What They Don’t Teach You About Black Wall Streets

More Than Tulsa

When people mention “Black Wall Street,” most immediately think of Tulsa’s Greenwood District—once a thriving hub of Black enterprise before it was destroyed in the 1921 massacre. But what many don’t realize is that Tulsa wasn’t an exception. It was part of a much larger pattern of Black excellence, self-sufficiency, and economic brilliance that stretched across the country.

Cities like Richmond, Chicago, Durham, and Atlanta had their own versions of Black Wall Streets. Entire neighborhoods where Black families owned the businesses, built the homes, ran the schools, and circulated their dollars multiple times before it ever left the community. These places were powerful, not just economically, but politically and culturally. They weren’t dependent on white approval. They were fueled by Black ingenuity.

So why don’t we hear more about them?

Because erasure is strategic. If we’re never taught that we’ve already built powerful, wealthy communities, then we’ll always think we’re starting from scratch. If all we see is trauma, we forget our legacy of triumph.

The truth is: Black Wall Streets weren’t rare. They were deliberate, and so was their destruction. But that also means we have a blueprint. And it’s time we start studying it again.

The Blueprint We Had

Before desegregation, many Black communities were forced to build their own ecosystems out of necessity, but what they built was nothing short of remarkable. Without access to white institutions, Black Americans created our own banks, insurance companies, hospitals, newspapers, schools, transportation systems, and shopping districts.

Take Durham, North Carolina, where Black Wall Street wasn’t just a nickname—it was a reality. The city’s Parrish Street was lined with Black-owned financial institutions like Mechanics and Farmers Bank and North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, both of which funded Black homeownership and entrepreneurship. In Jackson Ward of Richmond, Virginia, Maggie Lena Walker became the first Black woman in the U.S. to charter and lead a bank. Meanwhile, Bronzeville in Chicago became a cultural and commercial powerhouse during the Great Migration.

What tied all these communities together was more than just proximity, it was a commitment to group economics. The Black dollar didn’t leave the community quickly. In many cases, it circulated 10–12 times before reaching a non-Black hand. That economic circulation created jobs, stability, and pride. It gave rise to schools that taught Black history unapologetically, newspapers that told our truth, and business networks that kept wealth in the family.

The blueprint wasn’t built on diversity, equity and inclusion. It was built on autonomy, trust, and collective investment. These communities proved that wealth didn’t have to be inherited. It could be built when we invested in each other.

But then came integration, and with it, the slow dismantling of that blueprint.

What Undid It All

What unraveled Black self-sufficiency was policy, propaganda, and the myth of progress.

After Brown v. Board of Education, integration became the gold standard. But rather than investing in Black communities to equalize opportunity, systems forced proximity without power. Black schools were shut down. Black teachers were laid off. Black businesses lost their customer base as consumers began chasing white validation in white-owned spaces.

Integration didn’t dismantle white supremacy. It just invited us to survive inside of it.

Meanwhile, the federal government weaponized urban renewal and interstate construction to plow highways through prosperous Black neighborhoods. Whole districts like Rondo in St. Paul, the Hill District in Pittsburgh, and the heart of Tulsa’s Greenwood were bulldozed, pushing families into public housing and erasing generational wealth.

At the same time, banks redlined Black borrowers. Corporate media painted Black communities as dangerous and unstable. And our youth were taught that success looked like assimilation rather than ownership.

So when we ask, “What happened to Black Wall Street?” the answer isn’t that we failed. It’s that systems strategically disassembled what we built.

But what was broken by force can be rebuilt by choice, and that brings us to what’s next.

The Mindset Shift That Liberation Requires

True liberation starts in the mind. Integration taught us to seek validation. Liberation teaches us to seek vision.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that inclusion and tolerance in White society is the highest form of justice—that a seat at someone else’s table is the goal. But liberation asks: What if we build our own table? Better yet—what if we rebuild what they destroyed and make it better this time?

The shift from integration to liberation is a shift from access to ownership. From symbolic representation to institutional power. From waiting to be chosen to choosing ourselves.

This means:

• Supporting Black-owned banks, brands, and businesses.

• Teaching our kids economic independence as a form of academic excellence.

• Practicing group economics that prioritizes our community first—not last.

PYOC isn’t just a brand. It’s a mindset. A call to stop begging for crumbs and start reclaiming what was always ours. It’s about thinking Black, spending Black, and building Black—not as a trend, but as a way forward.

Liberation requires intention. Discipline. And a refusal to settle for visibility when what we need is sovereignty.

—

Pick Your Own Cotton is more than a metaphor—it’s a call to reclaim our economic power and choose ourselves. For too long, Black dollars have flowed out of our communities, supporting other economies instead of our own. Integration gave us the right to choose where we live and spend, but far too many of us are still choosing to support systems that don’t prioritize our liberation.

Every purchase, every business decision, is an opportunity to invest in Black communities and create generational wealth. It’s time to recognize that the economic injustices of slavery are still felt today, and without ownership, we're not far from that slave status. We must take responsibility for our community—supporting our own businesses, guiding our own youth, and uplifting our own people. 

It’s time to pick our own cotton, not as laborers for someone else, but as creators of our own economic future, ensuring that every dollar works to rebuild what was lost and create a thriving, self-sustaining Black economy.