Black Wall Street with Hannibal B. Johnson

Today host Louis Carr speaks with Hannibal B. Johnson, author, attorney, and a professor at Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Louis Carr, host of the Blueprint Connect podcast. The
Blueprint Connect podcast is an extension of the Blueprint Men
something where we have consistently given men a prescription bookly
not just for themselves, but also for their families and
their communities. During these podcasts, we will educate and motivate
our listeners about entrepreneurship, careers, finances, health and wellness, and relationship. Hannibal,

(00:28):
tell me a little bit of something about yourself and
your journey and how you got here to day. I
grew up infortunate, Arkansas, which is about a hundred miles
southeast of Tulsa. I really never had much exposure to Tulsa,
nor did I know anything about Tulsa history. I went

(00:48):
to the University of Arkansas an undergraduate. I had a
double major in economics and sociology, and I decided that
I wanted to enhance my options by going to law school.
That was my philosophy at the time. There's road options options,
absolutely absolutely, and I applied to several law schools and

(01:12):
got accepted several law schools. End up going to Harvard,
which is one of the better decisions I've ever made.
We can talk about why. Um, but I knew that
I wanted to be back in my home region, and
Tulsa is a city, uh within that region, so I
would have considered Tulsa in Kansas City and Dallas, little

(01:34):
Rock places like that. I end up clerking at a
law firm here in Tulsa. Coming back to that law
firm where I worked for several years. Um, my parents
really modeled community service for me. So that's a deeply
ingrained into my psyche, and I became involved with the community.
Was asked at one point to write a regular guest

(01:56):
editorial column for the black newspaper called The Oklahoma Eagle.
At one point, I was assigned to do a story,
a multipart story on the history of the black community
called the Greenwood District, fondly dubbed black Wall Street for
its entrepreneurial economic prowess. I became highly interested in that topic,

(02:16):
found it fascinating, end up writing a book. The first
book which came out in called Black Wall Street From
Riot to Renaissance and tells us historic Greenwood District. And
I've been really in matched in this history ever since
that point. I've written three other books specifically on that topic,
including a book that just came out a few months

(02:37):
ago called Black Wall Street one hundred and American City
grapples with its historical racial trauma. Because I know that
the eyes of the world will be on Tulsa for
the anniversary of the massacre May thirty one, June one,
and the question on the minds of folk and on
the tongues of folk will be what is different about

(02:58):
the Tulsa of one compared to the Tulsa nineteen you want?
And so that book really responds to that critical inquiry
that's gonna be, UM, really surrounding us as we approached
the commemorative anniversary of the massacre. So tell me why
Harvard was one of the best decisions of your life. UM.

(03:22):
It's a robust, vigorous, challenging environment. Number one. Number two,
it brought me out of my little cocoon because I've
never really been anywhere cub three. UM. The black students
on campus when I was there in the mid eighties,
it's the most supportive group of black students I've ever
been around in my life, bar none. UM. And I

(03:45):
think that that is contrary to what people might think
about an environment like Harvard. It's because people. I think
the stereotype is that it's a cutthroat UM compare. It
is competitive, but not cutthroat. I'm much more collegial than
cutthroat from me UM. So it was just a wonderful experience.

(04:05):
And that credential is something that we never taken away
from you, and and it actually does give you that
additional cred when you need it. I mean, it actually
does do that for you. So you've got a law
degree that did you practice law? And what type was
a civil rights law or so? I worked in in
a you know, silk stocking kind of law firm for

(04:31):
several years here in Tulsa. It was an all white
law firm. UM. I did a little bit of litigation
at the beginning and end up doing UM employee benefits
law for a while, which is kind of a an
office kind of dull, routine kind of experience, and I
found it not particularly gratifying ultimately. So I think if

(04:55):
I had, if I had taken another direction at the outside,
if I had gone and done First Amendment law, would
be would be my ideal thing to do right out
of law school. If I've done that, maybe I'd still
be doing that. But I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing.
And I just this is just something that that happened. Um.
I think you have to understand opportunity when it presents itself,

(05:16):
and you have to understand what your passions are and
what fulfills you, and you have to go that way, um,
because you're you're gonna be, if not financially better off,
you're gonna be better off in a holistic sense if
you pursue your pursue something that really you find meaningful
and fulfilling. That's that's that's that's great. So, you know,

(05:38):
is what we call in the year two pandemics, you know,
one called COVID nineteen uh, the other one called the
inequity and inequality of race in America. As we and
everybody in was awakened or at least they say they
were and say they're gonna do. Bet. What is your

(06:00):
personal feeling around race in America over the last twelve months?
Are people really awakened? Do you believe we're really gonna
see change? And and what is that going to look
like four black people in this country? Well, I am

(06:22):
an optimist, I'm a hopeful person. So my my my
wish is that this, this becomes a movement and not
a a moment um. I think the last few months
have been in the last few years, frankly under the
prior administration have I'd use the word revelatory. So what

(06:43):
what I appreciate is knowing what the landscape actually looks like,
as opposed to acting as though it looked like the
way I wanted to be. So I discovered over the
last few years that we are not nearly as an
advance as I had hoped that we were. Because the
last few years, people who harbored um these sort of racist,

(07:07):
xenophobic and other kinds of prejudices felt much more comfortable
coming from behind the sheets and behind the shades and
letting themselves be revealed in a way that's a blessing.
I mean, I sort of it's helpful for me to
know to know them, and they are in many ways
the enemy, and I want to know who the enemy is,

(07:28):
and I want to know how much work it is
that we still must do, because I've been worked. I've
been doing that work for a long time, and I've
always thought that that the work is non ending, Like
I don't foresee a day when racism just goes away magically,
That's not gonna happen. So I see it as a chronic,
chronic challenge that we have to face. And um. The frustration, though,

(07:55):
has been the seeming retroggression in this work, in other words,
thinking that we had had advanced to to a certain
point at having really come up quite short of that.
And part of what we've seen the last few years,
in my analysis, is a function of a backlash against

(08:20):
Barack Obama as a black president. We'll be right back
with more of my interview after this quick break. So
I have a premise, Hannibal, and I'm going to run

(08:41):
it by you. I believe that a lot of the
racism and inequality and injustices in our country are based
on a value proposition because our history hasn't been told consistently,
that people don't really understand, damn the value that black

(09:03):
people bring to this country. Uh, they don't understand our history,
they don't understand our contributions. They just don't know. And
that's for a number of reasons. I believe if they
were educated and made aware of the contributions that we
have made it in this country, it might not be utopia.

(09:26):
But I do believe it would be better. And that's
why I'm so fascinated and interested in people like yourself
who tell that story and tell the value and contributions
that we've created to this country. What do you think
about that? UM, I'll buy that to a certain level.
I think there are some people who, if not ill informed,

(09:50):
or who if better informed, would understand, for example, the
need for remedial measures like affirmative action, like targeted initiatives.
I think there are other people whose value proposition has
has really to do with the sort of binary privilege

(10:11):
or not privileged. I'm privileged, and what's important to me
singularly is holding onto my privilege. And I don't care
what you've contributed to to the country. UM. I like
my position of privilege, and I'm not really ready to
sacrifice any of that. I think there are those people too.
So you've been telling this story about Black Wall Street,

(10:33):
let's say twenty plus used. Have you seen any impact
or change that it has on Oklahoma, Uh, Tulsa or
any place soci in this country hasn't had some impact
in the change of views. Yeah, certainly in Oklahoma. UM.
It's it's rare that that I run into people who

(10:54):
who bristle when I talk about the history of the
Grammar community, either the Black Wall Street part of it
or the massacre part of it. In fact, the reaction
I'm much more likely to get from black people and
white people is why didn't I learn this growing up?
I should know this. This is important stuff. It ought
to be part of the curriculum. That is a is
a relatively standard reaction in a blood red state. I mean,

(11:18):
Oklahoma is as conservative as it gets great. So, as
you prepare to celebrate the hundreds of anniversary, what are
sort of the key things that you want black people
and white people to understand about that moment of time. Well,

(11:43):
first of there are a lot of things. For me,
there are a lot of things. Um one is the
Master is not the be all and end all. It's not.
That's not the story that that's a chapter in a
much larger narrative. And the narrative is about the indomitable
human spirit. It's about people. It's out of community, and
this one event didn't define the community in the way

(12:06):
that people think it did. Uh. Number two is really
part of the legacy that I would like to see
elevated is the Black Wall street mindset. So it's it's
not something that's tied geographically necessarily to Tulsa. It's about
that indomitable spirit of around can economics and entrepreneurship. That

(12:29):
black people can be successful as um economic engines and
entrepreneurs have done it before against really horrific odds. And
if if that is the case, is that, if if
that's the foundation that's been laid for us, If those
are the shoulders up on which we stand, our possibilities

(12:51):
are virtually unlimited, and our our reach is global and
not confined to a narrow, insular, segregated community in a
town called called Tulsa, Oklahoma. I want people to understand
that we ignore the lessons of our history at our

(13:12):
own peril. That if we don't know our history, then
some of these things can be repeated. Let's let's think
about the underlying mindset and philosophy that led to what
happened on January six of this year. It is not
it is not dissimilar from the kind of philosophy and

(13:33):
mindset that that precipitated Tulsa. So give some advice to
the seventeen eighteen year old Hannibal Johnson in what advice
as we sort of come through this COVID nineteen pandemic

(13:59):
and we're all so in the middle of this UH
social injustice movement, what advice would you give to yourself
at this moment of time at eighteen or nineteen years old,
knowing what you know about Black Wall Street and social
economics in this country. Mhm Um, Well, change happens, but

(14:24):
it happens ever so slowly and incrementally. Don't get frustrated,
don't get disheartened. Just continue the struggle. And that's something
that certainly, as a seventeen or eighteen year old, I
don't think I would be able would have been able
to entertain UM because I would be a certainly I
would be frustrated. Understand that you have agency, that you

(14:47):
have the capacity to actually make a meaningful difference in
your world. It's not about UM. It's it's not about
the things that are are done to you necessarily, it's
about your the UH to deal with the challenges that
are that are presented to you. Those are a couple

(15:08):
of things that I think I would think. And the
other thing is UM, follow your passion, because I certainly
did not even know that coming out of law school
because I wasn't following my pass and I was following
what I thought I should be doing coming out of
law school, what what other people were doing? Um, And
if I had followed my pass and I probably would

(15:29):
have gone a different direction. So now I'm gonna ask
you to talk to small business owners because as a
dissent background in history on you understood this story of Tousso, Oklahoma.
It's fascinating about the different types of businesses that were there.

(15:50):
I mean, you know from the transportation business that they had. Uh,
it's just all fascinating. So as small and mid sized
business are being crushed right now, what advice would you
give to them based on the information you knew how
black people and their struggle and still we're successful during

(16:12):
that time two black entrepreneurs at this particular time, there's
a lot to be gained from collaboration. UM, as black
and POC entrepreneurs, UM, we don't always have to be competing.
There are ways that we can uh collaborate and support

(16:35):
one another, patronize with one another, promote one another. That's
something on which I think we could do a much
much better job. Um. The market, the market is not
a market constricted necessarily by race. And so if you
want to be if your goal is to be a

(16:56):
successful entrepreneur, a successful business person, then why would you
limit yourself to a narrow market when there are a
much broader market out there. So just because you're a
black entrepreneur doesn't mean that all your customers and clients
have to be black. What what sense does that make
as a business matter? Um, While while you might have

(17:18):
a product that appeals mostly to to a certain segment
of the population, there are ways to expand those markets.
And I think of something as simple as as soul food,
and we think of soul food as food that black
people like, But the reality is, yeah, black people like it,
but total a whole lot of other people if you
market it properly, it's an experience that you can market absolutely.

(17:44):
So tell us about some of the things that will
be happening this year around this hundredth anniversary. What are
some of the things we can look forward to. We
plan to really host a raft of events around the
actual anniversary, which is May thirty one June one, So
around that period there will be a whole bunch of things.
Is that the is that Memorial Day weekends that the

(18:08):
weekend after sometimes is at the end of the month,
and sometimes it's the week per four. I can't remember
what it is this this year, but yeah, you're right,
it's it's it's around that period. So for a full listing,
folks can go to the website, which is Tulsa one
dot org. So we're having, for example, a hundred day

(18:28):
countdown to the actual anniversary, where there are events that
are in collaboration with other organizations or sanctioned by the
Centennial Commission, but put on by other organizations. One of
the there are a couple of really big things that
we're doing changing the landscape literally. So we are building
Greywood Rising. It's a world class history center on the

(18:51):
corner of Greytwood and Archer. We raised about thirty million
dollars to build this facility. I happen to be the
local curator, work with the with a national organization called
Local Projects out of New York City. Local Projects designed
the nine eleven Museum, they design um the Lynching Memorial

(19:12):
in in Montgomery. They designed stuff really all all over
the world. So we're creating a narrative history center to
tell this entire story of the Greenwood District, starting with
what we call the Greenwood Spirits. First gallery in that
gallery will be a unique UM hologram experience in a barbershop,

(19:37):
and a black barbershop will have these holograms that will
be actually cutting people's hair and interacting and talking about
the Greenwood history. The second gallery is and listen carefully
to the way to the label I give the second
gallery because it's provocative, deliberately systems of anti blackness. So

(19:58):
it's not about it's not about oppression is a more general,
less direct term. But but we wanted this to be
systems of anti blackness because anti blackness is a thing
unto itself. So that includes the material about the massacre
and a and a bunch of other stuff changing fortunes

(20:21):
as the third gallery, that's the ups and downs after
the massacre of the community peaks as a business community
in the early to mid nineteen forties. People don't realize
that either. They think it was wiped off the face
of the earth, never came back, but it did come
back successfully. Then it declined in the late sixties, seventies,
and eighties for a number of reasons, including integration, urban renewal,

(20:43):
UM lack of a systematic mentorship process for these businesses.
By the way, the moniker that was attached this community
of Black Wall Street, I think is um deceiving in
many ways because it wasn't a Black Wall Street is
a Black main Street. These were mom and pop type operations,
small businesses, grocer's restaurants, pool halls, dance halls, movie theaters, havardastiaries, garages, confectioneries,

(21:12):
service providers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, dentists. It wasn't an investment
or financial type of community generally, So Black Main Street
is actually more interesting, I think, an accurate label. And
then the final gallery in Greenwood Rising is the journey
to reconciliation. So what we want ultimately is for our

(21:33):
patrons to use the knowledge gleaned from studying the history
of Tulsa, the Greenwood District and the massacre and leverage
and distill the lessons from that experience to confront current challenges.
So we're gonna ask our patrons to think about, you know,
what about reparations, what about mass incarceration, what about Black

(21:55):
lives matter? What about health care disparities. We're gonna really
be omative and provocative in terms of connecting past and present,
because it's my belief that there's a there's a through
line that past and present. If you connect the dots,
it's very clear that there's there's there's a link of linkage. Well,

(22:16):
you're right in the midst of of of a lot
that's gonna be going on. You're gonna have the remembrance
of George Floyd. Uh, You're gonna have the June tenth
as people sort of galvanized and talk about making that
a national holiday. H You're in the midst of Black
Music Month, which is June. Uh, So there's a lot

(22:39):
of things that's gonna be going on. So uh. One
of the things I hope you're gonna be open to
BT is gonna reach out to you at some point
to sort of talk to you about what you're doing.
Uh as we sort of look to sort of put
together a series of lack of better working term right
now remembering uh because there's just so many things that

(23:03):
has happened in that sort of window of time between
the end of May and all the way to the
end of June. So uh, I hope you'll be open
to that. We'll be right back with more of my
interview after this quick break, The next thing I want

(23:28):
to ask you, Hannibal, is look into the future, and
what do you see uh, for our communities and our
country over the next four years? And I used four
years for obvious reasons. Uh. And uh, what do you
see for our community specifically from an economic and social standpoint, uh,

(23:57):
over the next teen years? Well, I think our fortune
certainly just got a lot wrter. So I'm excited about that.
But you know, we have more challenges to confront. I mean,
right now, there's a real push two and it's it's

(24:18):
almost it's pretty. It's a pretty naked push to disenfranchise
black voters specifically. I mean the idea is, um, y'all one,
y'all shouldn't be winning, so let's figure out some ways
to keep you all from voting. I mean, it's pretty,
it's pretty blatant. It's it's right in your face. So
that's a huge challenge, because you know, the the ability

(24:41):
to participate in the in the democratic process and to
elect people to represent us and get us the kind
of legislation we need to allow us to do the
kinds of things we need to do economically and otherwise.
Is imperative, and that's going to determine what our fortunes
look like for the next ten years. So that's why
it's really so important, and that's why at the forefront

(25:04):
of my thinking right now, some of these political challenges
that we we have to confront are determinative in terms
of the economic opportunity that we have. And so yeah,
I mean I want President Biden and Vice President Harris

(25:25):
to succeed Um. Maybe maybe in four years it will
be President Harris, which will be another milestone to be
really important, and there would be a backlash against that. Um.
So I'm always glass half full, so economically, politically and otherwise.

(25:46):
I think that helps me to stay motivated to do
the things I need to do to get it's where
we need to be. So we asked every guests this
question because it's called way maker. Uh, when you think
back and look back over your life, who were some
of the major waymakers for you as an individual, Because

(26:07):
none of us got to where we are today without
having waymakers. Who were they and what impact did they have?
For the first and foremost, I had to send my
parents and both my parents were deceased, but my father, UM,
when I was a little kid. We as an elementary
school student. I was in mineral Wells, Texas, a really

(26:29):
small town in Texas. My father was president of the
a c P in mineral Wells, Texas. He took me
to see he were eight Humphrey in Night in Dallas.
I'll never forget that. So he his um, concern about um,
his his blackness, and his ability to navigate this world

(26:52):
was really more inspirational in retrospect than I may have
thought it was. When I was growing up. My mother
was active in the church and was always very UM disciplined,
UM community service oriented, and all that stuff rubbed off
on me as well. We had one black doctor in

(27:12):
the town that I grew up in when I was
growing up, and Harry P. McDonald. He since passed, but
he was an inspiration because he was the one black
doctor and I was just impressed with him. Um. There
were people whom I did not know except from Afar,
who were inspirational in other ways. James Baldwin was always
inspirational to me because he had such command of the language,

(27:37):
and he was so in tune with UM, with American racism,
uh down to the really down to its core. So
I was always inspired by him. Dr Martin Luther King,
obviously sort of a national symbol or icon, was inspirational
as well. There were a number of my teachers. Pretty

(27:58):
much all of my teachers, primary and secondary, were inspirational
in different ways. Interestingly, I didn't have a black teacher
in time I came a sophomore in college. Wow. But
so I had mostly white women. But when I when
people ask me about that, I say, you know what

(28:20):
mattered most is yeah, these were white women. But these
these happened to be white women who actually cared about
my getting good, good education, and that mattered more than anything. Yes,
I would have liked to have had some black teachers
UM as role models, whatever, but I'm fortunate in that
I had teachers who actually gave a damn about my education.

(28:45):
That's great. So if you had the opportunity to have
much or dinner with only three people dead or alive, Now,
who would those three people be. Well, James Baldwin for one,

(29:09):
just because I think it would just be an interesting
conversation and we have lots to talk about since he's
been gone, gone but still observing, no doubt, So James
Baldwin would be one. UM I think Nelson Mandela. I
just think that would be such a fascinating opportunity to
talk about his time in prison. UM. The contrast between

(29:32):
being an inmate and big president of a of a country, UM,
in a lifespan, that's just remarkable. So James Baldwin, James Baldwin,
Nelson Mandelman. Uh, I'm not sure why I'm saying this
third person. It's kind of an odd choice. Uh, Lena Horn, No,

(29:55):
it's not. I think Lena I've always been fascinated with
Lena Horn. She had a she had a remarkable life.
She was incredibly talented. UM. She she had the opportunity,
no doubt, to um go in and out of various worlds,
you know, in a very fluid way. And I just

(30:21):
think it would be a great conversation. James Bowing, Nelson
Mandelay and Countable Johnson. That's right. That's the hell of
a dinner. That is. It's a great dinner. Well, sir,
I want to I want to thank you so much

(30:42):
for for your time. I appreciate the conversation. We want
to support you and the hundredth anniversary, and uh, thank you.