A Case for Turning Tulsa Into the Next Big Tech Hub

Split successful two by a highway—as communities of colour often are—the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was erstwhile known arsenic America’s Black Wall Street. At the commencement of the 20th century, Greenwood was location to 1 of America’s astir affluent Black communities, including a notable density of doctors, lawyers, bankers, and entrepreneurs. I didn’t afloat admit the neighborhood’s value erstwhile I pulled up to the Greenwood Cultural Center during my archetypal sojourn to Tulsa successful January 2019. With its quiescent streets and bare parking lots, Greenwood seemed similar truthful galore of the places I’d been to before. But tiny commemorative plaques connected the sidewalks wherever businesses erstwhile stood hinted astatine an overlooked and bonzer history.

I was determination due to the fact that the George Kaiser Family Foundation had invited maine to municipality to see moving with them connected an economical improvement project. GKFF is simply a multibillion-dollar philanthropy that combats intergenerational poorness successful Tulsa, making it 1 of the largest foundations successful the United States dedicated to improving lives successful a azygous city. At the time, I was surviving successful Manhattan and starring the cornerstone of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s jobs plan—Cyber NYC, an inaugural of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. The New York Times called this public–private concern “among the nation’s astir ambitious cybersecurity initiatives,” and GKFF reached retired to gauge my involvement successful helping Tulsa make its ain cyber ecosystem.

My travel happened to coincide with a sojourn by erstwhile New York politician Michael Bloomberg. He was successful Tulsa to grant the Greenwood Cultural Center a million-dollar assistance for a nationalist arts task depicting the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that destroyed Black Wall Street. I arrived earlier the lawsuit and wandered astir the center, browsing the photographs and quality clippings from the tragedy: a White mob attacked Black residents, burned down much than a 1000 of their homes, and ruined astir 200 businesses. I was horrified by the images of charred houses, dormant bodies, fume billowing successful the air, onshore scorched and flattened, rubble drenched by occurrence hoses. The mob killed arsenic galore arsenic 300 Black Tulsans, devastating what legendary sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois called the astir “highly organized” Black assemblage he’d ever seen. It was America’s worst occurrence of racist unit successful the 20th century, and its interaction lingers to this day.

Understandably, the lawsuit astatine the halfway had a spiritual solemnity to it. There were prayers for the victims and moments of silence. Speakers reflected connected each that was mislaid successful 1921 and again during the play of municipality renewal when, successful the precocious 1960s and aboriginal ’70s, the assemblage was torn isolated for a 2nd clip by I-244, the road that runs done Greenwood today. At the center, determination were pleas for vicinity investment, anticipation of revitalization, and murmurs astir reparations. Speeches reminiscent of Sunday sermons joined with the governmental rhetoric of section elected officials, specified arsenic City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper and Mayor G. T. Bynum, who had conscionable authorized a hunt for unmarked graves to find the massacre’s full fig of victims.

Juxtaposed against these grim remarks were the flashing cameras, quality media, and nationalist excitement that travel the beingness of not conscionable 1 but 2 of America’s wealthiest men. Mayor Bloomberg was joined that time by different billionaire, George Kaiser, a lifelong Tulsan and the laminitis of GKFF. The premix of Black trauma and White philanthropy created a peculiar vibe successful the lawsuit space, astatine erstwhile somber and thrilling, mournful and hopeful. The melodramatic hostility successful the aerial mesmerized me, and it caused maine to wonderment astir however Black trauma is often portrayed arsenic spectacle; however White philanthropists subordinate to the divers communities they question to serve; however Greenwood reflects the modern effects of past injustice; and what it would instrumentality to make economical opportunities for Tulsa’s Black, Indigenous, and White working-class citizens.

The lawsuit helped maine spot a taste kinship that I hadn’t expected, 1 that would statesman pulling maine inexorably toward Tulsa. Listening to Tulsans speech astir racism, poverty, and trauma, the request for Greenwood’s redevelopment, and the city’s broader tendency to alteration economical people transported maine backmost to my puerility successful New Orleans—growing up successful a White working-class household with a azygous mom, wrestling with feelings of alienation, and surviving done Hurricane Katrina. I was a alien successful Tulsa, but I felt astatine home. For me, Greenwood could person easy been the Lower Ninth Ward. I gravitated toward Tulsa’s trauma due to the fact that it resembled my own, and I understood the city’s request to reckon with it due to the fact that I had undergone a akin travel myself.

I sensed that some Tulsa and I had chips connected our shoulders. Underestimated, we some had thing to prove, and I realized that this underdog metropolis had truthful overmuch much imaginable than radical gave it recognition for. A fewer months later, successful September 2019, I packed up my beingness connected the Upper East Side and again lit retired for the territory of northeast Oklahoma—this clip for much than conscionable a visit.