ROXANNE DONAGHY
Stories (3)
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The Night the Sky Burned
This is the page they never wanted us to read. For nearly a century, it was missing — a blank space where history should have stood, an unspoken wound in the story of America. The textbooks skipped it, the classrooms ignored it, and the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, tried to forget it. But history has a way of clawing back to the surface, no matter how deep you bury it. The story of Greenwood, Tulsa's Black Wall Street, and the massacre that destroyed it in 1921 is a history of American possibility and American violence, of success and sabotage, of erasure and resistance. It begins not with bloodshed but with ambition. Greenwood: The American Dream Realized. In the early 20th century, the Greenwood District of Tulsa was a rare thing in the segregated South: a thriving, self-sufficient Black community. Born out of necessity and courage, Greenwood was home to doctors, lawyers, barbers, teachers, and entrepreneurs. Its streets lined with cafés, churches, grocery stores, and movie theaters. Black-owned businesses flourished at a time when the laws of Jim Crow barred African Americans from patronizing white establishments or living in white neighborhoods. Among its residents was O.W. Gurley, a wealthy Black landowner from Arkansas, who in 1906 purchased 40 acres of land in Tulsa, selling plots only to other African Americans. What grew from Gurley's investment was a beacon of Black prosperity in the face of systemic racism. By 1921, Greenwood boasted over 300 Black-owned businesses, two newspapers, a hospital, and one of the few Black public libraries in the country. It was so successful, Booker T. Washington himself had dubbed it "Negro Wall Street." Later, it would simply be known as "Black Wall Street." But prosperity alone did not guarantee safety.
By ROXANNE DONAGHY8 months ago in History
Official Resignation from Being the Strong One
To Whom It May Concern, Please accept this as my official resignation. I am leaving my long-held, unpaid, emotionally draining role as The Strong One effective immediately. As you know, I am the one who holds it together. The person who always says yes. The person who continuously keeps things playful and enjoyable for everyone else and fills in awkward silences during family dinners with lighthearted jokes and a silly story. The person who says, "Don't worry about me, I'm fine," even though I'm three emotional collapses away from making the local news.
By ROXANNE DONAGHY8 months ago in Confessions
