Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street

Copyright © 2023 by Victor LuckersonAll rights reserved.Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATANames: Luckerson, Victor, author.Title: Built from the fire: the epic story of Tulsa’s Greenwood district, America’s Black Wall Street: one hundred years in the neighborhood that refused to be erased / Victor Luckerson.Other titles: Epic story of Tulsa’s Greenwood district, America’s Black Wall StreetDescription: New York: Random House, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2022055077 (print) | LCCN 2022055078 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593134375 (hardback) | ISBN 9780593134382 (ebook)Subjects: LCSH: Greenwood (Tulsa, Okla.)—Race relations—History. | Tulsa (Okla.)—Race relations—History. | Tulsa Race Massacre, Tulsa, Okla.,1921. | Goodwin family. | Urban renewal—Oklahoma—Tulsa—History. |African Americans—Oklahoma—Tulsa—Social conditions. | African Americans—Oklahoma—Tulsa—Biography. | Greenwood (Tulsa, Okla.)—Biography. | Tulsa (Okla.)—Biography.Classification: LCC F704.T92 L84 2023 (print) | LCC F704.T92 (ebook) | DDC 976.6/8600496073—dc23/eng/20221214LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055077LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055078Ebook ISBN 9780593134382randomhousebooks.comBook design by Simon M. Sullivan, adapted for ebookCover design: Chris AllenCover photographs: Corner of Greenwood and Archer Devastated, courtesy of The University of Tulsa (top left), courtesy of Jeanne Osby Goodwin Arradondo Family Collection (middle left), Greenwood Cultural Center/Getty Images (middle right), Doug Hoke/ The Oklahoman (bottom left), Victor Luckerson (bottom right)ep_prh_6.1_143550378_c0_r0 ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightProloguePart IChapter 1: Do Not Hesitate, but ComeChapter 2: And Sometimes Better, BesidesChapter 3: Black CapitalChapter 4: False PromisesChapter 5: The War at Home and AbroadChapter 6: “Get a Gun and Get Busy”Chapter 7: The MassacreChapter 8: A Conspiracy in Plain SightPart IIChapter 9: Far from HomeChapter 10: The Myth of an Impervious PeopleChapter 11: Sugar ManChapter 12: Family BusinessChapter 13: A World ApartChapter 14: Separate but EqualChapter 15: Crossing the LineChapter 16: You’ll Be a Man, My SonChapter 17: Somewhere Between Hope and ExpectationChapter 18: A Slower BurnChapter 19: HandoffsChapter 20: In Flesh and StonePart IIIChapter 21: Reconciliation DayChapter 22: “Trust the System”Chapter 23: This Is Our TimeChapter 24: DissolutionChapter 25: The Rituals of RemembranceChapter 26: Beyond CeremonyEpilogueDedicationAcknowledgmentsNotesPhotograph CreditsIndexAbout the Author_143550378_ PROLOGUEJim Goodwin remembers the symphony of the old Greenwood well. The blues mingling with smoke as it wafted out of hazy juke joints, the sizzle of beef on the open grill at hamburger stands, the seductive murmurs of hustlers in back alleys peddling their pocket addictions, the click-clack of women’s heels on the sidewalk when all the maids crowded the street on their Thursday nights off. Greenwood was loud. Boisterous. It was a ritual of improvised celebration and emotional release, the same kind black people had carved out in shacks, shotgun houses, and white-picket-fence homes across this nation since our involuntary arrival on the eastern shores.For generations, Greenwood was something more than a collection of black-owned homes and businesses just north of downtown Tulsa. Perhaps it started that way, in 1905, when Emma and O. W. Gurley first opened a grocery store north of the Frisco Railroad tracks on land once owned by the Creek Nation.[1] But as the number of people living, loving, toiling, and thriving in the neighborhood grew, so did its mystique. George Washington Carver[2] and W.E.B. Du Bois visited Greenwood early on, when it was, in Du Bois’s words, “impudent and noisy.”[3] When the neon signs adorning all the cafés, nightclubs, and stately churches were lit up on warm summer evenings, folks would say it looked like a fairyland. By the time Jim was roaming the street in the 1940s, the neighborhood chamber of commerce described Greenwood as more than an avenue—“It is an institution.”[4]In the daily symphony, Jim had contributed his own instrument. Standing at the corner of Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street as a young boy, clutching a stack of newspapers, he would yell out his sales pitch: “The Oklahoma Eagle! Only five cents!” It was the paper his father, Edward Goodwin, Sr., purchased in 1937, just two years before he was born; Ed Sr. let him keep the money from each sale.[5]Jim and his siblings took on dozens of roles over the years to get the paper out the door each week. Edwyna was the first woman to serve as managing editor. Jo Ann proofread pages.[6] Ed Jr. understood the intricacies of the printing press like no other.[7] Daughter Jeanne penned the fiery columns quoting Du Bois and Malcolm X that reminded their father every day that he had raised black children. The Goodwins had their own internal orchestra going, anchored by the whirring of a clamorous press, one of the few in the whole country owned by a black family.By January 2020, though, the rhythms of Greenwood have changed. Cars and semis barrel over the neighborhood on an interstate overpass that has cleaved the community in half since 1967. The monotonous clanging of bolts driving into steel beams marks the steady rise of luxury apartments occupying more and more of the area. These days Greenwood Avenue comes alive only when the Tulsa Drillers, a minor league baseball team, takes the field on land once owned by black people—some of it once owned by the Goodwins themselves, in fact. Suburbanites from Broken Arrow and Jenks drive across the roaring highway for a pleasant night out in downtown Tulsa, not even realizing they are in Greenwood. They don’t think too much about who or what might have been there before.There are a handful of squat brick buildings from old Greenwood left standing, lined up on both sides of Greenwood Avenue as luxury towers and stadiums sprout up around them like weeds. These are managed by the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce; one other building on the south side of Archer Street is owned by Jim Goodwin and his family. There the Oklahoma Eagle continues to publish a weekly newspaper. Neither Jim nor his children have ever taken stock of how many Eagle editions the family has published, but an issue every week for eighty-three years equals about 4,316 newspapers. Jet and Ebony and the Tulsa Tribune didn’t last as long, and