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"The Battling Ground": Memory, Violence, And Resistance In Greenwood, North Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1907-1980, Greta Katherine Smith

Dissertations and Theses

Tulsa, Oklahoma's historically African American neighborhood of Greenwood in North Tulsa has long been contested terrain. Built by black settlers beginning in the late nineteenth-century, the neighborhood evolved into a vibrant community challenged by waves of violence--segregation at statehood in 1907, the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, ongoing disinvestment, and processes of urban renewal beginning in the late 1950s--that contributed to the erosion of the neighborhood and the eventual displacement of many area residents into remote housing projects further into North Tulsa. These waves of violence were propelled by Oklahoma lawmakers, local Tulsa government officials, members of the Ku Klux …