McCabe founded the town of Langston in Oklahoma and a newspaper, the Langston City Herald. McCabe's dream was to create an all-black state in the Oklahoma Territory that was run by and for Black people. McCabe, a former politician and state auditor of Kansas. Oklahoma Territory, they would say, was a utopia for opportunity and freedom for Black people. To help these towns grow and attract new residents, some people took on the role of 'boosters,' encouraging the migration of other African-Americans seeking to escape the racial violence of the South. Today, only 13 all-black towns exist, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. Between 18, the number of all-black towns and settlements grew to more than 50. This land allocation led to a boom in all-Black towns, including Greenwood. Many Black people had arrived as slaves to the Native American members of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole tribes - who were forced to relocate from the Southeastern US to Oklahoma Territory as a result of President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act.įollowing the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which called for the abolition of slavery, African-Americans were granted citizenship and allotted plots of land where they could begin their new lives as free men and women. The foundations of the Greenwood District and Black Wall Street were built in the 1830s, when African-Americans first migrated to Oklahoma. Viola Fletcher, 107, and Hughes 'Uncle Red' Vann Ellis, 100, both survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, are calling for justice and acknowledgment of a painful past.

Black wall street true story