A Case for Turning Tulsa Into the Next Big Tech Hub

Split in two by a highway—as communities of color often are—the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was once known as America’s Black Wall Street. At the start of the 20th century, Greenwood was home to one of America’s most affluent Black communities, including a notable density of doctors, lawyers, bankers, and entrepreneurs. I didn’t fully appreciate the neighborhood’s significance when I pulled up to the Greenwood Cultural Center during my first visit to Tulsa in January 2019. With its quiet streets and empty parking lots, Greenwood seemed like so many of the places I’d been to before. But small commemorative plaques on the sidewalks where businesses once stood hinted at an overlooked and extraordinary history.

I was there because the George Kaiser Family Foundation had invited me to town to consider working with them on an economic development project. GKFF is a multibillion-dollar philanthropy that combats intergenerational poverty in Tulsa, making it one of the largest foundations in the United States dedicated to improving lives in a single city. At the time, I was living in Manhattan and leading the cornerstone of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s jobs plan—Cyber NYC, an initiative of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. The New York Times called this public–private partnership “among the nation’s most ambitious cybersecurity initiatives,” and GKFF reached out to gauge my interest in helping Tulsa develop its own cyber ecosystem.

My trip happened to coincide with a visit by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. He was in Tulsa to award the Greenwood Cultural Center a million-dollar grant for a public arts project depicting the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that destroyed Black Wall Street. I arrived before the event and wandered around the center, browsing the photographs and news clippings from the tragedy: a White mob attacked Black residents, burned down more than a thousand of their homes, and ruined nearly 200 businesses. I was horrified by the images of charred houses, dead bodies, smoke billowing in the air, land scorched and flattened, rubble drenched by fire hoses. The mob killed as many as 300 Black Tulsans, devastating what legendary sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois called the most “highly organized” Black community he’d ever seen. It was America’s worst episode of racist violence in the 20th century, and its impact lingers to this day.

Understandably, the event at the center had a religious solemnity to it. There were prayers for the victims and moments of silence. Speakers reflected on

all that was lost in 1921 and again during the period of urban renewal when, in the late 1960s and early ’70s, the community was torn apart for a second time by I-244, the highway that runs through Greenwood today. At the center, there were pleas for neighborhood investment, hope of revitalization, and murmurs about reparations. Speeches reminiscent of Sunday sermons joined with the political rhetoric of local elected officials, such as City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper and Mayor G. T. Bynum, who had just authorized a search for unmarked graves to determine the massacre’s total number of victims.

Juxtaposed against these grim remarks were the flashing cameras, news media, and public excitement that accompany the presence of not just one but two of America’s wealthiest men. Mayor Bloomberg was joined that day by another billionaire, George Kaiser, a lifelong Tulsan and the founder of GKFF. The mix of Black trauma and White philanthropy created a peculiar vibe in the event space, at once somber and thrilling, mournful and hopeful. The dramatic tension in the air mesmerized me, and it caused me to wonder about how Black trauma is often portrayed as spectacle; how White philanthropists relate to the diverse communities they seek to serve; how Greenwood reflects the contemporary effects of past injustice; and what it would take to create economic opportunities for Tulsa’s Black, Indigenous, and White working-class citizens.

The event helped me see a cultural kinship that I hadn’t expected, one that would begin pulling me inexorably toward Tulsa. Listening to Tulsans talk about racism, poverty, and trauma, the need for Greenwood’s redevelopment, and the city’s broader desire to change economic course transported me back to my childhood in New Orleans—growing up in a White working-class family with a single mom, wrestling with feelings of alienation, and living through Hurricane Katrina. I was a stranger in Tulsa, but I felt at home. For me, Greenwood could have easily been the Lower Ninth Ward. I gravitated toward Tulsa’s trauma because it resembled my own, and I understood the city’s need to reckon with it because I had undergone a similar journey myself.

I sensed that both Tulsa and I had chips on our shoulders. Underestimated, we both had something to prove, and I realized that this underdog city had so much more potential than people gave it credit for. A few months later, in September 2019, I packed up my life on the Upper East Side and again lit out for the territory of northeast Oklahoma—this time for more than just a visit.