In the early 1900s, Tulsa's black community, the Greenwood District, gained national renown as "Black Wall Street," with Greenwood Avenue at its center and a thriving concentration of doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, dentists, beauty parlors, barbershops, dance halls, pool halls, movie theaters, restaurants, grocery stores, and many other businesses that drew favorable comparisons to Beale Street in Memphis and State Street in Chicago. The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, described as the worst of the twentieth century race riots and the worst incident of mass racial violence against a black community in United States history, temporarily stilled the district as marauding rioters brought death and destruction to the segregated enclave. In a remarkable resurrection, the Greenwood District rose from the ashes and peaked in the 1940s, but beginning in the 1960s integration and urban renewal changed social and economic conditions at local, state, and national levels, sparking a steep downward spiral. Today the Greenwood District is resurgent, with a new Black Wall Street taking shape as a collaborative community of residential, commercial, artistic, educational, cultural, entertainment, and religious elements working together to reclaim part of its past glory.
