Members of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission joined state and local leaders and more than 160 descendants of race massacre survivors and members of the public for an open-air ceremony dedicating the Greenwood Rising: Black Wall Street History Center at Greenwood and Archer on June 2, 2021, 100 years after the tragic events of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The $18.6 million, 11,000-square-foot museum is considered the capstone project of the centennial commission.
More than one speaker during the dedication ceremony called the intersection where Greenwood Rising sits “the gateway to Black Wall Street” and a fitting location for a museum that will chronicle the lives of members of the tight-knit community of 1921 Greenwood and the race massacre, now widely recognized as one of the worst acts of racial violence in U.S. history.
“Buildings don’t have memories but people do and we remember,” Tulsa business leader Sam Combs III, master of ceremonies, told the crowd.
The ceremony included special music and remarks by Sen. Kevin Matthews, D-Tulsa, the centennial commission’s chairman; Phil Armstrong, the commission’s project director; historian Hannibal Johnson; Tracy Gibbs, a descendant of race massacre survivors; the Rev. Robert Turner, senior pastor of Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church; and our own Whitney Stauffer, Selser Schaefer Architects’ partner.
Race Massacre descendants are invited to visit the museum until June 12 then it will close for finishing touches and open to the public in August 2021.
Read more about Selser Schaefer Architects + Greenwood Rising here.
