The views and opinions of the hosts and guests of this program are of their own and not a reflection of Milwaukee black media or 101 7 the truth Good afternoon Milwaukee.
You're tuned in to the lunch break on 101 7 the truth where everything is an option on the menu
and one thing about me I'm a tough cookie, but I know what I can't do and I'm not I'm not
Hoppa, who this man?
Yeah, I wasn't doing it.
So I was like, I'm not paying $1,000 to sleep on somebody couch.
Grab your lunch, hit send on that email, and get ready for the best hour of your day.
My way of thinking is that the parents do all they can.
But once the kids leave off that door, whatever have you, they make their own decisions.
I don't care if you nine or 99, it's still your decision about the situations that you get involved yourself in.
We talking about tax paying citizens.
Look into their taxes.
Look into this.
We talking about elected officials doing backdoor deals and somehow she still wanna blame immigrants.
That's what we talking about right now.
We following the money and you still wanna blame black people and immigrants and welfare and all of these things for policies and backdoor deals that put poor people in worse position.
Live from the
American Family Insurance Studio at the Third Street Market Hall.
Like you said, they want to pat their pockets, but they need a reason to push things through.
And I guess the low-hanging fruit is, OK, well, this is a problem, right?
Y'all want to fix the problem, and they just hope nobody looks into it like, wait, when did food trucks become an
issue?
Here are your hosts, Ray Nitty and maybe
Shannon.
What it do?
What it do?
What it do?
It's your boy Ray Nitty and my home girl, Mabye Shadden.
This is the lunch break on the award-winning 10170 Truth, man.
Shadden, how you feeling?
Man, feeling great.
It's Friday, Ray.
Happy Friday.
Friday.
The scammers is out.
Shout out to the people waving at us in the market hall.
Hey, sing it, Shadden.
Hey, doner bag.
Hey, spin that.
Spin that.
Shouts out to the scamming politicians getting in that donor bag.
Spin that.
Man.
Shannon.
How you doing today?
How you doing today, Ray?
You in a good mood.
I'm in a great mood.
I'm in a way better mood now than a liar and cheater and deceivers out of the race.
I think it should be a jailable
offense.
Right.
And I don't laugh back in this state, so I'm taking my endorsements, my votes, my black folks.
I mean, if they get convicted
of the fraud.
So they are trying to pursue something about fraud on
them?
I mean, they might as well.
Might as well, right?
She gonna bring young Miami out and everybody gonna be okay.
Spin
that.
I'm just a city girl.
Shout out to not a city girl.
I don't even know if she in the chat, but shout out to not a city girl.
Man, we had a great day yesterday, Shannon.
We had a great day yesterday.
We interviewed Goughry.
What did you think about that?
Man, that was dope.
That interview was dope.
I love that he keeps it.
He keeps it real and keeps it funny.
And when he did that impression, the Donald Trump impression, we need that clip.
We need that clip because I was crying, laughing over here.
Zach was already working on getting that clipped up for us.
Really?
He was already on that this morning.
He was already.
That had me on the floor.
So I was super excited to have him one and he showed he show made your love to us in the city Make sure y'all check out his it stand up here all weekend, right Friday, Saturday and Sunday
shots out the Brian John who sent the text in Joe cheap off
Nothing
nothing constructive Just some real cheap some real cheap shots.
I you know who's not cheap
Sarah Rodriguez is not cheap.
She's not cheap at all.
She's very expensive.
But, uh, yeah, man, we had a dope show yesterday.
We talked about the governor's race some more.
We talked about the importance of protecting our vote.
We also talked about, uh, black buying power as well.
And we learned that, you know, what was at 1.1.6 trillion.
In black buying power, Shannon, we actually have, no, 1.5, it grew to 1.6 million in buying power.
So clap it up for the black community for that.
But while we clapping it up for that, we gotta make sure that we, you know, we being wise with those dollars.
You know what I'm saying?
We talk about circulating the black dollar.
And, you know, today...
Later on today in the show, we do have my nephew Daryl Mercer Jr.
who works for Justice for Greenwood down in Tulsa in Greenwood.
You know, they work with if you're familiar with Black Wall Street, right?
It was a neighborhood in Tulsa, Greenwood, Tulsa.
And they had doctors, lawyers, pharmacies, grocery stores.
Everything that we needed, right?
Plenty of
a
thriving black community that was destroyed in the Tulsa riots.
They burnt it down.
A mob, a mob of people turned and burnt it down in 16 hours.
So my nephew, who works with Justice for Greenwood, he will be joining us live.
And then he'll be telling us about update on what things look like out there.
What is it?
What does Greenwood and Black Wall Street looks like today?
What is the fight looking like today?
What are they still fighting for to my knowledge?
There's only one survivor from those Those are Black Wall Street white riots and massacre that took on and they're still trying to work on get them justice and then also in this hour we're gonna go take a little deeper dive and
Dr. Claude Andersen's Power Nomics books, right?
It's talking about group economics and things that add in the spirit of Greenwood and Black Wall Street and so forth.
And as we're embarking on some very interesting times in this governor's race, I think Power Nomics and our community uniting together is extremely important, despite who you believe in in the race, right?
Despite who you believe in.
I think it's important that
We're asking of these people what are their plans for the black community because I stand by we know that Milwaukee is the worst place to raise black kids, so I don't think we're wrong for asking
elected officials that want our community support to have a plan for us and not just give me the excuse that, oh, it's 77% white because that means you're just ignoring everybody else.
So we're gonna be talking about some things.
Shannon, Shannon, how you feeling?
Talk to me.
Man, I'm feeling great.
I'm excited to interview Neph Udero.
Yeah, get it right.
Neph Udero.
We call him DJ.
Call them DJ back.
Okay, I'm excited to interview a DJ and hear more about this buying power and what we can do in our community to, you know, build us up.
I'm also excited to hear what they have going on.
It's kind of sad that there's only one survivor left and they're still fighting, but, you know,
still working to fight.
Absolutely.
And then, you know what, Shannon, did you tell the people where they could find us?
I don't think I actually did tell the people where they could find us today.
I did
not
do that.
We got straight to the scammer.
We hopped right on the scammer.
Right to the meat and potatoes.
We'll listen up, y'all.
Make
sure you guys
follow us on Facebook at the lunch break.
Head over there.
Join the conversation.
Like, comment, subscribe.
Also, head over to YouTube.
If you're listening and you're about to be out of the car, go over to YouTube.
We're there to.
We're live, actually.
And you can watch us live on YouTube, the lunch.
Nope, it ain't the lunch break.
It's one on one seven the truth on YouTube, but the lunch break is live there So make sure you also follow Ray nitty at Ray nitty on all platforms and follow me Maybe Shannon at maybe Shannon on all platforms and call or text in if you're afraid to call I got a lot of people that be like I don't want to I don't want to call in on the radio I'm nervous you can text us your views and opinions at 833-212-1017 again that number is 833-212
1017 man.
Show the conversation.
Look at the connection strong today.
Why?
Connection that is vitamins today.
Shouts out to the chat.
One a freedom from fear.
Oh, they in here and Mr. Owen.
Yeah.
Shouts out.
We got some people.
Gap Band, Greenwood, Archer & Pines, y'all saw the day in the chat today, man.
Please like and share, like Shannon said.
Share the YouTube live.
If you're in here with us, it's nine of y'all, please.
So we should have nine likes.
Hit that like button.
Hit this 10 of us now.
Hit that like button.
Hit that
like button and share button.
Don't go anywhere.
We'll be right back.
And we got my nephew, Darren Mercer Jr.
on the phone.
We'll be getting into Black Wall Street.
And then later on in the show, we'll be talking about a couple more things.
Don't go anywhere.
This is the lunch break.
No no no!
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Welcome back, welcome back.
You are now punched in on your lunch break.
Your favorite people to have lunch with.
Ray Nitty and maybe Shannon man, live on the award winning one-on-one, seven to truth.
It's kind of just kind of just flowing now, huh?
It's like, look, soon as I, just cause I said that I'm going to have a snafu.
Excuse me, don't start that again, throat.
But Shannon,
How you feeling man?
We got my nephew gonna be joining us soon and like oh he's already on it.
DJ why you saying my boy?
Yeah we got
my
nephew.
Shout out to all the generals out there.
You don't have to put out there.
Oh my god.
Oh something happened.
You
know, they say the youth these days are way more disrespectful.
They say that the youth have got no respect for their elders.
This is my nephew talking reckless to me.
Like, he didn't even say good morning to our truth listeners first.
You want to say what's up to the generals first?
What type
are
you?
What type are you?
The
listeners come after the generals, huh?
You know what I will say?
Ironically enough, it is class of 06.
Rufus King and Riverside's class of 06 reunion this weekend.
So you know, we like to go tear Rufus King reunions up.
We pull up in.
Do ya?
No, not really.
But we did pull up the one, though, where they was trying to have a little Rufus King moment.
And you know, the Tigers took over because that's what we do.
That's
all I did was talk about Rufus King and then the Riverside Tigers.
It's gotta come into our house.
Like, all I said was anything about Rufus King.
I'd say anything about Riverside.
Notice you said
come into our house.
That's what you said.
All right?
Yeah.
Our
house.
Riverside.
Hey house.
It's all good, y'all.
We ain't gonna, we ain't gonna do this because you know, you know, you know what,
let's
stay
focused.
That's not
why we're here today.
Exactly, I was just gonna say let's stay focused.
That's not why we're here today.
Truth listeners, if you are just joining us, if you are just joining us, we have my nephew, Daryl Mercer Jr.
I know he has DJ.
He's my sister's firstborn, you know, and super proud of him.
He's extremely intelligent.
He checks me on my spelling and grammar and punctuations and the group chat and it pisses me off.
We
have to work together.
We have to hold each other accountable.
If we don't hold each other accountable, then when we go outside of our family, outside of our community, they may look at us weird.
So, you know, we have to do it within our community.
We got to hold each other accountable.
And that's why I love you,
bro.
Yeah, 100%.
We're going to get looked at weird regardless, though.
Whether you can spell it right or not.
Because look at what they did to Crowley.
But anyway, that's another topic.
to the judge calling me right now.
I can't even, there's a lot going on in the city.
I can't even take the call.
Shout out to the judge calling.
But today we are talking about Greenwood, Black Wall Street in Tulsa.
DJ, if you can, before we get into the questions, right?
I know you work for Justice with Greenwood, which we'll get into.
But with you being the educated historian that you are, could you please give our listeners a brief history of Greenwood and Justice for Greenwood?
Actually, not Justice for Greenwood yet, but give us a quick rundown of the story of Black Wall Street.
First floor.
So this year is a very special year for Greenwood because it is the 120th
anniversary of the founding of Greenwood.
It was started in 1906 with a vision of O.W.
Gurley.
He bought 40 acres and at that time you know historically we were in segregation and he was like you know what we need to buy our own land and so he bought 40 acres and he
sold property to black people, essentially, because that's what we had to do.
And so we're in 2026 now, and 120 years after the founding of Greenwood, he was a visionary in a time where we needed visionaries, but not only visionaries, we also needed workers and people who put the works needed to.
And so that's what he did.
He talked about and what people say about like, pull yourself up from your bootstraps.
He did that for our community and he, I believe he's from Kansas or wasn't Kansas and came down to Oklahoma, which was then Indian territory.
And he sold and built Greenwood to what it was in the early 1900s, the 1920s.
And then
what you may or may not know is in 1921, May 31st, 1921, allegedly a shoe shine boy named Dick Rowland, allegedly either assaulted, whistled, tripped into an elevator, assaulted a woman, a white woman named Sarah Page, and she screams,
And the city of Tulsa and basically white citizens, they thought that a black man assaulted a white woman.
And so they rounded up there.
Basically, they went and got their pitchforks, guns, et cetera, and decided to arrest Dick Rowland.
They took him.
They arrested him.
And from there, it's a lot of black versus white.
where the Greenwood community was like, we got to get to grow in.
In the white community, they were like, we got to basically lynch him because he assaulted this white woman.
And that was the catalyst to burn, loot, and pillage Greenwood.
And over a 16 hour period, they basically raised Greenwood to the ground.
They went into people's homes, steal.
their private possessions, they were planes flying over, bombing them.
Yeah, it was very wild and disheartening tale of what happens when rage and white rage specifically is left unchecked and is emboldened and given power.
And unfortunately,
Greenwood looks a lot different today because of that incident and Tulsa looks a lot different, not even just Greenwood, but Tulsa looks a lot different today because of what happened on the night and morning night of May 31st, 1921, and June 1st, and the morning of June 1st, 1921.
Yeah, so appreciate that brief history, brief, brief history, right?
So just resetting.
Real quick, you all, we are talking with Daryl Mercer, Jr., who works for Justice for Greenwood.
And we're talking about Black Wall Street, the historical Black Wall Street in Oklahoma that was destroyed by white thugs and and really reshaped what that community and Tulsa, Oklahoma looks like.
I'm not mistaken.
It was about.
10,000 residents and over a thousand black-owned businesses at the time, if I'm not mistaken, black banks, black doctors, dentists, all types of the things that we need, grocery stores, everything that we needed.
Everything that we needed, it was self-sustaining.
Multiple schools, multiple businesses, multiple banks, hotels, Stratford Hotel.
I know some of the descendants of JB Stratford, great people.
They would be the Hilton's today.
We have the Tulsa Star, which was led by AJ Smitherman.
They would probably be like the New York Times or the... Yeah, it's just... We also had some confectionary peoples as well, who they would be like the Morris family, you know, who created like M&Ms.
And so this was the beginning of what the billionaire status is today.
Got it.
Go ahead.
So we got a few questions for you, right?
So I'm going to talk about your work with Justice
for
Greenwood, right?
What does your day-to-day work with Justice for Greenwood actually look like walk us through what the organization actually does?
So we as an organization, we give you a little history about what we do.
We are a relatively young organization, even though the work we do is span the century.
We started April 1st, 2020.
So in the middle of the pandemic, that was when we were founded.
And since then, we have done amazing work.
have given over 300,000 to each of the survivors.
At the time, we had three survivors.
We had a man named Hughes Van Ellis, his sister, Viola Fletcher, who unfortunately just passed away in November of 2025.
And we only have one more survivor, Mother Lessie Benny Phil Randall.
She is 111 currently.
And through private donations and through our connections, we were able to give them direct compensation and to date that is the most that I know that has been given to indirect compensation to survivors.
We also had a lawsuit, a public nuisance lawsuit against the city of Tulsa and several other organizations for their role, not only in 1921, but also in the 1950s and the 1960s through redlining, because after 1921, Greenwood did rebuild, but it didn't grow to, and it didn't grow to its pre-1921 stature, but it did rebuild.
And then what happened is through redlining,
basically Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Tulsa Urban Renewal Authority, they basically redlined Greenwood to basically legally destroy it again.
And this is not just a Tulsa problem.
This happened nationwide with redlining.
And they put a highway directly through Greenwood to create that physical infrastructure and barriers to destroy it again.
So like I've heard stories of a person closing their business.
on a Thursday night and they go there Friday morning and their business is raised to the ground legally.
So we did a lawsuit against the City of Tulsa and several organizations for their role.
We took that to the City of Tulsa course.
Unfortunately, it got dismissed.
We took it to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which is the highest Supreme Court in the state.
And unfortunately, it got dismissed there as well.
We're the only repairatory justice lawsuit that got that high.
Unfortunately, it did not go in our way.
So what we do now is we have a different lawsuit that isn't related to reparations, but we also work to get descendants of Creek Freedmen back into Muskogee Creek Nation.
which isn't reparations related, but they are part of the founding of Greenwood.
So that's why we do that.
That's a whole different aspect.
We do the wealth protection program for our descendants, where we do wills and estate plans for our descendants and people who are connected to surviving entities.
So basically there were churches that were
uh, alive around or had congregants around 1921 and they were impacted by the Tulsa race massacre.
So we are doing wealth protection for them.
We also do oral histories for our descendants to preserve their stories and make sure that their family stories are told because what we don't want is the entity, the City of Tulsa to, um, we don't want the City of Tulsa to
benefit from the atrocity that they created.
That makes sense.
Where now that there's tourism dollars coming in, they're like, oh yes, Tulsa Race Massacre and how can we monetize it without compensating those and those families who have been directly impacted.
So my day-to-day looks like making connections, talking to descendants, working with community organizations, going on radio shows like this and just telling the truth from
the people's perspective and getting that out there.
That that's what I do as community outreach.
Got
it.
So so after Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the reparations lawsuit in 2024, what does justice for Greenwood fight for now?
What does justice look like at this point?
So before before you answer that, we got to go pay some bills real quick.
And when you come back, we'll get into that question.
I didn't check what time he was, Shannon.
So we'll get back into that question.
We're talking with Darren Mercer.
live from Justice for Greenwood.
We're talking about Black Wall Street, y'all.
Don't go anywhere.
This is Ray Nitty and maybe Shannon on the lunch break.
What up, y'all?
What up, y'all?
Welcome back.
Welcome back.
This is the lunch break with maybe Shannon and Ray Nitty.
We live with my nephew, Daryl Mercer Jr.
Working with Justice for Greenwood.
We're talking about Black Wall Street, the history of it, where it stands today, how he got involved with the work.
And, you know, Shannon, coming with the questions, man.
Shannon, you had a question before we went right to break.
Could you re-react that question for our listeners that's just joining us?
Of course.
So the question was after Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the reparations lawsuit in 2024, what does justice for Greenwood fight for now?
And what does justice look like at this point?
Justice looks the same as what it was, what we want in 1921.
We wanted compensation to those.
directly impacted by the massacre.
So we only have one survivor left.
Mother of Nancy Benningfield Randall.
She is 111 years old.
I don't know.
Pop it up for that.
Hold on
one second.
111 years old.
Man, that woman's seen some things.
For sure.
For context, when she was born, women couldn't vote.
She's so she's seen a lot change in her lifetime.
She's lived through two pandemics.
the Spanish flu, I think in our early 1920s, she lived through the Tulsa Race Massacre and then the pandemic we just had.
So direct conversation to her for sure.
And then also repairing those who have been impacted.
Like we want scholarships for descendants.
We want no interest to low interest business loans.
We want low to no interest house loans.
so that those impacted by the massacre can benefit from, like, because their family's legacy was taken away.
So those are some of the things that we are fighting for.
We are also working to get descendants of Creek Freedmen back into Muskogee Creek Nation because they were kicked out of their own nation in 19, I want to say, 76, someplace around there, 1970s, after they were fully fledged members of...
Muskogee Creek Nation from the abolition of slavery around 1865.
And so we're working to get them back in.
We actually did a lawsuit within Muskogee Creek Nation Supreme Court and Muskogee Creek Nation Court to get them back in.
And their court system said that they need to let them back in.
And we are working on getting them back in because we're at a standstill there.
So those are some of the things that we are fighting for still.
We are also working and we are supporting the Greenwood Trust and Mayor Nichols' road to repair.
Shout out to Mayor Monroe Nichols.
He's the first black mayor in the history of Tulsa and he has proposed a 105 million private trust.
So we are supporting that.
We were able to give 25,000 to that trust and we are supporting that as well.
So that's what we are some of the things that we are working with and fighting for today.
To repair the harm of the Tulsa race massacre because people are still harmed by it.
Man, I told you all this boy thorough.
He literally Shannon, you see he answered two of the we got three.
We had like four questions left.
He answered three of them in one swoop.
We were going to ask you about Mother Randall.
because she is the last survivor.
You said she's 111 years old?
Yes,
sir, 111.
Yes.
That is beautiful.
And you also spoke to what does the organization need people outside of Tulsa and people right here in Milwaukee to understand you already hit that.
We were going to ask you about what Mayor Nichols has proposed, but you touched on that as well.
But it says he's proposed $105 million private trust, the road to repair, which you stated.
I guess my question on that is, is that reparations in the folks' eyes out there, or just something short of it, or what's missing?
Or is that just like, hey, at least the conversation is being started?
I definitely, it is reparations.
Because there's multiple ways to get reparations, right?
The key part of reparations is repair and his road to repair is the first step.
So I think it's still too early to say what's missing because we're still in the early phases of what that looks like and what that feels like because if reparation comes from a governmental agency, it can be
used and targeted as we saw in Evanston, Illinois, where our current administration is filing a lawsuit and targeting Evanston, Illinois for their repair, reparation lawsuit that they won because the city of Evanston basically did.
discriminatory things towards their black residents and housing.
And at current administration nationwide, Trump administration does not like that and they are targeting them.
So the private trust is a way to sort of navigate that and we are supporting it.
And I don't think there's anything missing from it right now.
It's still too early to say if there's anything missing in my mind.
but I do think that it's a good step and we have been a part of conversations with Mayor Nichols and we fully support him and what he does.
So if someone visited Greenwood today, what would they see?
Like what's been rebuilt?
What's been memorialized or reclaimed?
And what still shows like the scars of what happened?
The Greenwood you see today is
It's difficult to put in words because it's hard to imagine what it looked like previously because it's been changed so much.
If you go on Greenwood today, you will see a highway directly through the heart of Greenwood.
You will see a college, coincidentally, the college that I got my master's degree in that wouldn't have been there a hundred years ago.
you would see a museum that wouldn't, you'd be several museums.
The things you would see that are the same would be you have Vernon AME Church that is a surviving entity of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
You would see multiple businesses, but the land isn't owned by us as black people.
The businesses are owned, but the land that Greenwood is on is not owned by black people.
You would see plaques in the ground that state whether or what happened to a business.
So there's like periodic businesses.
If you walked down the street, there's plaque like every 10 feet or so that says what the name of the business was, the address of the business, what happened to it in 1921, and if it was rebuilt reopened or what happened to it.
The Greenwood you see today honestly is very disheartening because it is nowhere near what it was before and there has been physical infrastructure to stop the growth and really change the makeup of it.
The physical infrastructure that the City of Tulsa and the government has done to Greenwood
really makes it very difficult to imagine what it was because right now when people think black wall street They think a literal street when it was 33 blocks and you stated at the rip it was 10,000 people displaced and that is a huge neighborhood like That's hard to imagine when you're on the street So that's what it looks like.
It looks like a street today when it really is in neighborhood when we think of black wall street
You're supposed to be thinking of Greenwood as a neighborhood because Black Wall Street was just one part of it, but it was a neighborhood with people, teachers, educators, doctors, lawyers, accountants, hoteliers, business people.
There's a tour guide in Tulsa, Chief Amazon, and he talks about Tulsa and Black Wall Street and Greenwood being Wakanda before Wakanda, where
You had all of these influential black people working together to build up their community.
And we didn't need the greater society.
All we needed was us for us by us.
And unfortunately, because of envy, jealousy and hatred, Greenwood is different today than it was over 100 years ago.
So realistic.
Go ahead, Shannon.
I just want to.
Wait, you want to go?
No,
no, no.
All I was going to say is we got time for one more question.
I was going to say Shannon, you want to ask that question, but you're already on top of things today.
He got this.
Realistically, for Greenwood to become an economic engine for Black Tulsa again, the way it was before, what would it take?
It would be very difficult because
I'll start off by saying this.
It would be very difficult because the segregation we had to work together.
But what it really realistically looks like is investing in Black Tulsa, whether that be scholarships, business loans, business grants, business development, education.
It's not just one thing that will help Black Tulsa.
It's a myriad of things that not only Black Tulsa gets, that should get, but also like these are just things that I know that the government can do to help it become the economic engine where we need more educated people.
We need more business owners.
We need more developers.
We need more people who are involved in real estate.
We need more people who are accountants.
We need more scientists.
We need more startups.
a little bit of everything, but it really takes investment in the Black community and Black Tulsa to really take us forward as a community.
Man, DJ, we definitely appreciate you.
We appreciate you for sharing this knowledge and the work that you do.
Thank you once again for joining True Family and sharing the work that you all are doing at Justice for Greenwood and trying to revitalize Tulsa, Oklahoma, Black Wall Street.
Please share with the people where they can find you or get involved with any of the work that you all are doing.
Yeah, please visit our website, justiceforgreenwood.org.
You can also follow us on socials, Justice for Greenwood, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
Also, you can donate to us.
our organization.
I believe the link is on our website, but it's also justiceforgreenwood.org forward slash donate.
A great number to do is $19.21 in commemoration of 1921.
So that's what I would say is how they can get tapped in with us.
You can also sign up for our newsletters to keep up to date with us.
So there's multiple ways that you all can get involved and stay connected to us.
And also if you're ever in Tulsa or ever in Oklahoma,
Come on, tap doing with us.
I'd love to take you around Greenwood.
I'd love to take you around Black Tulsa.
Tulsa's dope, man.
I love that we are on the come up.
We are trending up, even though it may feel like you're in the past, we are working toward becoming the future.
Man, appreciate it, man.
You got a couple of shout outs too on the YouTube before we get up out of here.
Justice for Greenwood says Sham God.
Milwaukee, Amanda says, the work being done by Justice for Greenwood is amazing.
Clap it up for Milwaukee's own Daryl Mercer Jr.
for helping to keep the fight going.
Shyam God always said, that is important work.
Keep it up.
And Amanda also said, everyone should visit Greenwood.
It's both inspiring and heartbreaking.
DJ, once again, thank you, thank you for coming on, my boy.
I'm educating the people there.
Shannon, take us to break, please.
Man, thank thank you.
Thank you, right and thank you for coming on and educating the people like Ray say make sure you guys Stay locked in for our two of the lunch break with Ray nitty and maybe Shannon when we come back make sure you call call in a 3 3 2 1 2 10 17 Share your thoughts opinions comments.
We'll be right back after this break
We ain't going anywhere just yet.
Yeah, we got we got like a half a segment before hour two.
What up y'all welcome back welcome back.
This is the lunch break
We're maybe Shannon and Ray nitty It's almost our two Shannon what it do
It's almost our two Same thing same
thing Zack man Zack said Say it's got some
words for you that
you know Zack don't play ball them segments man
It's like yo he don't
he don't
time is money
segment in it and
it
ain't our two yet
And it's award-winning and it's award-winning
and it's award-winning
We got some moa.
Oh
drill
y'all.
No moa RC creation says
Creation Muse says, imagine you literally have a hundred years of history within your spectrum of life.
Pretty amazing.
A hundred and eleven years old.
Yeah,
that's
amazing, man.
If you missed it, our last segments, last couple of segments, we've had Daryl Mercer, who works for Justice for Greenwood, Milwaukee native Daryl Mercer, who's working for Justice for Greenwood.
And you just shared a bunch of dope information on what they're doing.
how things have been going and shared with us that, um, mother, I don't want to mispronounce her name.
Let me get it right.
Mother Randall, who was the only surviving, uh, the only surviving person from those Tulsa riots.
And, uh, when they burnt down Black Wall Street, um, the only remaining survivor.
Um.
You know, she's 111 years old, man.
So that's amazing.
That's amazing.
So
imagine,
go ahead, Shannon.
I was just going to say, when you think about what we've seen in our lifetime, like the Twin Towers and COVID and all these things, the presidency that we've witnessed, like Obama to Trump, it's just crazy how much you can imagine she's seen and gone through within her lifetime.
Right.
He says she been through two pandemics.
For a second, I was like, what was the first one?
What did he say?
Was it Spanish flu or something like that?
Yep, the
Spanish flu.
Things that he said that stuck, stuck out.
He said when she was born, women didn't even have the rights to vote yet at the time.
I don't even think that happened for a long time.
I feel like that probably wasn't until what, the forties?
If I'm not mistaken.
I have to google that but I feel like it was actually like recent like this is like
you go ahead sure question in our History knowledge they don't
know
Man, so
like black women probably were behind white women on that but yeah 1920
1920,
okay That's a long time.
It's a long time Man even
been a hundred years since still have it.
That's crazy.
She's been alive long
long.
She's had the right.
That's insane.
That's why
That's a wild stat.
That's a wild stat.
That's a wild stat.
And she's still here fighting.
And then people would be like, man, don't need to take me down there forever.
When did when did can we research when women got the right to have a bank account?
Because I think that was different from the right to vote.
Like that was seriously.
It was like.
We can we start stacking 1960s.
Damn!
That's what I got confused with.
I was like, that was super recent where it was like, bro.
Women couldn't even have a... No, that I did not know.
Women couldn't have a bank account until the 1960s.
And then they wonder, they like, well, grandma used to stick with Uncle Earl through thick and thin.
Yeah, she couldn't have no monies.
Where she was gonna go?
Hey.
White men are diabolical first.
We don't want you to vote.
We don't want you to have a bank account.
You stay in the house.
Like that's crazy.
Naughty.
You know what?
That's another
thing.
Like Pitbull was back then just breeding
them.
Yeah.
I ain't gonna say that either.
Quick.
Quick history.
Quick history.
Just running down.
Black Wall Street history, then we'll get into some other things.
Because I know we got hour two getting ready to start.
We're talking about Black Wall Street, Black economics and things of that nature.
So once again, if you missed Darryl on it, somebody says it is crazy that living long is not a goal anymore.
It seems like, I think that's a goal.
That's a goal.
Maybe it's an expectation.
It's not like a standard.
Because what's the average?
I think an average life expectancy of at least a black man is what, 65 these days, 67 or something like that.
That's kind of scary.
That's like, damn, I'm
used to 42
of them years already.
More than halfway through.
I've used more than half the life expectancy of a black man in this country.
Listen, they try to say, uh, what is it called?
The midlife crisis is when you were 30 something.
Really, it's, look, you can, man,
be in
black in this country.
That's
when you better start.
That's the crisis.
Having your crisis.
Man, so quick, uh, we're going to talk about the rise.
He stated it eloquently, so I won't get too deep into it.
But in the early 1900s, Tulsa Greenwood District became one of the most prosperous black communities in America, nicknamed Black Wall Street, roughly 40 square blocks.
He said it was 40 acres that they purchased.
40 square blocks held black owned banks, hotels, theaters, grocery stores, doctors, lawyers, offices, and had their own newspapers as well.
Segregation, segregation forced black dollars to stay local.
That's what he was talking about.
Black Tulsa couldn't shop or bank downtown, so the community built its own full economy instead.
Researchers have found a dollar circulated.
We talked about this yesterday.
Researchers found a dollar circulated within Greenwood for close to a year before leaving the community.
Dollar circulate.
I'm say that again.
Dollar circulated in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Greenwood a year before leaving our community.
That means they had black people to shop with.
And you can't.
Let's keep it going.
By 1921, Greenwood had an estimated 10,000 residents and over a thousand black owned businesses and homes building roughly two decades.
largely without inherited wealth or outside capital.
So it wasn't like land that was handed down.
It wasn't money that was handed down.
It wasn't people that came in and gave money to help.
It was all from within.
The destruction, Shannon, after false accusations against a young black man sparked tension downtown, a white mob including
deputized citizens deputized citizens per late later investigation members of the National Guard descended on Greenwood over to that.
That's crazy.
The National Guard.
The National Guard descended on Greenwood.
That sound familiar?
That sound like today?
Definitely
using the National Guard to descend upon communities intimidation.
Anyway, the mob burned and looted more than a thousand black homes and businesses across 35 blocks.
Estimates of the dead range roughly from 100 to as many as 300 people.
Thousands more were left homeless and many survivors were held in intimate, excuse me, camps afterwards.
No insurance company paid out claims for the destruction, citing riot exclusion clauses.
No one was ever convicted for the killings of the arsonist.
The massacre was largely omitted from Oklahoma history books for decades.
You know what?
Go ahead, Shannon.
Tell me,
Shannon.
It's crazy because I read somewhere like they said nobody.
nobody was arrested for what happened.
Well, as a matter of fact, they did say people got arrested, but it was black people that were defending
themselves.
Exactly.
That's the
best part of it.
It
was like, none of the actual aggressors were arrested, jailed, tried for this.
The only people that were arrested were the black people that were defending themselves and their homes.
The only people.
Yeah.
So there's that.
The only people
insurers didn't pay out
and they live amongst us.
Like
if she's 111,
she's alive now.
Who you think raised these no-good bandits?
I'm just saying.
And which one of them still
alive?
Which one of them still alive today?
Don't go anywhere.
This is The Lush Break on Truth.
