Violent Utopia: Dispossession and Black Restoration in Tulsa
Associate Professor Jovan Scott Lewis
This talk assesses how the 1921 race massacre's destruction of Greenwood in Tulsa, OK was reproduced by the insidiously violent processes of urban development, and how local responses to these circumstances have been organized and driven by community notions of repair.
In this talk, I think through the history of Greenwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma, more famously known as Black Wall Street. I assess how the 1921 race massacre's destruction of Greenwood was reproduced by insidiously violent processes that include urban renewal. Throughout successive waves of dispossession, Greenwood became geographically and narratively glossed as North Tulsa. From advocating for food access to formal reparations claims, I detail how North Tulsans' responses to these circumstances are organized and driven by community formation, understood as an ethic of restoration.