ReMix Ideas’ Black Ownership Movement Bus Tour heads to Black Wall Street

By The Arkansas Delta Informer Staff – Aug. 26, 2024 – ReMix Ideas will kick off its third Black Ownership Movement bus tour on Sept. 15, 2024, with a visit to Tulsa, Okla.’s historic Greenwood District, known as America’s original “Black Wall Street.”

“We will visit the historic Black Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood, aka Black Wall Street, to engage, exchange ideas, and forge connections with Black-owned businesses, city leaders, entrepreneur support organizations, and key stakeholders,” said ReMix Ideas CEO and Founder Benito Lubazibwa.

The Tulsa race massacre, also known as the Tulsa race riot or Black Wall Street massacre, was a two-day-long white supremacist terrorist massacre that took place between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deputies and armed by city government officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the prosperous Greenwood District in Tulsa, located on the banks of the Arkansas River.

The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. The attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood—at the time, one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, colloquially known as “Black Wall Street.”

More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals, and as many as 6,000 black residents of Tulsa were interned in large facilities, many of them for several days. The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics only officially recorded 36 dead, while the 2001 Tulsa Reparations Coalition examination of events identified 39 dead, 26 black and 13 white, based on contemporary autopsy reports, death certificates, and other records. The commission gave several estimates ranging from 75 to 300 dead.

The massacre began during Memorial Day weekend after 19-year-old Dick Rowland, a black shoeshiner, was accused of assaulting Sarah Page, a white 21-year-old elevator operator in the nearby Drexel Building.

The upcoming three-day bus tour will end in Pine Bluff with the 1899 Project Pitch Competition, where $10,000 will be invested in the winner. The 1899 Project draws inspiration from the nation’s case study of Black wealth in the US, completed by sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois in 1899. This landmark research revealed that Pine Bluff had the fourth-highest rate of Black wealth in the US at the turn of the 20th century.

With the goals of building new relationships, fostering collaboration and mobilizing resources, the ReMix’s Black Ownership Movement tours are focused on witnessing, listening, learning and exchanging ideas with Black-Owned businesses, city leaders, entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) and key stakeholders from each locale. The previous tours have included trips to the Arkansas Delta and Northwest Arkansas.

The upcoming tour is supported by strategic partners and key sponsors, including U.S. Bank, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, and the Pine Bluff Black Chamber of Commerce. Below is the schedule for the visit to Black Wall Street.

Sunday, Sept. 15: – Little Rock to Tulsa, Okla.

Monday, Sept. 15: – Tulsa, Okla.

Tuesday, Sept. 15: – Tulsa to Pine Bluff.