Watch Now: Greenwood Rising makes 'spellbinding' formal opening

Interim Director Phil Armstrong says there have been a lot of days that he wondered if Wednesday would ever come.

Not specifically Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021. Wednesday, the day the Greenwood Rising history center really and truly opened its doors to the public.

“It seemed like the closer we were getting to 2021, the more we were facing challenges,” Armstrong said. “Not only the political and social challenges but even whether were we going to be able to have it open in time.”

By “in time,” Armstrong meant in time for this year’s centennial of Tulsa’s 1921 Race Massacre, which provided much of the impetus for building the $30 million facility.

“COVID put a lot of delay on tracking down certain materials that we needed to build the facility and exhibits,” Armstrong said.

Even the weather was uncooperative. A June rainy spell slowed work to a halt and pushed the official opening back more than two weeks.

The museum held a sort of preview opening in late spring to coincide with centennial activities, but Wednesday was the grand debut.

“Spellbinding,” said John Winters, a college professor from Muskogee, after becoming one of the first people to tour the museum. “It just takes your breath away.”

Winters grew up in Enid and said he had little knowledge of what happened in Tulsa or Black history in general until he was an adult.

“I guess I’m disappointed, being a student of history, that the state of Oklahoma simply failed me as a student growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s,” he said.

The museum exhibits acquaint visitors with the entire history of the historic Greenwood neighborhood, from its origins in the early 1900s to the present day.

Jim Pickett, who recently moved to Tulsa from Wheeling, West Virginia, said he’s trying to learn more about the city and the state.

“I’m just really interested in the process of reconciliation and what we can do to establish justice,” he said.

“I’m finding that Oklahoma as a state might be more oppressive and conservative than West Virginia, but I’m encouraged that Tulsa is making an effort to counter some of that,” he said.

Janae Thompson of Tulsa came to the museum with her husband, John Thompson, and stepdaughter Jacqueline Pruitt, who was visiting from Louisville, Kentucky.

Janae Thompson said she enjoyed the exhibits but would have liked a more detailed description of the massacre and its background.

“I never heard about it,” said Pruitt, who grew up in California.

Pruitt’s father, John Thompson, said his family lived in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts during the 1965 Watts riots.

“I wasn’t born yet, but I was told about it,” said Thompson, whose family subsequently moved to Oklahoma.

“I wish we had this when I was learning Oklahoma history,” said Thompson.

Peter Mullen and his 7-year-old son, Gideon, were also among the first visitors.

“It’s a very powerful representation of what happened,” Mullen said. “It’s a very important element of understanding the history of the area.”

Mullen said he’s visited the Holocaust Museum at Dachau and the Martin Luther King Jr. Museum in Atlanta, and he said Greenwood Rising elicited “the same sort of emotional response.”

“One thing that they captured that the others have not is elements of reconstruction and reconciliation, so that you’re leaving with something positive out of it. It’s ‘What we’ve learned and what we can do with it.’”

Greenwood Rising, 23 N. Greenwood Ave., is open from 9 a.m to 8 p.m. every day except Tuesdays. Admission is currently free, but reservations are required through greenwoodrising.org.