The Greenwood Rising Black Wall St. History Center is a place for visitors to
explore the history of Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District and connect to the spirit of its Black citizens through an immersive journey that uses projection mapping, holographic effect, and environmental media.
The experience brings to life the memories of the past and the visions of success for the future and catalyzes important dialogue around racial reconciliation and restorative justice.
The history of Black Wall St., the vibrant community and culture that existed in Greenwood before the 1921 massacre, that terrible event itself, and the aftermath are the centerpiece of an exhibition that moves on to provide a broader context extending well beyond those events. I was struck by a stark photo of 40,000 Ku Klux Klan members in white robes and pointy hats marching up Pennsylvania Avenue on August 8, 1925. Banners bore slogans such as “KEEP KONGRESS KLEAN.” These klowns are still among us, sometimes but not always keeping a lower profile than in their heyday in the 1920s.
Philip Bump, The day the Ku Klux Klan took over Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington Post, May 6, 2016 (good photos)
Frederic D. Schwarz, The Klan on Parade, American Heritage, July/August 2000
Pursuit of racial reconciliation and restorative justice is a recurrent theme of the center’s exhibits. “Restorative justice,” like “reparations,” can be a charged term. Here it is used in its best sense, unflinching, hopeful without illusion, devoid of needlessly provocative rhetoric. The Greenwood Rising Black Wall St. History Center is a treasure. I recommend a visit if you are ever in Tulsa.
I came upon Bob Dylan when I was fifteen or thereabouts. He was from the start a major influence when I first had the temerity to think of myself as a poet and a gateway to the tradition I claim as mine, a European avant-garde stream running from Baudelaire up through Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Mayakovsky, and the French Surrealists in Paris in the 1920s, the American Beats, then doubling back to the English Romantics, primarily the second wave, Shelley, Byron, Keats, coupled with Blake, Coleridge only for “Kubla Khan,” Wordsworth not so much until a couple of decades later.
The Bob Dylan Center did not disappoint. Headsets enable the intrepid visitor to listen to songs while strolling through the almost overwhelming exhibition that includes typed and handwritten drafts of songs, drawings, paintings, a wonderful collection of photographs, many familiar, quite a few new to me. Photos of Dylan and James Baldwin at the National Emergency Civil Liberties Union’s annual Bill of Rights dinner where Dylan was presented the 1963 Tom Paine Award capture something of the early sixties folk, protest, civil rights movement zeitgeist.
Concert, interview, and personal footage—young Dylan tooling around on his motorcycle, for instance—cycles through on screens throughout the center. Photos document the array of personas adopted through a career that is not done yet, scruffy up and coming young folksinger and writer in Greenwich Village circa 1961, midsixties countercultural icon, electric poet, Rimbaudian visionary seer, Blood on the Tracks, Rolling Thunder Revue, Renaldo and Clara, and improbably on into the brief Christian period, primarily mid 1979 to the end of 1980, and the succession of incarnations that followed. Reinventing himself is one way to look at it. Maybe it was more a fierce instinct to resist being pigeonholed or pinned down.
Dylan truly is something of a national treasure, evidenced by recognition with honorary doctorates of music from Princeton University in 1970 and the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2004; a Kennedy Center Honor recognizing the excellence of his contribution to American culture, presented by President Clinton in 1997; the Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by President Obama in 2012; and the Nobel Prize for Literature 2016.
This brief account can only hope to give a taste of the center’s richness. One visit is not enough. It will be on the agenda again next time in Tulsas.
The plan was to eat dinner at former NBA star Kevin Johnson’s soul food restaurant Fixins Tulsa just down the way from the Dylan Center in the Tulsa Arts District, The arts district is also home to the Woody Guthrie Center, ONEOK Field, home to the Tulsa Drillers minor league baseball team, and numerous galleries, museums, parks, restaurants, clubs, and other businesses in the vibrant heart of downtown Tulsa. The baseball field is on the east edge in the Greenwood Distsrict. We parked a block up from the Greenwood Rising History Center and walked everywhere from there. Pretty cool.
Fixins was hopping. People milled around outside waiting for a table. The music was loud. Annoyingly so at this stage of my dubious maturity. Trani and Candace might have persevered had I not voiced my preference, tactfully I hope, for a quiter place, though willing to stick it out if their hearts were set on Fixins. Candace whipped out her phone and scored a reservation at Duet, a jazz restaurant and bar two blocks away, and we were off.
We hit Duet a tad early for the jazz crowd after closing down the Dylan Center at 6. Only a few tables in the small dining room were occupied. From our table we had a view of the band setting up for the evening performance on the patio. The lentil bolognese with pasta was quite tasty, although on the fringe of my toleration for pepper, and went well with a beer Trani recommended. The quiet dinner made for a nice break after near sensory and intellectual overload at the two centers before moving on to something completely different.
Tulsa Tough is a world-class three-day cycling festival featuring crit races and great fun for hardcore amateurs, casual enthusiasts, and spectating throngs.
Criteriums, also known as “crits”…speed through downtown streets like getaway cars, taking tight turns at 30mph with fields of hundred racers or more. The biggest events are late at night, under stadium lights enveloped by spectators with raucous MCs and light shows. The experience is delightfully manic. (Steve M. Cullen, The Ultimate Guide to Summer Crits, Bicycling, June 3, 2019)
The races are exciting, almost spectacular, in brief increments as the peloton thunders around the turn and down the straightway before soon disappearing around the next turn. Though they come around again in fairly short order, there are intervals when not much happens. Trani and Candace seemed to greet friends every few steps as we wandered along the course. For spectators this is as much part of the festivity as the race itself, sort of a big outdoor party.
We did the centers and Tulsa Tough on Friday. Yesterday was a down day hanging around the house, walking Holly the D-O-G, hacking out this stuff, and takeout Indian from India Palace. Last night Trani and Candace headed downtown for another round of bike races while I stayed home and watched Tár with Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, and Nina Hoss. The film is every bit as good as my friends Alissa and Sylvia said. I give it the maximum number of thumbs up. Blanchett is exceptional.
Memo from the Editorial Desk to remedy omissions in Livin’ on Tulsa Time: Celebration. The shoutout section has to include two super shoe reps who were on hand to support the event: Emily with On and Richard at Diadora, both based in Austin if I have that right. I have no experience with either shoe line. They look to be worth checking out. It turns out, quelle coincidence, that On is a Swiss company headquartered in Zurich with a US office in Portland’s Pearl District. I believe it was Emily who told me she is a big fan of Willamette Valley pinot noirs (someone I met Thursday night told me that). I enjoyed chatting with her and Richard. Good people.
I also should have noted that one of the best things about the celebration and Trani’s annual Christmas parties is how much fun he has with the raffle giveaways, Tulsa Runner trivia contests, and just hanging out while hosting people he sells shoes to and invites to run with him.
Keep the faith.
Stand with Ukraine.
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Good to see you David. Glad you enjoyed your trip to T Town.