Thread by @NBCNews

Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood found prosperity after the 1921 massacre. Then the highways arrived.

Reporting by @GrahamBrewer.

nbcnews.to/2QSpaoH

(1/7) #NBCNewsThreads

@grahambrewer Next week, it will be a century since a white mob looted, burned and murdered in Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood, then known as the Black Wall Street, killing hundreds and displacing thousands more.

But that’s not the full story of Greenwood, nor its end. (2/7)

@grahambrewer Greenwood residents say they were robbed twice: in 1921 and again 50 years later when eminent domain took their homes.
Current and former residents are still calling for justice, whether through equity in property ownership, or the removal of the highways. (3/7)

@grahambrewer When it comes to Greenwood’s future, some think I-244 — which sits on top of what were once famous cultural hubs, like the Dreamland Theater — should be lowered.

Many also want I-75, which sliced off most of the eastern edge and northern stretch of Greenwood, removed.

(4/7)

@grahambrewer “Unless you’re actually standing here, you don’t get a sense of the destruction,” says Carlos Moreno, an author and graphic designer who moved to Tulsa in the late '90s.

(5/7)

@grahambrewer Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg has acknowledged how federally funded highways have sliced through neighborhoods of color, displacing residents and slashing the home values of those who managed to remain. (6/7)

@grahambrewer Returning the land wouldn’t just lead to new prosperity for Greenwood, Burlinda Radney, a Tulsa realtor, says; it could also lead to other forms of healing, like turning the police substation back into a school.

“The city’s will is what we’re looking at today.”

(7/7)