Right of passage

A local hip-hop group wanted to host a free memorial for victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. Its members found out that was harder—and more hurtful—than they knew.

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It’s hard to see what Greenwood once was. Staring North from Archer along Greenwood Avenue, only a half block of buildings south of I-244 remains. In spite of the Great Depression and the eruption of World War II, the district rebuilt after 1921, bustling again with dozens of black-owned and -operated businesses, though the scars still showed. Before urban renewal, before the Interstate went through the heart of the neighborhood, Greenwood Avenue had returned to a former glory that was compared to State Street in Chicago or Beale Street in Memphis.

The district today resembles only in spirit and pride the community that once sprawled for blocks, called one of the most prosperous African American communities in American history.

Surprisingly, Greenwood has struggled to secure designation as a Historic Place on the National Register and the benefits it confers, including federal and state rehabilitation tax credits; it can’t show the original structures required to qualify for a spot on the registry, a point of contention with some members of the community who would rather Greenwood not be known as the Tulsa Race Riot District, the whole of a neighborhood and more than a century of history named for what happened in just a matter of hours. Efforts to list Greenwood with the National Registry have reached a stalemate, according to the State Historic Preservation Office. “Due to the objections from Tulsa citizens regarding the approach to the nomination and to the criteria and regulations governing what is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, our agency has decided not to pursue the nomination any further,” said Melvena Heisch, deputy at SHPO, in an email to The Tulsa Voice.

The Brady Arts District, just a few years ago blighted by empty storefronts and warehouses, is now home to a new row of art galleries, museums, restaurants, hotels, and nightclubs, lauded as Tulsa’s most successful redevelopment in history. It stretches along M.B. Brady Street from Boulder to Elgin, just north of the Martin Luther King Boulevard Bridge, which is dotted with Greenwood historic markers. The Brady Arts District attained a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. ONEOK Field, which sits where Greenwood’s historic Royal Hotel once stood, is listed on the Brady Arts District website as a neighborhood attraction.

Not all the comments on the Facebook discussion of the event took issue with the Oilhouse showcase or its location, but emotions ran high on both sides. An old wound had been re-opened. The racial tensions that grip Tulsa even still were thrown into sharp relief. “I looked at it and thought, ‘God, this is hard to read,’” Hahn said of the comments on social media. “It was itchy and uncomfortable, but absolutely necessary information.” Hahn reached out to several of the dissenting voices on the thread. With one, who asked not to be named in this article, said he and Hahn, through dialog, found some common ground. Others maintained Oilhouse should change the location for its event.

Through conversations on the Facebook thread and off, Hahn said he gained understanding as well as clarity on what he would like to accomplish when Oilhouse takes the stage at Guthrie Green on the 31st.

“With this [Oilhouse] event, maybe these comments and discussions that it provokes are actually speaking more artistically, more truth, than the actual art,” said Chris Combs, composer and lap-steel guitarist of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. In 2011 Combs and JFJO released the Race Riot Suite, a long-form conceptual piece of music that aimed to tell the story of the Riot with tracks like “Black Wall Street,” “The Burning,” “Grandfather’s Gun,” and “Cover Up.”

The album was acclaimed by the press—one reporter with the Los Angeles Times wrote that, however unlikely it was to be sourced of young, white musicians, it evoked Greenwood’s destruction as well as its creative fervor. Still, the album and its creators didn’t escape criticism. It stirred similar emotions in comments on Facebook and other media sites as did the Oilhouse event. “I might not have been totally prepared for it, but it is one of the most powerful parts of the artwork (the music) itself,” Combs said of the response to the album. “That’s actually more artistically relevant than the piece of music.”

“Bridging this divide between north and south Tulsa, maybe that’s our generation’s job. How do we do it? I don’t know,” Combs said, though he was encouraged by those willing to try. “It’s a lot easier to not play a show. It’s a lot easier to not talk about it. It’s a lot easier to pretend it didn’t happen.”

Originally, Oilhouse marketed the event as a memorial to the victims. The focus has shifted; now, more important than ever is education. The controversial location of Guthrie Green, chosen for its sound system, availability, and because it was where Oilhouse performed its hip-hop show last year, has a new function, one beyond its role as one of Tulsa’s newest and largest stages. Oilhouse hopes to reach the influx of Tulsans and suburbanites brought downtown by attractions in the Brady Arts District. The group hopes the foot traffic Guthrie Green attracts will take education on the events of May 31-June 1, 1921 and the hurt they caused to a new audience. When visitors to the District stroll its sidewalks on the evening of May 31, Oilhouse will have its message ready: “This is what you’re partying on top of,” Hahn said.

At the very least, Oilhouse hopes Tulsans leave knowing the city’s downtown north of the tracks is more than a playground, that they understand part of why Tulsa struggles with race and unity nearly a century later. At the very most, the goal is to convert concert goers to activism. It’s easy for white people to throw around words like “unity,” “art,” and “community,” Hahn said—“It’s just a blanket and a hot chocolate for them.” The group hopes its event creates a climate where reconciliation can become more than a word on a street sign, that people will leave with a better understanding and appreciation of what occurred in 1921 and its aftermath.

Earlier this month Hahn posted a new flier for the Oilhouse event to Facebook. “An evening of education, conversation and activism through art, music and spoken word,” they now say. This Land Press will offer audio pieces concerning the Riot. Hahn asked the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Center for speakers; there won’t be any breakdancing. The enthusiastic sprint with which he approached “1921” has slowed to a reverent march.

“This isn’t a celebration,” Hahn said. “People should be staring into their laps after the event, thinking, ‘We have work to do.’”

Correction: The print version of this article quoted Melvina Heisch, deputy at SHPO; the spelling is Melvena, not Melvina.