Photo: Donald Griffinįor people who aren’t yet familiar with Black Wall Street Reno, what it is, and what you do? Historians and archaeologists are still excavating the site to fully piece together what happened.ĭonald Griffin and RoMar Tolliver, Zoomed in from their office this week for an interview to talk about the photos and what Black Wall Street Reno is doing to reverse the impacts of violent legacies like this one, one Renoite at a time.īlack Wall Street Reno founders RoMar Tolliver (left) and Donald Griffin in their office. Officials swept it under the rug for decades. If this is the first you’ve heard of this massacre, you’re not the only one who didn’t learn about it in high school history. The entire community of 10,000 was displaced. At the time, 36 people were reported killed, but contemporary estimates are in the 300-600 range. The next day, however, the Tulsa Tribune … reported that Rowland, who had been picked up by police, had attempted to rape Page.”įor two days, on May 31 and June 1, 1921, Tulsa’s city officials and residents unleashed a torrent of rage on Greenwood, burning and razing 35 city blocks. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, “ The most common explanation is that Rowland stepped on Page’s foot as he entered the elevator, causing her to scream. There are different versions of what happened on the way from the first floor to the third floor. Dick Rowland, a Black, 19-year-old shoe shiner, walked into an elevator being operated by Sarah Page, a white 17-year-old. The spark came in the form of a chance encounter between two teenagers. Anderson describes white Tulsa’s attitude toward Greenwood as “an air of seething resentment … so intense that it was waiting for a spark to just ignite it.” Photo: Courtesy Tulsa Historical Society & Museum Collections

Greenwood’s 750-seat Dreamland Theatre, owned by John and Loula Williams, showed live musicals and silent films to Black audiences until it was destroyed in the 1921 attack.

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