Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Coverage: Inside The Greenwood Rising Museum

Images from inside Greenwood Rising show an exhibit that takes visitors from the glory of Greenwood’s early days to the horror of the massacre, and the despair and destruction.

The museum itself is still under construction, and it stretches across part of a block at Greenwood and Archer.

Phil Armstrong is the Project Manager for Greenwood Rising.

“It will be very moving and emotional experience. It’s the perfect hybrid of education, truth-telling, and healing all in one space,” Armstrong said.

The story that is told inside Greenwood Rising does not start with the massacre but with the oppression of the day and the success of Greenwood that helped fuel white animosity before 1921.

For visitors, the first experience shows what Greenwood was, what happened, and how things look now.

Jake Barton, who is with the design firm Local Projects, helped create the exhibits.

“We have these incredible viewpoints—almost like windows into Greenwood—and then they transform magically into the exact locations today,” Barton explained.

The timeline will come to life on the brick walls. It will display the images of Greenwood’s history and survivors narrate it.

“You will hear them speaking to you as you watch the visual façade; it’s an amazing experience,” Armstrong shared.

Visitors will walk between the divided walls after they see how Greenwood was destroyed and rebuilt, and then it splits again by urban renewal.

The inside of the museum is essentially done, but the outside of it still needs a lot of work. For the dedication, the museum will briefly open to tours for survivors and descendants. Then it will close for final construction; a grand reopening is planned for July.

The museum will dominate the street corner by day and will illuminate it by night.

“It’s not just going through a museum and experiencing history, they will leave changed,” Armstrong stated.