The following program contains graphic historical situations and images.

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This is Tulsa.

You know what happened here in 1921, right?

I'm on Standpipe Hill.

Overlooking what was, 100 years ago, the scene of the worst act of racial violence in American history.

Over there, South Main Street downtown in 1921, a 19 year-old old black man was accused of assaulting a 17-year-old white girl in an elevator.

He was arrested, hundreds of armed white locals threatened to lynch him.

By the next day, 35 blocks of Tulsa's Greenwood, including Black Wall Street was in ruins.

Churches and homes looted and burned, hundreds of black residents killed, thousands left homeless.

And then came decades and decades of silence.

Well, there's a lot to say about this.

But let me introduce myself first.

My name is Quraysh Ali Lansana -- and I'm a Tulsa-based based author, poet, educator and historian.

And I've been researching the Greenwood District and the massacre for decades.

I'll be walking you through the past, present and future of Greenwood.

And how this happened and why.

We'll visit with local artists who are working to recultivate the district now -- and how you can become a part of the nation's journey for racial healing.

Brought to you in part by Oklahoma Humanities magazine.

Commemorating the centenial of the Tulsa Race Massacre with poetry and reflections on finding hope.

Information on free subscriptions at okhumanities.org Let's start way back, well before 1921, when Oklahoma held so much promise for African Americans.

After the Civil War, formerly enslaved Africans moved to Indian Territory in search of a better life and to escape the harsh racism of their past.

From 1865 to 1920, African Americans created more than 50 towns and settlements, one on the North side of Tulsa.

My family members arrived in Oklahoma shortly before statehood by covered wagon from Texas, uh, coming here, looking for a better life, just like so many others.

They would work hard to start their businesses.

My grandfather along with my great uncle were the owners of the Nails Brothers Shoe Shop & Record Shop located right down the street at 121 North Greenwood Avenue and various locations.

That access to land, land equated with wealth, particularly back in this period, really buoyed the financial fortunes of communities like Black Wall Street, the Greenwood Community in Tulsa, and so forth.

Successful farms, shops and oil wealth created the need for a place to bank, trade and enjoy their hard earned money.

The story goes that O.W.

Gurley bought about 40 acres here in the Greenwood area.

This had to be around the turn of the century, and he was able to sell a number of lots and plus there would have been a, a push to make this young, well it wasn't even a state then, to make this into a state for black folks.

Greenwood stretches from Pine Street to the north, Archer Street and the Frisco tracks to the south, Cincinnati Street on the west, and Lansing Street to the east.

Within those confines black entrepreneurs started every imaginable business… newspapers, hotels, theaters, dentists, attorneys and over 30 grocery stores.

Hotels being created, not just homes, but hotels created, restaurants, just right off the top, all those things that were needed to service the African American community.

Because of Jim Crow segregation, there was a need for a community that could support black enterprise because black people couldn't shop in the establishments in the mainstream economy.

If black women were maids in wealthy white homes, they went out and worked in those homes in South Tulsa, but they brought the money back in Greenwood and spent the money here.

So it really helped the financial foundation of the community.

You would find people who were basically very proud to be able to employ their family members and other community members in those businesses to be successful as well.

So this was not a financial or investment or banking community.

It was a community that was rife with mom and pop businesses.

Black Wall Street had everything at the start of the 1920s.

Banks, churches, theaters, grocery stores, law offices, newspapers, schools.

Everything.

That is the subject of this children's book that I wrote with Najah-Amatullah Hylton and illustrator Skip Hill.

It's a day-in-the-life of an eight-year-old girl that shows how vibrant the district was before the massacre.

‘Opal's Greenwood Oasis' is a delightful children's book that's placed in 1921 Tulsa, Greenwood community, Black Wall Street.

Opal Brown is her name.

And Opal Brown is a, she's probably about eight years old and very precocious, smart, curious girl, who is on an errand for her mom.

It's a simple errand to go pick up cinnamon for the pie that her mother wants to make for the Memorial Day picnic.

And If you walk along Greenwood and look down on the sidewalk where plaques have been placed to denote where different businesses were, you can see why it was easy for Opal to get to the store and find cinnamon.

Today there are no retail markets.

It's, it's you know, practically a food desert in North Tulsa.

So it would be much more challenging for Opal to get on her bike and ride to the store, And that's the result of not only what happened in 1921, but what happened afterwards.

So my process is predominantly collage, and I do like the idea of taking elements from three, four, five, six different sources, pulling them all together, working them around, uh, the composition of them in order to create different views.

There is a mix of my own hand-drawn drawn illustrations, and then there's a mix of archival photographs that have been, uh, reproduced through, uh, digitally manipulated and then printed out.

And then I cut those out and lay them into place.

So piece of paper here, piece of paper there, put them together, move them around, glue them down and, and, and look for harmony amongst all those different images.

Sounds like a vision for creating a community to me.

It's really a challenge, it was really a challenge to find good imagery, source material.

Again, we have to keep in mind, you know, photo, family photo albums were destroyed.

As far as the collage, you're basically weaving together scraps and threads and residue of history.

In many cases, a hidden history, a forgotten history.

One of the things when working with these that everyone who built Greenwood, who made Greenwood what it was… they all came from some place else.

So I like that idea that African Americans saw Tulsa and Greenwood as a Mecca, an Eden -- if I could just get there, things would be better...

Someone asked me, what do you hope for people to see here?

I said, I don't want them to see just the vitality of the every day … in Opal's family and in the community of Greenwood.

Just the everyday.

Every day wasn't like a super sensational day.

There is a beauty in the monotony and just the normal of the everyday.

In between all the tragedies is just the joy, the simple, quiet joy of the everyday.

And that's what we want to convey And my hope is, our hope is, there are elements in there that you should be able to relate to, regardless of ethnicity.

Rather than having it birthed out of black pain, we wanted the story to be birthed out of black joy, vitality, excellence, and a strong sense of community.

You know, the most fascinating thing for me in the course of doing research for this book was the number of people who said, “born and raised in Oklahoma.

I didn't know”.

I heard that time and time and time again.

So going forward, it's going to be tough to say that I had never heard of it.

According to several newspapers, there were reports of hateful letters sent to prominent business leaders within "Black Wall Street," which demanded that they stop overstepping their boundaries into the white, segregated portion of Tulsa.

Some people that another group of people that felt like they were beneath them, that shouldn't have had not, uh, own nice things like pianos and silverware and fancy clothes.

It did stir up a lot of envy in that and seeing prosperous, you know, there's a group of people that made a way out of no way.

We know that a number of interests in industrial interests and other interests, corporate interests in the Tulsa community wanted the land on which the black community sat.

And we know that there were people plotting behind the scenes to move the black community farther North and take that land.

Jealousy certainly was a factor.

In May of 1921, tensions in Tulsa had reached a fever pitch.

It was an event in an elevator downtown that became the catalyst for chaos.

There was a situation between a shoe shiner, Dick Roland and Sarah Page an elevator operator.

Dick Rowland, a 19 year old black boy who shines shoes downtown.

Sarah Page, 17 year old white girl who operates an elevator in the downtown building called the Drexel building.

Monday, May 30th, 1921, Memorial Day, Dick Roland is working downtown.

He needs to use the restroom.

Facilities are segregated.

The story goes that the elevator floors were not even, and he stumbled into the cabin of the elevator and fell upon Sarah who screamed out.

Someone across the street in a business, that heard the scream and came running over.

And the story, uh, basically was told that he had assaulted her.

He comforted her.

He also called the police.

She claimed she had been assaulted on the elevator.

She would later recant the original story.

She would not cooperate with prosecutors after Dick Rowland was arrested.

The elevator incident had many sides of stories.

Many said there was a lover's spat that occurred on the elevator.

That's what that was about.

There's documentation that states that Dick Roland and Sarah Page were not strangers, that they knew of each other, that Sarah Page, you know, frequented Greenwood a lot.

It's likely we will never know exactly what happened in that elevator in 1921.

But there are a lot of theories, as you will see in “This Car Up,” a short dance film.

This film is a part of the Greenwood Art Project, featuring dozens of local artists who are creating work to educate the public about the massacre and recultivate the neighborhood.

The film offers many different scenarios of what might have happened a century ago.

Some might surprise you.

I felt like looking at the story of Sarah Page and Dick Rowland in the elevator was a way that I could contribute to the storytelling and the civic healing around the Greenwood race massacre, or Tulsa Race Massacre.

The film for me is a way to look at all these things and explore different relationships.

“Texture.” Maybe they're friends, they're lovers, they're going somewhere special, secret.

“Please remember what we talked about, the bow of the pelvis.

Yes.” I proposed the piece to the Greenwood art project well before COVID was on my radar.

“Oh one arm.

One arm and the pathway is like a door rather than a scoop.” And then I also needed to find dancers who were already working together and sharing germs so that we could make our safe bubble for them, and they could take their masks off.

“And then this time can we also loop?

When you reach the end can you just right away?

It just end on a four or five.

Wait for the next one.” And then we met by zoom for about three hours to rehearse.

They were artists, they showed up and they brought their whole selves and they were really great to work with.

“All I need is for you to enjoy yourselves.” “We are, we are, so…” “Because it's going to be a long, it's going to be a long day.

It's going to be a long weekend.” There was a kind of light aired wonderment in the first scene.

We're in all white, there's lots of light.

It's about a proposal, it's romantic, like Roma was like working on her romantic, like engagement squeal.

And so there's this light-heartedness that makes that part more fun to engage with.

The romantic windows and the white walls can help bring forward the story that, you know, maybe Sarah and David were romantic.

Um, and the black void, that black box, they almost seem like, especially when they're wearing white, they almost seem like ghosts kind of just suspended in time… “Yes, just like that.” And then in the adversarial section, I had a really hard time choreographing for that… It can be really touchy to go to that aggressive side.

Um, so that was a big challenge yesterday.

I think it was good to check in with each other.

I don't want to make another piece of art or culture that could be another piece of evidence that black men are dangerous.

But we still have to address it, right?

To be responsible and to tell the story I was really amazed to see how those movement ideas played out in the elevator so differently than in the larger spaces.

It seems to put a magnifying glass and really push up the intensity of those exchanges.

I'm aware that I'm probably one of the only white artists involved in the Greenwood Art Project.

“When we were in the black box, we wore white” And I think about five years ago, “The dip, the dip, can you be…?” That would have made me real nervous and real upset, um, and question my right to be a part of this.

Now I question more my responsibility to be a part of it.

I remember when my mom, okay, so we were walking around the pond at the Greenwood Cultural Center in probably 1988 or 89… And I had been going to school in North Tulsa as one of the only white kids at school, um, since kindergarten… And she stopped and she looked at me and she said, “do you know what happened here?” I said, no.

And she said, “um….

there was a massacre.” So I looked around and I was like, well, where are the memorials?

Where are the plaques?

Um, I didn't think it was true, honestly.

I'm interested in it because I'm still processing.

“Maybe now it's the contact point, and flexing the fingers…” Dance can't, um, really teach you the specifics of time and date and location and address and all of these things.

So if it keeps its value, it keeps its value because it activates empathy in the audience.

And I wanted to put forward “Time and space” This idea that you could be a little more careful about what you, uh, assert to be the reality of things.

As evening approached, rumors of the incident spread quickly.

Within an hour of the afternoon papers' arrival, fresh talk of lynching inflamed the crowd of angry white men who had begun to gather outside the county courthouse.

The other factor here in Tulsa was the media, particularly the Tulsa Tribune, which was daily afternoon newspaper, published a series of incendiary articles and editorials that really inflamed the white community.

Caused, um, a number of white men in the white community to rise up against in a hostile way against the black community.

A group of whites assembled, demanding the release of Dick Rowland cause they wanted to lynch him.

The black community members were wanting to make sure that that didn't happen.

And they met up at the courthouse and, or the jail house, if you will.

There were discussions, various people had weapons.

Sheriff McCullough told the white mob to go back to your homes, no one's coming after Dick Rowland, just leave the courthouse.

Barney Cleaver, uh, one of the first black law enforcement officers, uh, told the black folks on the North side of the courthouse to go home.

There's no need, we don't need your help.

We have it handled.

A little after 10 PM, a rumor began to circulate that the white mob was storming the courthouse.

A second group of armed African American men marched single file into the building.

As before they offered their services to protect Mr. Rowland.

Once again, their offer was refused… and then it happened.

The white mob swelled in number ultimately reaching the thousands.

There was a conflict.

Words were exchanged between the small black group and large white group.

White man tried to take a black man's gun, the gun discharged, and according to eye witnesses and survivors, in their words, all hell broke loose after that.

Witnesses say as many as two-thousand thousand armed white men fired on the group as they chased them from the courthouse to the railroad tracks.

When dawn came at 5 AM a loud whistle or siren sounded, perhaps as a signal for the invasion to begin.

White rioters broke into several downtown stores to steal guns and ammunition.

The owner of J-W MaGee's sporting goods testified that a Tulsa police officer helped pass out guns taken from his shop.

The police were not helpful.

The police, uh, we know deputized some people in the mob who invaded the community and destroyed it.

The white mob invaded the Greenwood area and began to shoot on sight black Tulsans looting their homes, setting them on fire.

My mother was with her family, two boys and two girls.

All of us were in the house.

When we saw coming up the walk up to the front of the house, off of Eastern Street, four men with torches in their hands.

These torches were burning.

When my mother saw them coming she said you get up under the bed, get up under the bed.

And all four of us got up under the bed and my sister grabbed me and pulled me under there.

And while I was under the bed, one of the guys coming past the bed stepped on my finger and I was, as I was about to scream, my sister put her hand over my mouth so I couldn't be heard.

Now I remember that.

I was asleep and my mother awakened me and she told me to get up so that she could dress me.

She says, “Eldoris, Eldoris, get up so I can get you dressed!

The white folks are killing the colored folks.” And I thought when she said that, I got up and I thought that we were just being lined up and ambushed like that.

But anyway.

And looking out the door I could see nothing but black rolling smoke.

My family ran to, uh, what is, what was called, uh,Golden Gate As fires blazed throughout the night, firefighters were met by the armed mob who prevented them from putting out the flames.

First-hand accounts say as many as six airplanes were firing rifles and dropping dynamite and firebombs on buildings, homes, and fleeing African-Americans.

When we left our house, I was so afraid, because bullets were coming down around us.

The planes were up in the air shooting down and I could hear those bullets falling.

It's highly likely that somebody in one of the airplanes, at least one of them strafed the community with bullets and eye witnesses say that some sort of bombs or incendiary devices were dropped on the community that caused the fires to burn more quickly and more brilliantly.

So you had 40 square blocks, just reduced into billows of smoke, ash, mortar, no more.

Just shells of their former selves.

And so you had people who was shot and lay where they fell right there on the streets of Greenwood.

And so it was just hell on earth at that time.

Many, one of the survivors, Kenny Booker was stated to his little sister when she had asked “Is the world on fire?” Kenny is the world on fire?” Is the world on fire?

On an early summer evening The newspaper announced a lynching Neighbors shook their heads Bowed them in silent grief Said prayers for a family For a soul A few gathered in solidarity To defy the mandates that forced them Into humiliating acquiescence On the other side of the tracks Sweating, swearing white men Stockpiled arms and munitions Revved ground and air engines Set torches aflame With laughing, hooping, homicidal intent Confident in the assurance there would be no repercussions No one to interfere No one to stop them Waves of white rioters were shot as they exchanged fire with defenders inside Mount Zion Baptist Church, eventually overwhelming the men inside with machine gun fire.

Up on the Sandpipe Hill, they were shooting from up there and where our home was located on Kenosha in the 800 block.

We were out in the backyard and my father came and told us to come in because the bullets were falling out in the backyard.

Fierce fighting broke out along Standpipe Hill where 40 to 50 Tulsa Guardsmen traded fire with African-American riflemen who had set up defensive lines off of Elgin Place.

It was 1920-who, 1920-what 1920-when, 1920-where, 1920-why Flames licked the sky Moans filled the air Hopes and ashes lie Buried under vacant stairs It was rat-a-tat-tat Rat-a-tat-tat Assaulted from the front And suddenly there was flames in Little Africa As white anger burst upon Greenwood Gunfire and screams Plane-fire destroying dreams As they rolled through homes in waves Like plagues of locusts The white mob surged hungrily northward Urged by primal hatred Seeking to feast on the futures Of Black Wall Street The black folks felt that the National Guard was there to save them from the mob.

Except the National Guard in turn placed them in internment camps like Convention Hall.

Everybody was scared, you know, people is shooting is going on and we saw those soldiers and we didn't know what those soldiers was to protect us or kill us.

Hundreds of people were marched under armed guard to one of three locations: Convention Hall, the County Fairgrounds, and McNulty Park.

The next day around 2 o'clock troops came and they marched all the women and kids out to 15th and Harwood to the county fairgrounds.

So you had about 6,000 people that were held in internment camps, while the city burned, while bodies were thrown in the Arkansas River, thrown in pits around the city and buried for a number of days, you know, black folks couldn't even leave the internment camps unless a white person would come and to vouch for them.

The community members ran to different various locations, they ran for safety.

Only to return to find their homes and their businesses looted and burned to the ground.

We didn't have nothing, they burned up our house and killed our little old bulldog.

And so we didn't have nothing.

More than 10-thousand people were now homeless and were forced to spend the winter of 1921 in tents while they attempted to rebuild what was left of their lives.

After the riot they gave everyone tents to live in, that's what they were supposed to have to live in.

My father took one and he built a floor, you know, got wood and made a floor because he said he wouldn't have us on the ground.

We stayed in those tents I imagine five or six months.

Over 12-hundred homes were burned or looted.

Property losses amounted to 1.5 5 million dollars, that's 32 million dollars today.

There were countless injuries and it's believed over 300 people were killed, maybe more.

These are the Stairs to Nowhere, once a thriving residential area in the Greenwood District.

Now, empty lots where once families lived and enjoyed life in the district.

Sometimes I wonder what Greenwood would be now if none of this had ever happened?

And that's the goal of an art project combining film, poetry and wood mosaics.

My biological father came from, you know, from Somaliland.

And literally like when the civil war broke out, bombs are being dropped on your house by the government.

So it reminded me of what happened in Greenwood.

One minute, everything is fine, and then the next moment it's all gone.

My name's Ebony Iman Dallas, and I'm an artist.

I love to tell stories through my work.

I would definitely say a lot of my choices are influenced by my background.

In 2008, I went to visit my family in Somaliland.

We were getting Henna done and my art just kind of lent itself to, to that.

My art since then has definitely become a lot more free.

Close to a year and a half ago, Tony Brinkley, um, got in touch with me because he had this idea called Greenwood Imagine Tony, he's a poet -- amazing, phenomenal award-winning poet.

And his grandson, Derek Tinsley is a filmmaker.

And so they were looking for a painter to create a series of murals that would go along with the poem.

And so I just proposed to him that I create the murals solely out of wood.

This is where you have to make sure you don't cut your hand off.

So the very first scene is like the past.

So it's like, let's show what Greenwood was like before the destruction.

So it's this beautiful scene of the little girl with her father walking through town with an ice cream cone.

The second scene is, was pretty much created after reading through a series of interviews.

But this one specifically talked about, you know, it was a survivor, I believe she was about five years old when the massacre occurred.

And she talked about these reoccurring dreams that she would have.

And to me it sounded like PTSD.

Like she talked about the smoke and she talked about the smells and she talked about the fire and it was just so vivid, her description, like I immediately was able to create a sketch for it.

I guess in some ways I may have went that direction because my father was murdered by police officers.

And so, um, so that, that idea of this father-daughter relationship and loss, like resonated with me.

And then reading these stories about people who lost parents and Greenwood definitely resonated.

The third scene is let's imagine what it could have been like, like what would it be like if, you know, had the massacre never occurred.

There'll be some puzzle pieces missing.

And so then we'll have someone from the audience come up and place it into the piece.

Let's imagine, a what if.

What if, the massacre never happened?

What if Tulsa residents had enjoyed free reign to flourish into the future, and Greenwood never lost that “yes we can” mindset?

Can you imagine this?

But basically it's like we have the power to create a new Greenwood.

We just need to believe in it and just go for it.

Rebuilding wasn't easy.

Many people had a hard time getting lumber; whites didn't want to sell them lumber.

Families and business owners had to sue the city to get a release so that they could get the tools they needed.

Some said, “It was no secret they didn't want us to rebuild, that was evident.” This fellow that dad got the lumber from owned the lumber company.

They had threatened him, if he sold dad the lumber to build a house out there, but he was taking a chance anyway.

He was a Christian man, he said, “You have a wife and some kids”, he said, “I'm going to go ahead and sell you this lumber anyway.” Once those ordinances were overturned, black folks were able to build but you still had to deal with financing the construction, which many of the banks would not finance the reconstruction.

Those who had insurance, there were riot clauses.

We don't like the term, “Riot,” because it was used as a term to, for the insurance companies to get out of paying back on those claims because of that so-called riot clause.

By 1925, most of the destroyed businesses had been rebuilt and the streets were once again bustling with cars and pedestrians.

North of the Frisco tracks, temporary wooden homes lined the hillsides overlooking Greenwood.

As a little girl, I had the opportunity to experience businesses right around the corner from our home.

It was a wonderful community, a very vibrant community, if you will.

Oh, it was like a Renaissance, because it, not only were the old buildings replaced, but the Greenwood Avenue began to grow much larger.

The Greenwood business area was even better than the one that had preceded it.

In the late 1960's, urban renewal, integration, and a highway cut through the heart of the Greenwood community.

This thing called the civil rights period came along.

It was a good thing and it was a bad thing, but the good thing about it, that no longer that black folks would be relegated just to stay in one area, to be just segregated in one area, they could spend their black dollars in white stores all over Tulsa.

And that's what they did, we can move anywhere we want to in Tulsa, so we thought.

There was no need for having business on Greenwood.

It was much better.

I can go out South and go to the mini malls, you know, where I can spend my dollars out there.

I can go to nice restaurants out there because now it's legal out there.

And so we did not sustain what kept us sustained for decades.

We went for something shiny.

It began to decay because all those buildings, uh, uh, start dying those businesses, they could not sustain without that black dollar.

Our community lost twice, uh, it was destroyed during the race massacre, but it was again destroyed during urban renewal or removal as some call it, that bridge was built around that time as, uh, we lost a lot of our historical sites and designations in the community.

The highway came out right during the same time as the demise of Greenwood.

Who woulda thunk it?

You know ‘cause that freeway cut right through the black community.

I mean, just wielding its force from left to right.

Destroying.

Right on top of the footprints of my great grandfather's Zulu lounge.

Where that place once stood, that freeway, the I-244, stands on top of my inheritance.

The highway didn't just cut through the heart of Greenwood, it is believed to have covered over one of the many sites where witnesses say hundreds of bodies are buried.

After 100-years, archeologists began to search many of the rumored sites in hopes of bringing closure to the victims' families.

And we're basically looking for victims of the race massacre to bring them some sense of justice.

We basically want to, uh, bring up the community, our, give the community, if you will, an opportunity to, you know, memorialize those victims of the race massacre who died so tragically, and to bring some sense of justice and peace to our community.

We, you know, we're never likely to know exactly what that number is.

We're in the midst of a mass grave investigation right now.

So we're looking to see whether the stories that we've heard from witnesses, from survivors, about there being mass graves in various places in Tulsa, are true.

We're looking for a needle in a haystack and this past summer and fall, we looked in many haystacks.

We know the needles are there.

We just got to pick the right haystack.

The story of the race massacre was hidden for many, many years.

Many of our community members were threatened with their very lives if they spoke of it.

Remember we had decades upon decades on a conspiracy of silence where nobody talked, white folks didn't want to talk about it because those who committed atrocities saw the event as an embarrassment.

It was a stain on our community so nobody didn't want to talk about it.

Black folks didn't want to talk about it because those who committed those atrocities were still around, and they were threatening for another so-called riot if anybody speak of it ever again.

I've lived in Tulsa for more than 30 years.

And I'd probably been here a few years in the mid-eighties before I knew about this history.

There has been documentation that was lost where you saw the casualty numbers into the hundreds, page after page that disappeared.

We see that the initial article that wasn't the Tulsa Tribune on that day, May 31st, where they said, “Nab Negro in elevator attack,” seeing that be ripped out of the historical pages and not copied over on film.

If you don't include information in history books that are teaching the kids, then things get lost.

And who controls what gets taught in these textbooks?

It's not black people.

No one was prosecuted.

No one was arrested.

No one's not even have a slap on the wrist.

Many lawsuits have been filed seeking reparations from the city of Tulsa for descendant's families who lost everything in the tragedy.

For me, it's really a three-step process: Acknowledgement, Apology, and Atonement.

Acknowledgement means to sort of confront the history head on.

Include the history properly in curriculum.

Apology means where necessary, simply have some sympathy and empathy with people who were harmed and are still being harmed by history.

And then atonement means to repair the damage as best you can.

The Lawsuit also says that Tulsa officials are enriching themselves by promoting the site of the Massacre as a tourist attraction, while the people of the Greenwood district have received no benefits from those efforts.

A lot of emotional scars still remain today.

And that's mainly because of the fact that there has never been any kind of real closure.

We are in a place where our failure to address chronic systemic racism and racist issues is coming back to roost.

I wish it weren't so, but it is so.

We don't get better by denying reality, we get better by acknowledging reality and figuring out together how we can progress, go forward.

Having the conversation and everyone coming to the table and understanding each other.

We may not always agree with each other, but to have the conversation, to know what your point of view is and my point of view is.

Keep telling the story, keep telling the story, and we tell it correctly, we are going to be on the right path of finding some kind of true judgment.

And the true judgment is truth.

This church, our basement, is the only thing on historic Greenwood Avenue, which was like the main heartbeat, that survived that we still have today.

This is an image of the basement of our church right after the massacre.

This picture was taken in August of 1921.

And in this picture you see a few things.

You see the rubble, because this was taken from that vantage point, this picture taken from this vantage point.

You see the rubble.

And you see this part of the basement that did not burn.

People hid in our basement without obviously burning to death.

And you see the men of our church, just being released from concentration camps, on top of the roof, doing the needed repairs.

By themselves.

Their story is so inspiring.

And it gives me an example to strive towards.

How many are ready for worship?

How many are ready for an experience?

In the Lord?

We never stopped singing.

We never stopped praying.

We had worship service here, the Sunday following the race massacre.

I mean, that by itself is a feat.

That awesome history, rich heritage that you can't be in this space and not be moved by it.

This is the original exterior wall of our basement.

This was the wall that was here that saw the race massacre of 1921.

You can still see some sections where the stucco was, the white dust area.

But the original red brick, you can also still see.

You can hear me talk about it, but until you come here until you go into that refuge room, where folks hid.

Until you touch the bricks of the side of our basement, that we're turning into a prayer wall for racial healing, it's hard to really fully grasp and appreciate the beauty that is Vernon.

This whole area now will be a place where we ask people of all faiths to come.

Christians, Judaism, Islam, Buddhists, Hinduism, or of no faith at all.

But just to come and sit here, pray to your maker or meditate on ways we can bring about more racial healing for our land, for this world that we all live in.

We are now entering what we call sacred, sacred ground.

Even though all of this is holy ground, this is really sacred.

This is where people came to hide and for their lives to be saved and their children to be saved.

This is original brick, standing brick from the 1921 race massacre.

When I'm in this room, even though I'm extremely sad, I'm extremely joyful in that even though something horrible happened, we can stand, we can build, we can do better.

Throughout time, Vernon has always been that church that spoke, that has spoken up, and walked in solidarity with community.

Right.

We took a caravan when Dr. King did his, ‘I have a dream' speech in Washington, DC.

(Music) Now we are leading the fight, um, for reparations.

"Keep on walking, keep on talking" Since COVID-19 we started “God Provides” food ministry where we serve food every day.

We're here preparing the meals for the luncheon.

With the coffee and the water.

Making up the bags for the food.

We're the only place in Tulsa, outside of a jail or hospital, that's been open every day for anybody.

Always gourmet.

The meals are always gourmet.

That's what we do.

And we always will do that.

‘Ain't gonna let racial hatred turn me around, turn me around, turn me around.

Ain't gonna let racial hatred turn me around...' It's history that was hidden for years, even from me.

My parents and even the teachers and the community leaders for some unsung reason never talked about it.

Never talked about it.

Music for Greenwood is, it's a message.

So again, we, we don't want to let nobody turn us around from the good that we want to do, the healing that we want to occur and the prosperity that we want to return.

‘Troubles don't last, troubles don't last always.'

I know that if we just keep on, keep on keeping on that we're going to heal and we're going to come together as a people.

And that's my prayer every day.

We were singing on in the plantation fields.

We were singing as the men were fixed up this church, we were singing that Sunday following, praising and worshiping.

Music to me is food for the soul.

I get to do music on Greenwood!

I don't take it for granted.

I want for the same amount of interest, that's here for the Centennial to be here for the 101 or the 102-year commemoration.

Because we still have a lot of work to do.

Dear God, I thank you for saving this wall.

I pray for those who come here in the future and touch it.

And to come on this sacred ground.

I pray God that you energize them and to walk into the prosperity of your grace.

Making this world a better place for all of us.

Bringing true racial healing.

In your name we pray and we ask, amen.

“Racial healing.” Let that sit a second... How does “racial healing” happen?

It begins with conversations like these.

And acknowledging the past.

And listening.

Hopefully reparations for the losses.

It's helped if you come by for a visit.

And Greenwood awaits with open arms.

You can shop at black-owned businesses, visit locals bookstores, cafes, get super soul food, check out exhibits on Black Wall Street today There's a new museum in the works, Greenwood Rising And there are always multiple tours you can take too The key here is the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre has come.

But the story is not yet done.

So come by.

Apparitions roam the Greenwood District Yearning to be free of the day they die Shackles of despair prove fatalistic “It's more than a tomb!” The spectors decry Greenwood's the body Black Wall Street's the soul Why focus on losses?

Winning's the goal ‘Tis more than a tomb Where Greenwood resides Harping on doom seems sad and sadistic Forsake not heirlooms of triumphs and pride Love heals the wounds vile hatred inflicted Greenwood's the body Black Wall Street's the soul Dwell not on past losses Winning's the goal For additional information, community screenings and more, please visit oeta.tv/tulsaracemassacre.