Greenwood was known as “Black Wall Street” for its concentration of Black prosperity and accomplishment. 1,000 homes and 200 businesses, churches, theaters, a hospital and more were destroyed. 300 people are believed to have been shot, lynched and burned to death. Only now, after 100 years of silence and erasure, is there a search for their remains. Those bloody 18 hours have echoes in race massacres in every corner of America, and down to today: Birmingham 1963; Charleston 2015; Buffalo last month; Uvalde last week.
Filmmaker Salima Koroma created and directed the documentary Dreamland: the Burning of Black Wall Street, released in 2021 and produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter.
This Tuesday, June 7, Salima Koroma will join Carl Dix and the Revolution Books audience for a special screening and in-person conversation. She will discuss how her film draws together the threads of American white supremacy and genocide: how the original inhabitants of Greenwood were African slaves brought to Oklahoma by Cherokees and other tribes on the forced “Trail of Tears;” how the forced segregation both allowed and contained, and then destroyed Black prosperity. She brings alive the history — featuring authors, activists, forensic anthropologists and descendants of those lost who are forcing the world to “hear the screams of the ancestors,” as they unearth the stories and the graves that bear witness to what was done here by America.
Watch the trailer here.
The film is available for streaming on HBOMax.
Reserve a seat on Eventbrite here (recommended).
[Vaccination proof & masks required]
$5-10 donation requested.
This event is sponsored by the Revolution Books Educational Fund (a 501(c)3 registered in the State of New York).