Greenwood at Glenfield event featured local Black-owned businesses and Black history

Glenfield Middle School was recently transformed into a modern-day Black Wall Street, accompanied by a history lesson. 

The Greenwood at Glenfield event on March 24 introduced about 100 people to local Black-owned businesses and provided a history lesson about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, which took place in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The atrocity is also referred to as the Black Wall Street massacre. 

The event at Glenfield featured a screening of a 14-minute YouTube video about the history of Tulsa and the massacre. Though some words in the video were censored, in an effort by the organizers to make the information accessible and appropriate for all ages, the video did include details of the massacre.

“Just to see the attendees actually feel from that video, that was pretty powerful,” said Dee Thompson, event organizer and Glenfield parent. “I heard people, grown adults, say they have never heard of this before. It's pretty disheartening to know that you are part of a generation that was not intentionally taught this information.”

Thompson, also a Glenfield PTA co-president, said she had been thinking about holding an event of this kind for a long time. 

During the 2021-22 school year, she held a similar event at Hillside School, which her son attended at the time. The My Money Matters lesson taught students about Tulsa during the school’s Black Lives Matter Week of Action. 

But given the young age of the students, Thompson only briefly touched on the background of the massacre, she said.

During the two-day-long riot, mobs of white residents attacked Black residents and business owners. The mobs formed after a Black man, accused of assaulting a white woman, was arrested. An “inflammatory newspaper report spurred a confrontation between Black and white armed mobs around the courthouse,” and when gunshots began, the Black residents retreated to the Greenwood neighborhood, according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum website. 

The white mobs followed, destroying more than 35 blocks of neighborhood, including more than 1,250 homes. Modern-day estimates suggest 100 to 300 people were killed, the website says. 

In January, Thompson had the idea to bring the history of the Tulsa massacre to Glenfield. She shared the idea with Colleen Dougherty, her friend and fellow Glenfield parent. Dougherty was onboard, and the two began months of planning. 

Both Thompson and Dougherty graduated from high school without being taught about the massacre in school, Thompson said. Not only did she want her son and other students in Montclair to know about it, she also wanted them to know what existed in Tulsa prior to 1921 — a thriving Black Wall Street. 

“I feel like it's equivalent to erasing a genocide, and it's hurtful when it’s your history,” Thompson said. “This is definitely something that needs to be talked about. It needs to be taught and discussed.”

The two parents began reaching out to local Black-owned businesses, asking them to participate in the event. Businesses attending included Bank of America’s Black Excellence Leadership Team, Forest Hill Physical Therapy, Beyond the Boogie Dance Company and Montclair Flowers.

Several district and local leaders also attended, including Fourth Ward Councilor David Cummings, Montclair NAACP President Roger Terry, Wally Choice Jr., former Councilor Renee Baskerville and schools Superintendent Jonathan Ponds. Retired Glenfield teacher Emmett Murphy, a Tulsa native, was also in attendance. 

“When we reached out to these businesses and told them what we were doing, they were so proud and they were so willing to participate,” Thompson said. “There were so many amazing connections made from this project.”

Food for the event was supplied by Black-owned restaurants including Cafe Moso, Coffee and Cornbread, Crockett’s, Montclair Diner and Touch of Caribbean.

Thompson and Dougherty also worked closely with school administrators, who were “extremely supportive of the project,” Thompson said. 

“I definitely had the confidence in working on this project, but it felt that much better to have the administration have that confidence in me as well,” she said. 

There were times during the organizing process that Thompson questioned whether everything would come together, she said.

“My stomach would be in knots,” she said. 

But a few weeks after the event, she said, she is proud of her work and its reception. 

Thompson wanted the takeaway to be about where the race riot came from, she said.

“This was Blacks becoming too economically powerful and showing that wealth in a way that anyone would show their wealth — constructing buildings and having property,” she said. “I want people to know that that is possible, that that success is possible. You can be more.”

While Thompson is not sure if the Greenwood at Glenfield event will be replicated next school year, she said she knows she wants to be involved in a Black History Month event at the school, whatever that may end up being. She hopes future events will focus on the achievements of Black communities, as Greenwood at Glenfield did, and inspire Black youth through the experiences of those who came before them.  

“I want them to be able to see themselves in the success,” Thompson said. “I don't want them to live in the trauma.”