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Preserving history in a hallowed place
August 22, 2020
TULSA — A sacred place of honor and hope.
A hallowed space of resilience and rebuke.
Tulsa city officials, state leaders and members of the community used those words to describe a new history center that one day will tell the stories of Tulsa's Black Wall Street and the race massacre that destroyed it.
About 75 people gathered Friday to break ground on the Greenwood Rising Black Wall Street History Center. The ceremony took place in a large event tent at the southeast corner of Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street in the historic Greenwood District, where more than one speaker reminded the crowd that hundreds of Black Tulsans died in 1921 at the hands of white mobs.
Those who perished in the race massacre and those who survived were honored.
Phil Armstrong, project director for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, led the crowd in a moment of silence for the victims of the massacre, including Reuben Everett whose home was located on the project site.
Tracy Gibbs, a descendant of race massacre survivors Leroy and Earnestine Gibbs, shared a story of survival.
She said her grandmother Earnestine Gibbs was studying in her home for her final tests of the school year when she heard gunfire. The teen and other family members took shelter under a bed until later when they would flee for their lives.
"Can you imagine being a 17-year-old girl, having your whole life ahead of you and all of a sudden, it's exploding in front of you?" Tracy Gibbs said.
She said her grandmother survived to pursue her educational dreams at Langston University and eventually become an English teacher at Tulsa's Booker T. Washington High School.
"So, we're excited about this groundbreaking," Gibbs said.
She said the stories of the horrific period in Tulsa's history and the resilience of those who survived it have always been "ground breaking."
State Sen. Kevin Matthews, founder of the race massacre centennial commission, said the history center will honor the Greenwood District before and after the race massacre.
"In a few moments, we're going to step away from the cameras to officially break this precious ground," Matthews said. "We've come along way in 99 years and yet we still have so much more to do. Thank you for being here today as a valued part of this historic moment."
Matthews, D-Tulsa, said the project wouldn't have advanced without Maggie Hille Yar, executive director and trustee of the Hille Foundation, the organization that donated the land for the history center.
Yar said the decision to donate the land for the project was easy because its purpose matched the ideals that inspired her family to start their foundation: opportunity, equality and hope.
She said she hoped the history center would tell the world of the men and women who built the Greenwood District and rebuilt it after the massacre "against odds that I can't imagine, none of us can. Death, destruction, outright resistance."
"We'll be a world-class facility where people will come and see that not only did Black lives matter in Greenwood then but they will matter always," Yar said.
'We've got to tell this story'
Lt. Gov Matt Pinnell, a native of Tulsa, expressed excitement about the project. He told the crowd that he didn't learn about the race massacre growing up, even though he grew up about five minutes from the site.
He said the history center will help tell the world the story, including the entrepreneurial spirit of the Greenwood District.
"We've got to be brave, we've got to be bold and we've got to tell this story," he said. "We can't be a Top 10 state without this."
Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said he was in Washington, D.C., for a conference about two or three years ago and he saw an enlarged picture of the Greenwood area about two or three days after the race massacre while touring the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
"It's one thing to see that in small photographs or in books or on TV or on your computer, but to see it blown up life size, to see the devastation, to see people in tents trying to rebuild their lives, it was a powerful moment," he said.
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Bynum said he envisioned a place where Tulsa schoolchildren and people from around the state and the world would get a glimpse of the stories of the race massacre victims and survivors.
He said Greenwood Rising will be that place.
"Now, I think about what this facility will mean. I think about the fact that 99 years ago people murdered our neighbors and then they covered it up for decades. They told Tulsans not to talk about it, not to teach it, not to report on it. And I think about how they almost got away with that," Bynum said.
He said when people who walk into the history center "that will be a rebuke to those who murdered our neighbors and tried to cover it up and tried to hide it from history, tried to prevent people from learning what happens when hate can win the day."
The mayor said the center is important to Tulsa because it will focus on people.
"It will tell the stories of our neighbors, those who were lost and those who rebuilt, who triumphed — in a way that can't be told anywhere else or by anyone else."
Growing interesting
The center is expected to attract people from all over the world to learn about a thriving Black community called Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Marlene Livaudais, national sales manager with the Tulsa Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she is working with Armstrong to promote and bring in tours to the center. She said people in other parts of the country already have shown interest in the coming attraction and the Greenwood District.
"Right now, I'm working with a travel agent from Chicago and one from Virginia," she said. "There's so much interest in it; there really is."
Donations announced for history center project
The Greenwood Rising project is estimated to cost $30 million, including about $4 million for operating and programming costs. Project leaders said they are about $5.6 million shy of their goal but they hope to see the center completed by May/June 2021 for the race massacre's centennial.
Sen. Kevin Matthews, D-Tulsa, founder of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, announced three new donations to the Greenwood Rising project at Friday's groundbreaking for the history center.
Matthews said the QuikTrip Corporation recently announced it will donate $1 million, increasing the company's total donation for the project to $2 million.
He said the American Electric Power Foundation and Public Service Company of Oklahoma has donated $500,000 to the project and the Oklahoma City Thunder recently announced its plans to donate $250,000.
