Welcome to Greenwood

According to Mr. Alfred of Vernon AME Church, in  1906 Ellis Walker Woods started out on a six year journey on foot, working several jobs along the way to a  better life in Indian Territory. He arrived, however, in 1912, in the new state of Oklahoma, whose first laws enacted a "Jim Crow" state.

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Wood, in 1913, was hired as the first Principal of NORTH TULSA'S first high school, the legendary Booker T. Washington HS.

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The Ellis Walker Woods Memorial celebrates the accomplishments of Woods, his teachers (including the great G.H. Fortner), staff and students from 1913 to 1951.

In 1927, NORTH TULSA builder Sam Mackey presented his wife, Lucy Mackey, a home as magnificent as the homes in which she worked.

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A quarter of a century later, a group of women, led by Mrs. Katie Duckery, spearheaded the removal of the house to its present site as the cornerstone of their goal of creating a new cultural center commemorating the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Inside the Greenwood Cultural Center you'll find photos, articles and films dedicated to the memory of the early 1900s Greenwood district.

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Outside, you'll find the city's official memorial to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

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The Greenwood Cutural Center is also a major event center. In 2021 President Joe Biden met there with Survivors of the massacre.

Take a look at the "white band" at the bottom of the Historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church.

You are seeing the Vernon AME Church basement the only remaining structure from the 1921 massacre.

Though the original Greenwood district stretched farther west, south, east and north, with over 100 businesses surrounded by over 1,000 homes prior to 1921, growing to over 600 businesses by the 1950s, the remnant of a city block at the corners of Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street are, today, called once again, fondly, BLACK WALL STREET.

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Visit current businesses in BLACK WALL STREET

Wanda J's Next Generation, run by her young granddaughters, is the off-shoot of the iconic soul food restaurant Wanda Jefferson established in the 1970s across the street from its present location.

Don't forget to pick up sovenirs and visit Frios, the gourmet popsicle shop visited by President Biden. 

The Pathway to Hope and Greenwood Rising, a new museum, were built in 2021 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that reduced NORTH TULSA's populatiion, from nearly 12,000 to about 6,500.

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Photographer Don Thompson preserves the moment  a Greenwood barber watches the bulldozers outside his shop as they move closer, nearing the end of tearing down block after block of the post-1921 Greenwood, to be replaced by a highway.  

Labled "Urban Renewal," the same playbook was used to dismantle nearly every major Black-owned commercial district across the United States, starting in the 1950s.

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Earlier this year, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg awarded a $1.6 millon grant to reseach the removal of the highway to a local grassroots organizationthat that included State Representative Regina Goodwin. The ultimate goal of the group is to free up 23 acres to allow descendants of the original BLACK WALL STREET to develop 21st century homes and businesses.

John Hope Franklin Park, named for Oklahoma's most famous historian and favorite son (along with Will Rogers), tells the Black experience in Oklahoma.

Mt. Zion Baptist Church was built twice by Tuskegee educated architects William Shakespeare Latimer and Japhee.Clinton.Latimer, who also designed most of the early homes and commercial buildings in the original Greenwood District.