By Chalice Overy
On May 31, 1921 an estimated 25,000 white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, took to the streets and the air to destroy the thriving Black community of Greenwood. The massacre arose from an underlying dis-ease among white Tulsans with both the proximity and prosperity of Greenwood’s Black residents, which included doctors, lawyers, teachers and successful business owners. Any time Black people achieved parity with white people in education or wealth it made it difficult to maintain the prescribed social “order” of white supremacy, both practically and psychologically. These threats to the social order created anxiety within the white community that boiled over into a violent rage on that day. White men killed hundreds of Black Tulsans, destroyed 40 blocks of a community of homes, schools, churches, and a hospital, and left 10,000 people homeless. Adding insult to injury, the Tulsa police joined the attacking mob, the National Guard detained thousands of Black victims, the fire department let it burn, and to this day, Greenwood is still burning.
Greenwood is Still Burning is a 2024 documentary that chronicles the history of the Tulsa Massacre, its ongoing impact on the Black residents of Tulsa, and the fight for reparations. In the film, Chief Egunwale Amusan, historian and author of America’s Black Wall Street, says “Until you put the fire out, it’s still burning.”1 History shows that the fire was never really extinguished. The lack of accountability along with the persistence of anti-Black policy have led to persistent disparities in Black communities across the country.
As Greenwood smoldered in the days and months after the massacre, no murder, arson or death investigations were conducted; no white people were prosecuted; no insurance claims were awarded; and not one cent of local, state or federal tax dollars was dedicated to rebuilding Greenwood for its Black residents. To the contrary, local government was more interested in working with its white citizens to prevent rebuilding and permanently displace the members of the Greenwood community. An opinion piece in a local newspaper following the massacre unapologetically declared, “such a district as the old ‘niggertown’ must never be allowed in Tulsa again.”2 Somehow, in the face of great economic hardship and political opposition, many residents found a way to rebuild, but the place once known as “Black Wall Street” was never really the same. What survived the fires did not survive “urban renewal” in the 1960s, when once again government policies displaced residents and choked the life out of Black businesses.
Today only 1.25% of Tulsa’s businesses are Black-owned.3 Greenwood is being gentrified and the majority of Black Tulsans live in North Tulsa where there is a lack of jobs, grocery stores, and healthcare. This translates into a reality where the median income of Black Tulsans is 43% less than their white counterparts,4 and their life expectancy is 11-14 years shorter.5 In 2019, Tulsa mayor, G.T. Bynam, admitted that, “…the racial and economic disparities that still exist today can be traced to the 1921 race massacre.”6 The fires of systemic racism are still smoldering in Tulsa and in cities across the country, ready to be rekindled whenever the white people in power feel that Black and Brown prosperity is a threat to their notions of superiority.
Asuman’s assertion that ‘the fire is still burning,’ helped give voice to why it has been so difficult for me to reflect on the Tulsa Massacre this year. The last time I turned my attention to Tulsa was in 2021 on the 100th commemoration of the massacre, just a year after George Floyd’s murder forced many in the nation to reckon with racism. Back then–just four years ago–a lot of the conversation was about reparations. But how the tables have turned! The current administration is actively fanning the embers to burn down Black and Brown wealth by deporting people whose incomes sustain households, taking aim at every program and policy meant to combat racial discrimination (in the public and private sectors), defunding education, destabilizing markets, importing white supremacists and labeling anyone who would speak out as an enemy of the state. Just this week, an agent from Homeland Security came to my colleague’s house to question him about his critiques of ICE on social media. I wish I could say that this was the first time it occurred to me that the next iteration of “burning down” Black wealth might be criminalizing those who refuse to be silent in the face of injustice and seizing of their assets.
I understand why James Baldwin said, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in rage almost all of the time.” It’s infuriating to live in a reality where trying to secure my Black life (and the lives of others) puts me in the crosshairs of the white gaze eager to put me “back in my place,” either by utilizing the law or operating above it. It angers me that the very white people who refuse to entertain conversation about any type of reparations are the same folks who have been given land, loans and legal protections that allowed them to build and sustain their wealth. While, historically, my hard work has cost me more, paid me less, and (through my tax dollars) supported the very systems that will light fire to what I’ve worked for and watch it burn.
While people are breaking their commitments to repair racial injustice and conversations about reparations have cooled, I stand with the efforts of the Justice for Greenwood Foundation “to secure justice and reparations for the Greenwood community and Diaspora through direct services, public education, and advocacy.”7 I hope that predominantly white congregations will also find themselves on the front lines of these efforts nationwide. Why is this the church’s work? Because one of the biggest threats to Black economic prosperity is white supremacy, and white supremacy is a disease of the soul. It will take spiritual discipline and loving communities of care to exercise that demon, and the church cannot afford to be “weary in well doing.” Sure we’ve got to save our democracy, but we also have to save our souls. The work is ALL divine!
1. Hartigan, Gavin. “Lush Presents: Greenwood is Still Burning”. YouTube, 31 May 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsntELVEdc8.
2. Sidner, Sara. “Tulsa Shooting Evokes Memory of Bloody Race Riot.” CNN, 4 Oct. 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/04/us/tulsa-race-riot-memories.
3. “The True Costs of the Tulsa Race Massacre, 100 Years Later.” Brookings Institution, 1 June 2021,https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-true-costs-of-the-tulsa-race-massacre-100-years-later/.
4. Neilsberg Research. “Tulsa, OK Median Household Income By Race.” Neilsberg, 1 Mar. 2025,https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/tulsa-ok-median-household-income-by-race/.
5. “Greenwood, 1921: One of the Worst Race Massacres in American History.” 60 Minutes, CBS News, 23 May 2021,https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tulsa-race-massacre-60-minutes-2021-05-23/.
6. Hartigan, Gavin. “Lush Presents: Greenwood is Still Burning”. YouTube, 31 May 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsntELVEdc8. “
7. “About Us.” Justice for Greenwood, Justice for Greenwood Foundation, https://www.justiceforgreenwood.org/about-us/.
Reverend Chalice Overy is Associate Minister at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Originally from New Jersey, Chalice moved to North Carolina as a teenager and then attended UNC Chapel Hill for undergraduate studies and Duke for seminary. Chalice serves on the Board of Directors for the Alliance.
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