Building the Next Black Wall Street

This chapter analyzes the ongoing creative work of Michelle Brown-Burdex, program director at the Greenwood Cultural Center, who runs a summer arts program and gives tours about Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre. Her program employs role-playing, theatre, and imaginative practices that revive understandings of Black success and generational wealth among young residents of North Tulsa, Oklahoma. Every summer, Brown-Burdex runs a day camp at the center for predominantly Black and Latinx children from the North Tulsa community. To help the students appreciate their history, she refocused the camp in 2017 from a traditional activities-based program to an arts and entrepreneurship program, creating a Black Wall Street spirit of artists and craftspeople teaching skills to the children as an investment in the Next Black Wall Street. I served as a teaching artist at the camp and I argue that Brown-Burdex's annual month-long project of role-playing, skill-building, and future embodiment provides a sustainable model for artists and educators seeking to redress systemic injustice and produces greater health and joy within Black communities and schools.