When You Rebuild a Tree, You Reclaim a Name
Justice for Greenwood just won national recognition for their genealogical work — work that goes beyond family trees.
There are names that were never written down.
Names that were left out of census rolls, birth certificates, history books.
Names buried in ash after May 31, 1921.
The We Are Greenwood project is unburying them.
Justice for Greenwood just won national recognition for their genealogical work — work that goes beyond family trees. It’s about repair. Truth. And giving descendants what white violence tried to erase: a record of who they come from.
Most of us will never see our grandparents’ land deeds or Freedmen Rolls.
We may never know the exact street our people stood on when the bombs fell. But now, over 230 descendants do.
Because someone said: “We’re not finished.”
They’ve recorded oral histories. Tracked down military service files. Paid honorariums to elders for sharing stories. And now they’re building the first-ever permanent public roll of Greenwood survivors — so no one can say we made it up.
This is how you fight erasure.
Not just with protest — but with paper. With memory. With love.
Read the full story here:
Genealogical project ‘We Are Greenwood’ honored for tracing Black descendants
Help us keep telling stories that repair the record.
We don’t answer to ad buyers or politicians. We answer to you.
We’re 100% funded by our readers — and we need you now more than ever.
🟠 $8/month — Keep us reporting
🟡 $80/year — Invest in long-haul truth-telling
🔴 $250/year — Founding Member (Zoom invites, name on the wall, exclusive merch)
#WeAreGreenwood #JusticeForGreenwood #BlackGenealogy #TulsaRaceMassacre #BWST #SupportBlackMedia #BlackWallStreetTimes #SubstackNews
Living not far from Tulsa, everyone that knew about, Black Wall Street was deceased. Only a monument exists. I felt it was very sad time for all , just finding out that men went up 🆙 in planes, from WW1, murdered people, over a young white woman , who supposedly, was bumped by a person of color. It is , bad to hurt or massacre people, because of the color of their skin. I saw that former President Biden hugged , the last survivor known. To get a reparation bill passed, would be unthinkable in our country today. It seems nothing could be done during the current administration. Bigotry will still exist in our country today, no matter what we will do. As I write this , I am tearful. It hurts deeply inside. People do not understand, what it means to be a woman who now has as an understanding of her own ancestry. Most people who are white have African American, blood. Most people who are African American blood have white blood 🩸. This is because of slavery in our own country over two hundred fifty years ago. I love this country of ours despite everything. I believe the only beautiful lady now is 110 ten years old. Too me , personally this is a kind and gracious lady who survived a horrible time in her life. God Bless her for living as a fine example to all of us.