Known as the “Promised Land,” Tulsa was a boom city in a boom state. The main factor responsible for Tulsa’s rapid growth was oil. In 1904, a toll bridge was opened across the Arkansas River, making the Red Fork oil field more accessible to the labor and business communities. By 1913, Oklahoma produced one-fourth of the nation’s oil. Throughout the 19th century, the city of Tulsa and its black community became larger and more established. Immigration influenced black Tulsa’s social life when blacks born in other states became the majority within the black community. Black Tulsans were “welcomed” to work common labor, domestic, and service jobs all over the city, but they were “not welcome” to shop at white businesses in various parts of Tulsa. This was a main reason why the black business community grew along Greenwood Avenue. The intersection of Greenwood and Archer marks the historical significance of separating Tulsa’s black and white communities.

In the 1890s, the Oklahoma territorial government passed its first Jim Crow laws. Also, within the first twenty years of the 1900s racial violence increased in Oklahoma, including the numerous lync

Some topics in this essay:
Dick Rowland, Tulsa IWW, Red Fork, OW Leonard, Socialist Party, Welfare Committee, Mary Harmon, Black Tulsans, Tulsa World, Klux Klan, black tulsans, black community, race riot, dick rowland, oklahoma socialist party, tulsa iww, ow leonard, supported black, black district, oil field, black white,