Rare 1920s Footage: All-Black Towns Living the American Dream | National Geographic

By the 1920s, Oklahoma was home to some 50 African-American towns, in addition to a large and prosperous black community living in the city of Tulsa. These towns and their self-reliant middle class and affluent residents are documented by the home movies of Reverend S. S. Jones, an itinerant minister and businessman. Known and respected by the citizens of the towns whose lives he captured on film, Rev. Jones’s work offers revealing glimpses of these communities as a haven for African Americans who very often faced discrimination elsewhere in America. The subjects are everyday life: a family on the front porch of their bungalow, shop workers at a storefront, farmers plowing their fields, children playing on seesaws in a schoolyard. Much of the material documents the economic life of the towns, from business districts filled with prosperous merchants to the homes of successful professionals, with an abundant countryside beyond. As Rhea Combs, curator of film and photography for the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, points out in her commentary, here we even find a married couple who were oil barons, proof of the extraordinary progress made in the relatively short time since the end of slavery. The fashions and hairstyles, automobiles and horses, and even such details as a man manually pumping gasoline at a filling station make the films a fascinating record of the lives of Americans, and African Americans in particular, in the early 20th century.

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Read more about the National Museum of African American History and Culture in "Black America’s Story, Told Like Never Before"

Rev. S. S. Jones Home Movie Collection
2011.79.1-9
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Gift of Naomi Long Madgett

Interview with Rhea Combs
Curator of Film and Photography
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Rare 1920s Footage: All-Black Towns Living the American Dream | National Geographic

National Geographic

[tarachristine]

my family owned acres in texas.... the KKK ran them off it. AFTER they had got it producing immense crop of course. My aunts who STILL have the original deed tried to go to court to get it back and the judge basically told them (in the chambers) that they would most likely get killed if they continued to pursue it and for their own safety he advised them to just let it go. They tell us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and when we do they take it all... smh but they never teach you THIS history in school

[heyheyhey]

But you didn’t talk about how these communities were destroyed.

[mba]

It’s footage like this that needs to be released in it’s entirety.

[romij]

They bombed those communities in Tulsa they forgot to teach us that in school

[kierajae]

I can’t believe I’m just now finding this video! I’m from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and it bothers me when people question if there are black people in Oklahoma. Of course! We are still here even after all the turmoil that has happened. I grew up in the area where Black wallstreet once stood (north tulsa) and after the massacre, many blacks stayed. It’s a poor area and never recovered, but just like the black community has always done, we continue to survive without much resources. I wish the history of black people in Oklahoma was more well known. Myself and many of the kids I grew up with survived the poverty and violence and made it to college (I currently go to Oklahoma state) and I’m proud to be from Tulsa and I hope to make my ancestors and my community proud by being successful!

[LordHaveMurcielago]

300+ black owned business destroyed in a matter of days. The black dollar was circulating 12 times over within the black community in those days. The black deli owner would buy from the black farmer who would in turn buy from the black hardware store owner. There was a solid support system in place.The dollars stayed in the community. There were no chinese restaurants or middle eastern owned bodegas for our money to escape to or through. No Korean nail salons or chinese hair care stores. I’ve always felt that desegregation was a ploy to gain access to the black dollar and more and more it’s starting to look like MLK was their paid puppet (either knowingly or unknowingly). Black businesses in places like Tulsa were doing international trades with Canada in those days that’s no small feat.

[rooseveltdumornay]

It's just goes to show you that even under the harshest circumstances black people thrived and prospered.

[soulsista]

They didn't like that we were doing just fine without them.

[MrDFJohnson]

Soooo ... black men marrying black women, forming strong black families and loving, supporting and protecting them. How odd that these traits led to financial and cultural strength. Duhhh.
But when we build a strong self-sufficient community to shield us from this nation's racism and hatred, they destroy it.

[reakwonnji]

Once they found out we can do without them they got scared.

[tr]

In spite of all the oppression look at how well put together our people were back then, look at how well dressed and business oriented they all were. Just trying to live a good clean life. It's so beautiful and encouraging to see how we cared for one another back then.

[glorymosbyfloyd]

This is beautiful, seeing my People do what they do, which is succeeding against all odds

[master-n-teachvirgo]

So black people made more money an did better when they were segregated? That's what I take from this 🤷

[melissallab]

❤️❤️❤️❤️ I wish our black communities would build another civilization like those times

[cjezinne]

This town is remarkable... until the Tulsa Race Riot happened and burned all this progress to the ground. And just like that, they were back to being poor & homeless...

[jazmynbrown]

Most of my family comes from Oklahoma, so I'm proud to know that some of these people talked about in the film could be my family members from the past! 😊

[lowtech]

Black students in public schools need to see this. Slavery couldn't even stop our resolve.

[cristyluv]

Kinda makes you what are they afraid of? Why is every attempt black people take to better ourselves always destroyed and allowed to be ripped from us?
Is there something about us I don't know?

[AR-uzkq]

WoW...you can see the 'black pride' and self confidence in their faces (especially the men). Kids are happy, playing together.everyone looking out for the each other....this was PARADISE!! Then the demons came and burned their homes while 'murdering' most of the men out of plain JEALOUSY!!

[LWLW]

I didn't know we had oil wells....!