Footage of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma #BlackHistoryMonth

[VIDEO] If I had known the success and unfortunate tragedy of Tulsa, Oklahoma's "Black Wall Street" who knows if I would've appreciated knowing this history. It's great to see this wonderful colorized footage of Tulsa's Greenwood community during the course of the 1920s.

And thanks to the late pastor Solomon Sir Jones who shot his film with the then new 16-mm cameras. Most of those films were shot in black & white - although what you see above is colorized. It definitely shows what any Black community anywhere could become. Perhaps an early version of the "Wakanda" we could create.

Anyway while this footage aired on the Smithsonian channel the prints are actually owned by the Yale University Library. And his films - 29 of them over 355 minutes of footage - were selected by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". So aside from what you see above feel free to gain access to these films and see some aspects of Black history come alive.