1921-2021

A Visual Anthropology

 
 
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May 30th, 1921

It’s 11:11am, 99 years ago in the Greenwood Community of Tulsa, Oklahoma. This post-slavery community was tribal-planned with dignity and a black business on every corner.

Travelers from all over the nation were drawn by the winds of laughter and sophisticated ease that swept the streets clean of the shame most African- Americans have to move through just to be human. Greenwood is a hub for black innovation and entrepreneurship.

A vibrant Mecca of commerce and community so rich that Booker T. Washington called it, “Black Wall Street”. Former slaves and their descendants worked hard to frolic in the green pastures and still waters of the American dream, but a dark cloud was looming.

 
 
 
 

May 31st, 1921

It’s 4:11pm, 99 years ago in Greenwood during the Memorial Day weekend and 19-year-old Dick Rowland walks into an elevator car of the Drexel Building operated by a white 17 years old Sarah Page.

In between the first and top floor where Rowland hoped to use the restroom, Sarah screams and the world changed for ever. Carried in the vibration of her voice was the sound of fear and an echo of hatred held loosely by the thread. The screech unleashed a legion of demons possessed by racial hatred. A cloud of wicked witnesses heard what they needed to turn jealousy into misappropriated justice, perceived malice into murder. What may have been an accidental response to an elevator jolt became the worst of many incidents of racial terrorism in the history of America.

 
 
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Aftermath…

 

 

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June 1st, 1921

It’s 3:11pm on June 1st, 99 years ago. Babies have become ancestors and streets paved with pride are now bloody.

The Mecca of black dignity has been burned to ashes and thousands have been murdered. Mobs of racists attacked black residents and burned down businesses in “Black Wall Street”, but all is not lost. The legacy of the Greenwood community will forever live in the present tense and it’s time to rise has come.

 
 
 
 

June 2nd, 2020

It’s June 2nd of 2020 and today the ashes still burn hot and the heat still rises from the pain the fires left behind by the Greenwood Massacre but a phoenix of possibility is rising.

35 artists strong and 99 years later we are the Greenwood Art Project.

The Greenwood Art Project strives to create art to activate the community towards healing in the most beautiful and authentic way.

Powerfully moving from past brokenness and old wounds to a healed broken-openness through art, performance, and creativity, we are ready now.

 
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