[ok-sus] Fw: Erasing A Reputation, Addressing The Equity E

[Seneca Scott]

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From: Seneca Scott <senecascott at cox.net>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:10:29 
To: <chiefseneca at hotmail.com>
Subject: Fw: Erasing A Reputation, Addressing The Equity E

  
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General News 
Erasing a reputation
 
October 13, 2009 
 
 
TULSA - As people talk about Tulsa they boast about the area around Peoria Avenue with its million-dollar mansions and affluent shopping area. 
But they won't tell you what lies just a few miles north on the very same street. 
Drive north on Peoria and it's like going into a time warp. 
There you find vacant retail space and run-down buildings giving a feel of a downtrodden environment. Near E. 46th Street North and N. Cincinnati Avenue are low-income houses and gang violence, even a convenience store named The Hood. 
Welcome to north Tulsa. 
"We know it's a significant quadrant of our city that is historically challenged and underserved," said Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor. "It is lacking in basic retail services." 
For years south Tulsa has boomed with real estate and commercial development. But its sister neighborhood up north has been largely overlooked. 
Still, there are several business and city leaders who have turned economic development for north Tulsa into a personal passion. Those leaders hope several projects will help turn the area into a booming community, but stereotypes and racial tension stand in the way. 
Understanding the area's current situation requires a look into the past. 
Race riot 
In the early 1900s, when oil was discovered, Tulsa boomed into a wealthy town. 
Socially, the city was isolated and segregated. Blacks were allowed to shop and live in only a 35-square-block area known as the Greenwood District, according to the book Black People and Their Place in World History by Leroy Vaughn. 
"The circulation of black dollars only in the black community produced a tremendously prosperous black business district that was admired and envied by the whole country," Vaughn wrote. 
The separate business district and community eventually became legendary. 
The business district, beginning at Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street, became known as the Black Wall Street. 
Thriving businesses included grocery stores, clothing stores, nightclubs and several professional offices that housed doctors and lawyers. 
But on May 31, 1921 the area's fate was changed forever. While precisely what happened in the Drexel Building on May 30, 1921, is still uncertain, the Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma claims the most common explanation is that a black man stepped on a white woman's foot as he entered the elevator, causing her to scream. 
The result was a rape accusation and the man's arrest. 
Events escalated into a massive racial conflict. Before dawn, thousands of armed whites gathered along the fringes of Greenwood, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. They poured into the African-American district, looting homes and businesses and setting them on fire, resulting in most of Greenwood being burned. 
While it was originally reported that 39 people died during the riots, estimates are as high as 300, according to the Tulsa Race Riot Commission. 
The vast majority of Tulsa's African-American population became homeless because of the riot, but stayed in Greenwood to rebuild the area. 
The deep scars left by the riot remained visible for years. 
"While Greenwood was eventually rebuilt, many families never truly recovered from the disaster," according to Oklahoma Historical Society documents. "Moreover, for many years, the riot became somewhat of a taboo subject, especially in Tulsa." 
Depressed area 
Former Oklahoma State University and Buffalo Bills football star Reuben Gant has worked tirelessly for Greenwood's development. 
He was hired as executive director for the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce in the late 1980s; the district was not booming. 
"This area was depressed," Gant said. "It was sorely lacking in access to goods and services for basic everyday living." 
Gant said there was very little access to capital and credit for entrepreneurs. 
"We really suffered from a negative perception," he said. 
The perception was that Greenwood was an African-American community with high crime, high poverty and no opportunities. 
Gant said the focus for the Greenwood Chamber shifted from a traditional chamber role to a nontraditional function. At the time membership wasn't enough to sustain operations of the chamber, so the concept was to get into grant writing for community programs. Gant said that was to bring in revenue to sustain and grow the chamber.