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Virtual Event – Hannibal Johnson
August 30, 2020 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Magic City Books proudly presents Hannibal Johnson, author of the new book Black Wall Street 100, in conversation with Jeff Martin on Sunday, August 30 at 2:00 pm CDT.
Black Wall Street 100 is a chronicle of all the efforts of the city over the past 100 years to grapple with its past and to at least partially address the lingering historical racial wound of the 1921 race massacre that is a defining event in our community’s history.
This free event is open to the public and will be hosted on the Zoom platform as well as broadcast on Facebook Live and will be recorded and posted to YouTube. To register for the live event please visit https://magiccitybooks.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_e6mOlUTbSW-XkrWYY1V9NA
After registering, you will receive information about how to join the event on Sunday, August 30 at 2:00 CDT.
Black Wall Street 100 is available at Magic City Books or you can order online here: https://magiccitybooks.square.site/product/black-wall-street-100/199.
Education chairman of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, Hannibal Johnson has written and spoken widely on the history of the Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street, and the 1921 massacre that destroyed much of it, officially leaving at least dozens dead, possibly as many as hundreds.
In the 22 years since his first book, Black Wall Street, Tulsa has come a long way toward finally facing up to this dark chapter from its past, the subject is now taught in schools and public acknowledgements and apologies have been offered by community leaders, including, in 2019, a formal apology from the Tulsa Regional Chamber.
Black Wall Street 100 is a window into what distinguishes the Tulsa of today from the Tulsa of a century ago. Before peering through that porthole, we must first reflect on Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District in all its splendor and squalor, from the prodigious entrepreneurial spirit that pervaded it to the carnage that characterized the 1921 massacre to the post-massacre rebound and rebuilding that raised the District to new heights to the mid-twentieth-century decline that proved to be a second near-fatal blow to the current recalibration and rebranding of a resurgent, but differently configured, community.
Tulsa’s trajectory may be instructive for other communities similarly seeking to address their own histories of racial trauma. Conversely, Tulsa may benefit from learning more about the paths taken by other communities. Through sharing and synergy, we stand a better chance of doing the work necessary to spur healing and move farther toward the reconciliation of which we so often speak.
