Right: J.B. Stradford (Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, University of Tulsa)

The riot "just shows you how irrelevant, not only from the view of Oklahoma but that of the nation as a whole, black life was. It was seen as expendable," says Rosa.

After the riot, black Tulsans, who were living in tents and forced to wear green identification tags in order to work downtown, still managed to turn the tragedy into triumph. Without state help, they rebuilt Greenwood, and by 1942 the community had more than 240 black-owned businesses.

Justice Denied

In subsequent decades, however, the community declined as the pioneers of Greenwood died and many of their descendants moved away. The district struggled most critically during the 1960s as Tulsa became more integrated, which led to a decline in the Greenwood population and also undermined many of the local black family-run businesses. In the 1970s, a large segment of Greenwood was demolished to make way for an interstate highway that became a main connector for the downtown area.

An Oklahoma state commission conducted an investigation of the riot from 1997 to 2001, questioning survivors about that day back in 1921. The commission recommended specific reparations to the community, the living survivors and their descendants.

The state did subsequently enact a law in June 2001 that provided about 300 scholarships for descendants, developed a memorial and pushed for development in Greenwood -- but the law fell far short of what the commission had recommended. The remaining survivors have continued to fight for further restitution, which is addressed in the 2008 documentary Before They Die!

For some descendants, the demise of such a prosperous business community highlights the struggles that black America continues to face today. "The difference is that our society now is desegregated much more, and the challenge now is for our businesses to do successful business with a majority of firms," says John Rogers Jr., the founder of Chicago-based Ariel Investments, LLC -- and the great-grandson of J.B. Stradford. "There's still a remnant of historical discrimination."

Monée Fields-White is a Chicago-based writer who covers a wide array of topics, including business and economic news.