black wall street

Black folks have a long history of not only creating dynamic and vibrant businesses, but entire business districts, all while surrounded by the ever-present threat and promise of white domestic terrorism.

The vision of a Black Wall Street in Boston embodies more than just a shopping district. It embodies a movement toward economic empowerment, community unity, and a reduction of the race wealth gap.

In a July news conference announcing his new contract with the Boston Celtics, NBA All-Star Jaylen Brown spoke about creating a Black Wall Street in Boston to fight the area’s wealth disparities. He recognizes that Boston lacks what many other cities have managed to develop.

More than 100 years later, Viola Fletcher can still vividly remember the smell of her thriving neighborhood — dubbed America’s “Black Wall Street” — burning.

Recent attention on the Tulsa massacre included a visit this week by President Joe Biden, Congressional hearings on reparations to the victims and their families, nationally covered commemoration ceremonies and a broader reckoning of the incident in the context of a national conversation about narrowing the racial wealth gap.

The brutal treatment of the Native Americans established that whites could not be expected to be more cordial to blacks. Perhaps inhumanity to outsiders is a consistent element of their culture