Tulsa’s Greenwood District was one of the most prosperous Black communities in the United States before a white mob destroyed much of it in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Residents rebuilt, and Greenwood again became a thriving business and residential district. Decades later, urban renewal and highway construction cut through the neighborhood, demolishing homes and separating Greenwood from downtown. Concrete steps leading to empty lots are among the remaining traces of that second period of destruction.

I went to Tulsa in 2023 to photograph what remained of Greenwood. I was interested not only in the sites associated with the 1921 massacre, but in the later destruction caused by urban renewal and highway construction. The surviving steps leading to empty lots made that second erasure unexpectedly physical.