You are standing at the southwest corner of Greenwood and Archer, in front of the Williams Building, named for the couple that built it, John and Loula Williams. This enduring structure was central to the rise of Black Wall Street — and became the cornerstone of its resurrection.

On the first floor, Loula operated her popular confectionery, a wonder-world of ice cream, candy, and sodas. On the second floor, the Williams family made their home. On the third floor, local businesses leased space.

During the invasion, John Williams was one of the staunchest defenders of the Greenwood District. Armed with a rifle and shotgun, he fired from a position on the third floor. For many hours, John defended the entrance to the business district. Eventually, however, his firing position was discovered and targeted by the growing, well-armed white mob.

With the sound of airplanes overhead and the hail of bullets intensifying, John and his son Bill were forced to split up and make their escape. The next morning, after the violence had ceased, they returned to find only a smoking husk of brick and ash.

Now take a moment and look up at the top of the building. Above the name “Williams Building” is a powerful testament to the spirit of the Greenwood District. Boldly engraved is the year its reconstruction was completed: 1922. The rebuilt Williams Building stands as a monument to the resolve with which Black Wall Street came roaring back.

This restoration was achieved through the blood, sweat, and tears of a resilient people. The City of Tulsa did not finance the rebuilding as an act of reparation or redress. Civic leaders made little effort to restore what had been unjustly taken. Black Tulsans rebuilt the Greenwood District largely on their own, even as attempts continued to erase it from memory.

Though the killing, looting, and burning had stopped, Black Tulsans soon learned that the struggle was far from over.

A new fire ordinance that would have made rebuilding in the Greenwood District financially impossible for most residents was successfully challenged by attorney B. C. Franklin.

A so-called “real estate exchange” was created to allow land speculators to exploit the financial distress of Greenwood property owners. These speculators sought to convert the area into an industrial and wholesale district. O. W. Gurley and other leaders persuaded Black property owners not to sell.

Legal efforts to hold the city financially accountable for the massacre — based on its failure to protect Black citizens — failed. Insurance companies denied claims using riot clauses in their policies. To rebuild, the community had to find the resources themselves — and they did.

Within a year, the Williams Building was complete. Within two more, a new Black Wall Street stood in its place. New buildings lined both sides of Greenwood Avenue, filled with new and returning businesses. By the mid-1920s, Black Wall Street was not only restored — it was stronger than before. Black writer and social worker Jesse O. Thomas observed, “There is probably no other case in the history of America where a group of people…so quickly and so completely rebuilt a ‘new Jerusalem’…with so limited financial resources.”

For the next three decades, Black Wall Street entered a new Golden Age. By the 1940s, an African American business directory listed more than 400 businesses in the Greenwood District.

That prosperity did not last. Beginning in the 1950s and continuing through the 1980s, desegregation, demographic shifts, urban decay, and so-called urban renewal steadily eroded the district.

Today, the same indomitable human spirit that rebuilt the Williams Building in 1922 is rising again — and so is the Greenwood District. It is hoped that this area, and what it stands for, will once again flourish.

For the next stop on the tour, move west just around the corner onto Archer.