Harold M. Anderson Black Wall Street Film Collection

Filmed between 1948 and 1952, the Harold M. Anderson Black Wall Street Film Collection documents the daily life of Anderson's fellow African American residents in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, colloquially known as Black Wall Street.

In 1921, mobs of white Tulsa residents brutally attacked the Black community of Greenwood in one of the deadliest racial massacres in U.S. history. Hundreds of Black Tulsans were killed and virtually every structure in the district was destroyed in what became known as the Tulsa Race Massacre. Reverend Harold Mose Anderson was only a year old when the massacre occurred. His films from the mid-1900s document how, despite the devastation and death, many Black Tulsans returned to Greenwood and rebuilt their community, carrying the memory of the massacre with them.

Anderson was a successful businessman who managed and then owned two neighborhood movie theaters, a skating rink, bowling alley, and shopping strip, as well as other enterprises. He also brought the Golden Gloves boxing tournament to the area, making it accessible to Black fans. Anderson felt that it was critical that Greenwood sustain independent Black-owned businesses to ensure that residents’ dollars would stay in the community and guarantee its vibrancy.

Because of Anderson's relationship with the community, Greenwood's Black residents welcomed him—and his 16mm motion picture camera—into their work, social, and religious lives. His silent films include footage of many of Greenwood's businesses in the mid-1900s: barber shops, bakeries, taxi companies, jewelers, and other stores. Anderson also filmed the district's residents in church, at school, participating in parades, and walking through the city's streets. Anderson's films also include footage of Richard and Pat Nixon as they campaigned in Oklahoma.

This copy of Harold M. Anderson Black Wall Street Film Collection was donated to the Archives Center at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History by Patricia Sanders on behalf of the heirs of Harold M. Anderson in 2009. The collection was processed by audiovisual archivist Wendy Shay in 2010.

Watch a short trailer for the film:    • What did Tulsa’s Greenwood District look l...  

See the film's finding aid: https://sova.si.edu/record/NMAH.AC.1197

Learn more about the film on the museum's blog: https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/b...

#Tulsa100
#RememberTulsa