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Segregation by Design: Greenwood and I-244

Tulsa is the focus of another recent article from a UK newspaper website: A story in the Guardian Online about the impact of expressway construction on Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood, and the possibility of reviving the neighborhood by removing the north leg of the Inner Dispersal Loop. Twenty-five years before Don...

Posted by Michael Bates on August 5, 2023 10:57 PM

An open letter to Tulsa visitors on the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

To journalists, photographers, and visitors, pilgrims this week of the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: Welcome to Tulsa. Some context may help you interpret what you see and hear this week.

Posted by Michael Bates on May 25, 2021 7:07 AM

Crosbie Heights neighborhood threatened by blight claim, slashed property values

Homeowners in a revitalizing historic neighborhood west of downtown Tulsa are feeling threatened by a sudden drop in the County Assessor's valuation of their lots and the persistent interest of the Tulsa Development Authority, the agency that seeks "blighted" property for redevelopment.

Posted by Michael Bates on January 19, 2020 1:23 PM

Greenwood Gap Theory: Tulsa's Green Book places weren't destroyed in 1921

A story published Monday by public radio station KGOU is another prime specimen of the cognitive dissonance that is the "Greenwood Gap Theory" -- the misconception that Tulsa's African-American neighborhood was never rebuilt after what is commonly known as the 1921 Race Riot (but more accurately described as a massacre)....

Posted by Michael Bates on March 20, 2019 12:22 AM

"There is no Negro business district anymore"

Relevant to yesterday's post on the Smithsonian Channel documentary that misrepresented the history of Greenwood, Tulsa's historic African-American neighborhood that its residents rebuilt after it was sacked and burned in the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. The rebuilt neighborhood thrived and prospered for decades, becoming known as Black Wall Street, before urban renewal and expressway construction destroyed it again in the late 1960s. Here is a news story from the time that illustrates the social and financial impact of the decision to route the expressway through the heart of the Deep Greenwood commercial district.

Posted by Michael Bates on July 4, 2017 12:36 PM

Smithsonian Channel mangles Greenwood history

There was some excitement among Tulsa history buffs when it was learned that the Smithsonian Channel would be showing colorized clips from home movies showing Greenwood, Tulsa's historic African-American district, as it was in the mid-to-late1920s. Instead we have another instance of the erroneous notion I call the "Greenwood...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 3, 2017 12:29 PM

Steps to Nowhere, in <em>This Land Press</em>

For the first time in a long time, I have an article in print. The May 15, 2014, edition of This Land Press includes my history of the lost neighborhood just north of downtown Tulsa. Criss-crossed by streets but now devoid of buildings, this neighborhood was established about 100...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 17, 2014 9:49 PM

1967 Tulsa USGS aerial photos

Tulsa history expert Paul Uttinger pointed me to a couple of amazing U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) aerial photos from 1967. It captures an interesting point in time, as land was beginning to be cleared for I-244 and the Inner Dispersal Loop. Tulsa had, about a year earlier, tripled its...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 12, 2014 10:34 PM

Brenda Terry on Greenwood in the '40s and '50s

One of the fun things about blogging for over eight years is when someone posts a comment or sends an email about a long-ago blog entry. Someone is searching on the web for information, perhaps about family or friends, and finds one of my entries, then writes a note to...

Posted by Michael Bates on December 24, 2011 1:37 PM

Greenwood since the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

The story of Tulsa's Greenwood District did not end in 1921.

Posted by Michael Bates on May 30, 2011 11:53 PM

Chamber-led cabal chokes off downtown development

This sort of thing never happens, right? Never, ever would a secretive group of private business leaders direct the redevelopment decisions of public agencies from behind the scenes. And if they did, well, we just have to trust that these business leaders know far more about urban development than the...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 22, 2010 11:04 AM

"Born Again": 1977 Oklahoma historic preservation documentary

A 1977 documentary on historic preservation in Oklahoma has been posted online at the I. M. Pei Project website. The half-hour film, entitled "Born Again: Historic Preservation in Oklahoma," is narrated by Norman architect Arn Henderson. It opens with a sequence of demolitions of beautiful and historic office blocks in...

Posted by Michael Bates on April 29, 2010 12:50 PM

Signs of Greenwood's rebuilding

In my Ignite Tulsa talk on the "Greenwood Gap," I mentioned in passing the physical indications of the rebuilding and flourishing of Tulsa's African-American district after it was burned in 1921 by a white mob. I would have included photos of some of those signs, and I had some that...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 19, 2009 10:26 PM

Oklahoma ruins (and Arkansas too)

More linkage, less thinkage, until I get out from under the pile: Abandoned Oklahoma is a website devoted to photography of abandoned places around the state. Homes, industrial sites, parks, schools, churches. Sites include the Labadie Mansion in Copan (north of Bartlesville), the Santa Fe Depot in Cushing, the Page-Woodson...

Posted by Michael Bates on June 11, 2009 12:01 AM

Urban link dump

Here are a bunch of links to items of note about cities: Blair Humphreys looks at urban density and finds some surprising stats: The Los Angeles urbanized area is the most densely populated in the nation. Oklahoma City and Boston have the same density, about 900 people per km2. (Again,...

Posted by Michael Bates on January 29, 2009 12:23 AM

"TU has lost a sense of belonging to Tulsa"

Dan Weber, a senior at the University of Tulsa, has a column in the school's student newspaper, The Collegian, about the impact of TU's campus expansion and its efforts to attract more residential students on its relationship with the city from which it takes its name: [The class of 2009...

Posted by Michael Bates on January 26, 2009 11:56 PM

The Greenwood Gap Theory: The remaking and unmaking of the Black Wall Street of America

This is the originally submitted version of my column in the June 13, 2007, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available at the Internet Archive. The image below accompanied the article. It is from a 1951 aerial photo, labeled to indicate streets and landmarks and to show...

Posted by Michael Bates on June 13, 2007 1:15 PM