by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno In September 2018, the nonprofit organization StoryCorps recorded Dr. Olivia Hooker’s recollections about being the first Black woman admitted to the U.S. Coast Guard in 1945. She spoke about her worries as well… Read More
by Contributing Writers Carlos Moreno and David Goodwin Eleven-year-old Edwin Lawrence Goodwin arrived in Greenwood in 1914 with his sisters Anna and Lucille, brother James Jr., and parents James Henri and Carlie Greer Goodwin. The family had come… Read More
by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno B.C. Franklin’s autobiography, “My Life and an Era,” takes its readers back in time to a period of Oklahoma’s history when Black families enjoyed an abundance of prosperity, peace and freedom. His parents… Read More
by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno It’s no exaggeration to say that no one in Greenwood’s history is more shrouded in myth and legend than Horace “Peg Leg” Taylor. He is said to have been a World War I… Read More
by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno Greenwood produced many great entrepreneurs but perhaps none has left such a lasting legacy on Tulsa as Simon Berry. Social entrepreneurship is a current buzz word in the business community but this was… Read More
by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno On the morning of Tuesday, December 1st, 1908, J.B. Stradford and his wife Augusta boarded a train from Kansas on the Katy line to Tulsa, Oklahoma. They refused to ride in the furthest… Read More
by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno On a warm summer Tuesday evening on June 1st, 1971, dozens of parishioners and community members gathered at Mt. Zion Baptist Church to hear Mabel Little speak. W.D. Williams, son of John and… Read More
by Staff Writer Britni Sharde Tulsa’s Greenwood District, also known as Historic Black Wall Street, was the most influential hub of Black entrepreneurship and free enterprise in the history of the United States. In May of 1921, this… Read More
by Staff Writer Lindsay Myers By now, most Tulsans are familiar with the history of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, when miles of Black-owned businesses and homes were destroyed. Black residents have worked tirelessly for nearly a century… Read More
by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno Every Tulsa historian would agree that among the most tragic of the deaths which occurred during the Race Massacre of 1921 was that of Dr. A.C. Jackson. The esteemed physician and surgeon was… Read More
by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno Tulsa historian Scott Ellsworth’s Death in a Promised Land opens with the story of a young Bill Williams asking his father why they relocated from Mississippi to Oklahoma. “Well,” his father answered, “I… Read More
by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno During his life, O.W. Gurley was an educator, a church founder, a presidential appointee, a general store owner, a hotel proprietor, a landlord, a deputy police officer, and most famously, the founder of… Read More
by Contributing Writer Carlos Moreno A.J. Smitherman is best known for being the founder of The Tulsa Star—Tulsa’s first black newspaper and the first black daily newspaper in the nation, according to his obituary in the Buffalo Evening… Read More
by Executive Editor Timantha Norman Sneakers have undergone a very interesting cultural trajectory in our modern history. From purely practical purposes when they first came into existence in the early part of the 20th century, then becoming a… Read More
by Contributing Writer Mana Tahaie Earlier this year, Tulsa Development Authority (TDA) once again came under scrutiny by Tulsans concerned about the displacement of Black North Tulsa residents. In March, City Councilor Vanessa Hall Harper warned residents of… Read More
