Thread by @PDXStephenG

This is my love letter to #Tulsa;

Dear Tulsa,

Yet again you have found a way to stir the ancestors in me. Connecting me emotionally & spiritually to the trauma, resilience & determination of family members whom I will never get to meet. To walk the hollowed ground of...

..#Greenwood and see confirmation of our greatness despite the horrors of segregation, murder & hate leaves me forever changed. Learning of the resolve of ancestors like Loula Williams, Homer Johnson & Mabel Little only emboldens me. I leave here standing even taller...

...on their shoulders with my commitment strengthened to help current & future generations ensure that the next "Black Wall Street" doesn't have to exist as a geography but instead as a philosophy of abundance that can mean that any Black person can be the next "O.W. Gurley"...

... One of my mentors always pushes me to "Think big...Now think even bigger." I want that mindset for Tulsa, where we can not only get an amazing museum about our experiences like #GreenwoodRising BUT also state that the museum MUST be designed and built by us.

At the end of the day Tulsa, you have taught me that we can achieve anything. It's in the story of the #TulsaRaceMassacre itself. The very next day following the bombs, murder and chaos businesses reopened to serve the community. I wish I could have been there in the room as...

...the then white mayor, T.D. Evans, chief of police, John Gustafson and local leader of the K.K.K., Tate Brady spoke about how their plan to take Greenwood away from the Black community had failed. They figured this out after seeing that Loula Williams rebuilt her commercial...

... building less than a year after the massacre. She wanted them & anyone else to know how we roll so she put up this marker on the building "1922 Williams Building"

Now when folks wonder why I am so loud & unrelenting about stuff, they know to blame Loula.

See next time,
SG