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, 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. With his 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 then targeted by the growing, well-armed white mob.

With the sound of airplanes overhead and the hail of bullets increasing, 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 moniker “Williams Building” is a powerful testament to the spirit of the Greenwood District. Boldly engraved there is the year when its reconstruction was completed: 1922. The new Williams Building is a monument to the spirit and resolve with which Black Wall Street came roaring back.

It was a restoration occasioned by the blood, sweat, and tears of a resilient people. The City of Tulsa did not finance the rebuilding as part of some reparation and redress effort. Civic leaders made little attempt to restore that which was unjustly taken. Black Tulsans rebuilt the Greenwood District largely on their own, in the face of continuing efforts to erase the Greenwood District from memory.

Though the killing, looting, and burning had stopped, Black Tulsans would learn rather quickly that the fight was far from over.

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

A so-called “real estate exchange” was established to help land speculators take advantage of the financial distress of Greenwood District property owners. Speculators sought to convert the area into an industrial and wholesale district. O. W. Gurley and other leaders convinced 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 — fell flat. Insurance companies denied claims based on riot clauses in policies. To rebuild, community members had to find the resources themselves. That's exactly what they did.

Within a year, the Williams Building was complete. Within two more, a completely new Black Wall Street stood. New structures lined both sides of the Avenue, each filled with new or returning enterprises. By the mid-1920s, Black Wall Street was not back — it was better. 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 would reach a new Golden Age. By the 1940s, an African American commerce directory listed over 400 businesses in the Greenwood District.

The prosperity did not last. Starting in the 1950s and continuing into the 1980s, many factors contributed to the slow decline of the area. Desegregation, demographic shifts, urban decay, and so-called urban renewal chipped away at what made the Greenwood District so remarkable.

Today, the indomitable human spirit that restored the Williams Building in 1922 is rising again — and so is the Greenwood District. We hope that you will join the many that are determined to see this area and what it stands for, flourish once again.