Watch Now: Greenwood Rising makes strong impact on first visitors: 'It makes it very real'

The pictures inside Greenwood Rising History Center of Black people being hanged from bridges unnerved Sincere Johnson.

“It was kind of hard to digest; it was scary,” he said.

One of the pictures, taken in Okemah on May 25, 1911, shows the lynching of Laura D. Nelson and her son, L.D. Their lifeless bodies hang from ropes tied around their necks. The river below is placid.

Standing on the bridge above, from one end to the other, are white people. Mothers hold their little ones, boys and girls crouch to look through the railings, and men in suit coats and hats show no emotion. They are all looking down at the dead bodies.

Sincere, 15, was one of the first people to enter Greenwood Rising on Thursday morning when it opened for limited visitation. With him was his mother, Rochelle Latimer; his brother, Xavier Johnson; and a friend, William Johnson.

Rochelle Latimer’s great-great-grandfather and great-great-uncle opened Latimer’s Bar-B-Q in the late 1920s, less than a decade after white mobs destroyed 35 blocks of the Black neighborhood of Greenwood and killed at least 37 people.

So Latimer wanted to take her family to Greenwood Rising as soon as possible.

“It is a part of our history, and yes, it’s painful,” she said. “But to not acknowledge it doesn’t give us the opportunity to learn from it.”

The picture of the Okemah lynching is part of the History Center’s Arc of Oppression exhibit, which traces the long history of slavery, segregation and discrimination fueling the climate that made possible the race massacre.

It’s an exhibit that also caught 11-year-old Xavier’s attention.

“It was going on for 400 years, which actually really struck me,” he said of slavery and other inhumane treatment of Blacks in America.

The History Center doesn’t focus solely on Greenwood’s darkest days. This is Greenwood Rising, after all. Inside the building’s large glass doors off Greenwood Avenue, one of the first things visitors see is a large video screen with images of present-day north Tulsa residents.

The late poet, author and activist Maya Angelou, reading her 1970s poem “Still I Rise,” provides the voice-over.

“We listened to hundreds of things, but that, it was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we’ve got to use that,’” said Phil Armstrong, project director for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission.

The history and spirit of Greenwood and Black Wall Street are highlighted in separate exhibits, including a re-creation of a Black barbershop, complete with the banter of three barbers, presented through the magic of holograms. It’s informative, entertaining and relaxing — and perfect preparation for the more intense Arc of Oppression and 1921 Massacre Gallery.

For Latimer, the Massacre Gallery was one of the most compelling exhibits in the History Center. The floor-to-ceiling display uses pictures, projections, audio recordings and video to re-create the chaos, fear and bloodshed that enveloped Greenwood on May 31-June 21, 1921.

“It makes it very real,” Latimer said. “You can see the pictures, but it is still kind of like separation. But to actually see and hear the stories and then to see the pictures of what it looked like then ...”

Armstrong said visitors to the History Center he’s spoken with have had similar reactions to the difficult truths laid bare in the exhibits.

“I have yet to have a person come through here and when they see it for the first time, you can’t be a human if it doesn’t hit you,” Armstrong said. “You realize, my God, what was here, what was destroyed, and then what this could have meant for people if it wasn’t destroyed.”

But that’s not the whole story, Armstrong is quick to say. Greenwood is coming back, and the Greenwood Rising History Center intends to be part of that revival.

“This becomes a catalyst of what we want to do next — be the place where people come and have these discussions about, OK, what do reparations look like? What can we do? How do we hold everyone accountable?” he said. “There still needs to be tremendous work to revitalize what was Greenwood and north Tulsa, and Greenwood Rising will help lead those discussions.”

Sincere Johnson seems to have gotten that message already, at least as it pertains to the broader struggle for equality African Americans have been waging for centuries.

He saw the lynching pictures, a cotton sack Black workers used to pick cotton, ownership tags worn by enslaved people and the whips. They are all inside Greenwood Rising.

And still he saw hope.

“What was pretty cool was that ... it was hard, I know, but they were still able to stand up and do what they needed to do to get equality,” Sincere said.

Greenwood Rising’s limited opening for north Tulsa residents and race massacre survivors and descendants will extend through June 12; beginning June 9, anyone can sign up to visit.

The History Center will be closed beginning June 13 to prepare for the grand opening July 3. To sign up to visit, go to greenwoodrising.org.