Remembering Black Wall Street, Tulsa Race Massacre 100 years later

TULSA, Okla. — It’s been 100 years since armed white men killed prosperous members of Tulsa’s Black community of Greenwood, called “Black Wall Street” at the time.

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Greenwood got the name by being one of the most prominent African American communities in the country at the time, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. It had more than 200 Black-owned businesses by 1921, as well as churches, schools and community organizations.

But while it’s been a century since the massacre, what happened and the lives lost during those two days have not been forgotten.

Several hundred people were left dead and thousands more were left homeless, according to the museum.

Historian Jimmy White said that it was estimated that 300 people died, but he wrote in a 2001 report that he believes that number is too low, KOKI reported.

Descendants of those who survived the Tulsa Race Massacre are remembering what happened, and the community that was their bedrock.

Brenda Nails-Alford grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and is proud of her family’s heritage.

Her grandparents, James and Vasinora Nails, along with great-uncle Henry Nails, owned several Greenwood businesses, including a shoe store, dance pavilion, skating rink, limousine and taxi services.

“I’m just very proud of them for what they did and how they endured, even after the race massacre,” Nails-Alford told KOKI.

She found out her family’s history and survival after being notified in 2003 about a lawsuit for reparations for survivors and descendants of the killings.

She said she had been told that there were times that her grandmother would have to hide in a church’s basement, or about those buried in the city’s Oaklawn Cemetery. But it took her time to put all of the pieces together and understand what happened.

One story was about her aunt, Dr. Cecelia Nails Palmer, who was 2 years old at the time of the massacre.

After surviving the terror that occurred around her, Nails Palmer went on to have an amazing life, including being the first Black faculty member at the University of Tulsa.

Nails Palmer is among the Nails who are depicted on a mural in Tulsa’s Lacy Park.

Nails-Alford said there is one thing she learned from her family that she lives by.

“In spite of what we go through in life, never give up. Keep moving forward. That is what they taught us, and that is what we will continue to do,” Nails-Alford told KOKI.

Buck Colbert Franklin, an attorney at the time, wrote an eyewitness account of what happened over those two days. His manuscript was rediscovered six years ago and is now is in safekeeping at the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture, KOKI reported.

You can see a digital copy of the manuscript here.

The museum holds numerous items relating to the Tulsa Race Massacre, including pennies burned at the time and postcards of the massacre that documented what happened.

For more on the museum’s holdings, click here.

Franklin’s law firm was burned and destroyed along with other businesses. After the violence, the city made it more difficult for Black businesses and homeowners to rebuild what they had lost.

Franklin and other lawyers set up a tent office and worked to strike down those new laws to help his neighborhood rebuild.

He wrote the manuscript 10 years after the destruction, starting with his story in 1917, and continuing through 1931.

Friday, hundreds of participants held a memorial march through Tulsa, including the remaining survivors of the massacre.

The city also started looking for the remains of those killed a century ago.

Earlier this year, KOKI reported that there were only two known marked graves of victims of the race riot, but that leaves hundreds of others missing.

Eugine Martin says that one relative, Bob Perryman, was buried at Oaklawn Cemetery in a mass grave.

“As long as I can remember, my family always talked about my grandmother’s brother, my maternal grandmother’s brother, who was killed in (the) Tulsa race riot,” Martin told KOKI. “We all heard that after he was killed on Greenwood, his body and others were placed on a flatbed truck and placed in a mass grave in this cemetery. It’s just a nightmare to imagine such a thing happening.”

The Race Riot Commission’s report published in 2001 said there were three potential spots for mass graves in the city.

The sites were first planned to be excavated 20 years ago, but Tulsa city leaders stopped it. But in 2019, the city started investigating and found at least a dozen sets of remains in unmarked graves in Oaklawn Cemetery, KOKI reported. Other locations will also be searched. A full excavation of Oaklawn’s graves is expected to start Tuesday, KOKI reported.

Tulsa’s Mayor G.T. Bynum issued a statement this week apologizing for the city’s role in the massacre.

“Tulsa’s city government failed to protect Black Tulsans from murder and arson on the night of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and from discrimination in subsequent decades,” Bynum wrote on Facebook.

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Remembering Black Wall Street A man watches as pictures of the Tulsa Race Massacre are shown in a prayer room dedicated to the massacre at the First Baptist Tulsa church during centennial commemorations, Sunday, May 30, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. The church made the room to provide a place to explore the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and to prayerfully oppose racism. (AP Photo/John Locher) (John Locher/AP)

For more on the Tulsa Race Riots visit:

• VIDEO: 1921 Black Wall Street Memorial refurbished and unveiled ahead of the Centennial Commemoration
• Race Massacre: Looking toward the light from Tulsa’s dark past
• Tulsa man’s manuscript of the 1921 Race Massacre now kept at the Smithsonian
• New dig at Oaklawn Cemetery scheduled in search for Tulsa Race Massacre mass graves
• Tulsa mayor apologizes for city’s role in Race Massacre 100 years ago
• Tulsa family shares history of relatives who survived 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

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