what you're talking about is a trajectory. So I think that a lot of people around the U.S., when they think of Tulsa, it's a little bit of a blank slate, right? It's not a city that has a huge footprint nationwide, I really firmly believe that had the race massacre not happened, that the trajectory for Tulsa would have been entirely different.

Surely, it would have been different. Now, I have to say that the Tulsa that we have now is a thriving community. It's one of these growth cities. People don't know how locals feel about at Moquette, California. You can come here and stuff like that. So a lot of things at the Moquette take place. About too long ago, I was out in Portland, Oregon,

and somebody asked me where I was from. And I told them I was from Tulsa. And they said, oh, you're from back east. I said, ooh, downtown Tulsa. They don't want to hear that. It is.

And it is true. That in spite of the fact that there has been growth and you feel it when you drive around the city and talk to people, that until there is really some kind of reckoning or acknowledgement of complicity and all that, and you really haven't had that fully, until you have that, Tulsa is not, I feel, going to be able to achieve the potential that it still has. As always, people on the program may own stocks discussed on the show and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. I'm Dylan Lewis, we'll see you tomorrow.