By Danielle Marie Holland

An organization working to unearth and examine the history of racist land practices in Seattle and the Central District and push for economic solutions to repair the damage will bring a night of lessons and learnings about the destruction of Oklahoma Black Wall Street to 14th Ave’s Washington Hall and online Saturday night.

The King County Reparations Project invites the community together in remembering the history of Black Wall Street while advancing the project of local reparations and racial reconciliation.

“REMEMBERING BLACK WALL STREET: An evening remembering the history and tragic loss of Black Wall Street, Tulsa, OK,” draws upon a shared history and celebration of resilience from across the country, organizers say.

“People can use Tulsa as a model for what changes and impactful things can happen in communities around the United States” said Dr. Phil Armstrong, director of the Greenwood Rising Black Wall St. Center in Tusla, OK, and featured speaker at Saturday’s event.

Greenwood had been a thriving African American district in Tulsa. On May 31st, 1921, the district was looted and burned by white rioters, the governor declared martial law, and National Guardsmen swarmed the district. Within 24 hours, city blocks were left in ruins and hundreds died. This event became known as the Greenwood Massacre.

The rising Black Wall Street History Center opened in August of 2021, as the pinnacle project of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre Centennial Commission. It serves to educate through immersive storytelling and celebrate the resiliency of the community. Visitors leave after making a contribution to a digital commitment wall answering “How will you begin your journey to racial reconciliation?” said Armstrong.

As the conversation on what racial reconciliation should look like continues to advance across cities, regions, and the nation, Armstrong believes support for reparations has increased across the population. “More progress has been made in the last five years than have been made in the previous 20,” Armstrong said.

Organizers said Saturday’s event is “not only a call to make people aware of our shared history,” but to show the community “we have opportunities to fix the problems of systemic racism” through reparation efforts.

Seattle organizers says they have also made strides in addressing long-term affordable housing for people of color. New Hope Missionary Baptist Church’s Dr. Robert Jeffrey recently announced the purchase of Squire Park Plaza to combat the Central Districts’ history of redlining, displacement, and gentrification.

The King County Reparations Project says it addresses the impact “urban renewal” has had on Seattle’s housing and the Black community. Implemented across the country, this practice was unique to neither Seattle nor Tulsa.

Four decades after the Greenwood Massacre, the rebuilt district was bisected during an “urban renewal phase,” displacing Black citizens and businesses. “The 1960s urban renewal programs built I-244 right through the heart of the economic center of Greenwood, and destroyed it a second time,” said Armstrong.

It is a story that also nearly played out in Seattle’s Central District where the Seattle Freeway Revolt helped keep the Central District from being ripped apart. Seattle including Capitol Hill and the Central District was not free of redlining and racist property covenants, however.

It is the practice of ripping communities apart in the name of development and progress that the KCRP examines as one of the three historical components leading to the demand for reparations. In addition to Black removal and displacement policies, Black residents were harmed through subprime lending loans and abatement laws.

“We’re looking to bring light to what happened, and hoping that somehow we can help families recoup some of their inheritance,” said KCRP office manager and grant writer Cassandra Oakes.

The path to reparations doesn’t end with housing. “The end game is to create a self-sustaining economic entity that can begin in Seattle, to grow economic capacity for African American people, and business capacity for African American people, by providing them housing, providing business loans, and business assistance,” said Jeffrey.

Saturday’s event is presented in community partnership with the NAACP, Japanese First Baptist Church of Seattle, Bethany Church, and the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.

The community focus across the country, much like the partnership for this event, is key. “Then, to be able to transport this model, from community to community, to community,” said Jeffrey, “to create engines across the nation that will begin to solve the problem of economic incapacity that Black people have right now. That’s what we’re trying to create here.”

Remembering Black Wall Street
In-person or online
Saturday, February 05, 2022
5:00 pm – 11:00 pm
Washington Hall

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