NEW LEGO VIDEO FROM AFRICA - Wake Up Black Americans, Remember Black Wall Street

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:02]In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma was home to the wealthiest black community in America.

[00:00:14]They called it Black Wall Street.

[00:00:17]A white mob burned it to the ground.

[00:00:22]This is that history.

[00:00:23]>> Black Americans built Greenwood with their own hands.

[00:00:29]35 blocks of blackowned businesses on that land.

[00:00:35]>> Schools, hospitals, hotels, law offices, and newspapers.

[00:00:41]Nobody helped them build it.

[00:00:44]>> They funded it themselves.

[00:00:48]>> Wake up, black Americans.

[00:00:50]>> Remember Black Wall Street, >> Greenwood District, >> Tulsa, Oklahoma, >> 1921.

[00:00:56]300 black people were killed in the streets.

[00:01:00]>> No one was convicted.

[00:01:05]>> And no reparations have been paid.

[00:01:11]Uh uh urly purchased 40 acres of land in the Greenwood district in 1906.

[00:01:18]He made the decision to sell that land only to black buyers. By 1921, Greenwood had over 600 blackowned businesses operating. They had a black hospital, a black school system, and a black public library. The community had a newspaper called the Tulsa Star to record their progress. Black doctors, lawyers, dentists, and educators all worked and lived inside Greenwood. Dr. AC Jackson was considered one of the most skilled surgeons in the entire country. He was shot and killed on June 1, 1941 during the attack on his own neighborhood. JB Stratford built the Stratford Hotel to serve black travelers who were turned away everywhere else.

[00:02:01]Black veterans from World War I returned home and invested their service into Greenwood. This was documented American history and most schools have never taught it.

[00:02:14]Black Americans built Greenwood >> with their own heads. 35 blocks of blackowned businesses >> on that land.

[00:02:22]>> Schools, hospitals, >> hotels, >> law offices, >> and newspapers.

[00:02:27]>> Nobody >> help them build it.

[00:02:31]They funded it themselves.

[00:02:39]>> Wake up.

[00:02:41]Remember Black Wall Street, >> Greenwood District, >> Tulsa, Oklahoma, >> 1921.

[00:02:47]>> 300 black people were killed in the streets.

[00:02:51]>> No one was convicted >> and no reparations have been paid.

[00:02:58]On May 30, 1921, dick rolling a black shoe shining into the elevator in the Drexel building. Sarah Page, a white elevator operator, was inside and the accusation followed. The Tulsa Trabune printed a headline. The next morning, that call for violence against rolling that headline. Sent white mobs toward the Tulsa courthouse. On the night of May 31, black men from Greenwood came to the courthouse to stop rolling from being lynched. A shot was fired and the full attack on Greenwood began before midnight. By June 1, >> 1921, >> over 35 square blocks of Greenwood were burning. Members of the Oklahoma National Guard join the attack instead of stopping it.

[00:03:46]>> Witnesses reported that airplanes flew over Greenwood and fired in the crowds from the air. Over one, two, five, six homes were burned to the ground in less than 18 hours. More than 10,000 black residents were detained in internment camps run by the city of Tulsa.

[00:04:05]Survivors filed insurance claims that the city denied in Greenwood >> was never rebuilt by those responsible.

[00:04:12]>> Black Wall Street was real.

[00:04:14]>> It stood in Tulsa, >> Oklahoma for over 15 years.

[00:04:19]>> It was destroyed on June 1, >> 1921.

[00:04:22]>> The government never rebuilt it >> and never paid reparations. M Oklahoma did not require schools to teach the 1921 Tulsa race massacre until 2020.

[00:04:38]Three survivors testified before Congress in 2021, 100 years after the massacre. Uh Congress has not passed any reparations legislation for the descendants of Greenwood.

[00:04:57]Black Americans built generational wealth inside Greenwood from the ground up.

[00:05:02]That wealth was erased through organized racial violence in a single night.

[00:05:08]The land was seized while black residents were held inside internment camps. No one was prosecuted, no payments were made, and no land was ever returned.

[00:05:21]Black Americans must know this history because the government never PRESERVED IT.

[00:05:26]>> WAKE UP. Black Americable.

[00:05:37]>> They destroyed it >> in 1921 >> because they feared what it represented.

[00:05:44]Remember Black Wall Street.

[00:05:53]They passed laws after the massacre to stop Greenwood from being rebuilt.

[00:06:00]They seized black own land while residents were locked inside internment camps.

[00:06:06]They destroyed their own newspaper edition to remove the evidence of what they printed.

[00:06:12]The cover up started on June 2, 1921.

[00:06:17]Oh, >> and it is never fully started.

[00:06:24]>> Wake up, black.

[00:06:27]>> The fight for justice is not finished.

[00:06:30]>> The survivors stood before Congress >> and Congress still did nothing.

[00:06:36]>> The courts dismissed every reparations lawsuit >> and closed the case permanently.

[00:06:42]>> The history was deliberately buried, >> but the mass graves still in the ground. After the massacre, Tulsa city officials passed new zoning laws specifically to prevent Greenwood from being rebuilt. They wanted that land converted for a railroad depot and wanted black residents removed permanently. Black Americans rejected those laws and rebuilt Greenwood within 10 years using only their own resources.

[00:07:12]The perpetrators of the massacre were photographed by journalists and identified by name on public record. Not one person was prosecuted. Not one person was charged and not one person served a single day. The Tulsa Tribune destroyed its own May 31, 1921 edition that contained a headline that ignited the attack. Witnesses reported that bodies were thrown into the Arkansas River and buried in unmarked locations across Tulsa in 2020 and 2021.

[00:07:46]Excavations at Oak Cemetery in Tulsa confirmed the existence of multiple mass graves.

[00:07:55]Greenwood was not the only black community destroyed in America.

[00:08:00]East St. Louis, Illinois in 1917 saw white mobs attack and burn a thriving black working district.

[00:08:12]Rosewood, Florida in 1923 was burned completely and its residents were forced to abandon everything they own.

[00:08:24]>> These were not separate incidents.

[00:08:27]They were repeated pattern of destroying black wealth before it could become permanent.

[00:08:34]Viola Fletcher was 107 years old when she testified before the United States Congress in May 2021.

[00:08:42]>> Lesie Ben and Phil Randall was 108 years old and testified before Congress on that exact same day. Both women with children living inside on the night the attack began on June 1, 1921.

[00:08:58]>> Vera Fletcher told Congress plainly that she had never received justice and was still waiting for the Oklahoma Commission on the 1921 race riot published its official findings in 2001, confirming all major documented facts.

[00:09:16]That commission recommended direct reparations payments to survivors and their descendants by name.

[00:09:22]>> In 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court, >> YES, MR. L >> reparations LAWUIT BROUGHT BY THE SURVIVING VICTIM >> IN 1921.

[00:09:34]>> THE BLACK DOLLAR CIRCULATED inside Greenwood >> 19 times before it ever left the community. Today that same dollar leaves the black community in under six hours.

[00:09:47]>> The difference is a direct and measurable result of the organized destruction.

[00:09:56]>> A black economic infrastructure.

[00:09:59]>> Greenwood was rebuilt >> once by hands after everything >> was taken from them.

[00:10:06]>> It can be built again. But only when black Americans fully understand what was destroyed and why the mass graves in Tulsa are still being excavated today.

[00:10:22]The land that black families legally owned in 1921 remains an active legal dispute.

[00:10:32]The full financial value >> of what was destroyed has never been officially counted >> or returned.

[00:10:44]>> This history >> did not end in 19 21.

[00:10:49]>> Wake up.

[00:10:54]>> Wake up. Wake up.