Press Release
August 30, 2018
Contact: Sara Werneke
State Historic Preservation Office, Oklahoma Historical Society
Office: 405-522-4478
Fax: 405-522-0816
swerneke@okhistory.org
www.okhistory.org/shpo
New Oklahoma National Register Listing
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office (OKSHPO) is pleased to announce the newest National Register of Historic Places listing for Oklahoma. The National Register of Historic Places is our nation’s official list of properties significant in our past.
The Tulsa Massacre, or Tulsa Race Massacre, was a 1921 attack on the Greenwood area of Tulsa, known as “Black Wall Street,” by white Tulsans. In 2005 a National Park Service report concluded that the Tulsa Massacre was of “supreme national significance, perhaps the most significant race riot in the history of the United States.” Most of the historic resources directly associated with Greenwood were destroyed during the massacre and many of the resources from the period of post-massacre reconstruction were destroyed by urban renewal efforts of the 1970s. Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church remains a testimony to the resilience of the Greenwood neighborhood. Located in Tulsa, Tulsa County, Vernon A. M. E. Church is significant at the state level for its role in understanding race relations in the United States under legal segregation; in community planning and development for its representation of the initiation and growth of a segregated community within the city of Tulsa as well as reconstruction after the 1921 massacre; and in social history for its depiction of racial intolerance against African Americans.
The State Historic Preservation Office is a division of the Oklahoma Historical Society. The mission of the Oklahoma Historical Society is to collect, preserve and share the history and culture of the state of Oklahoma and its people. Founded in 1893 by members of the Territorial Press Association, the OHS maintains museums, historic sites and affiliates across the state. Through its research archives, exhibits, educational programs and publications the OHS chronicles the rich history of Oklahoma. For more information about the OHS, please visit www.okhistory.org.
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Editor’s Note: Photographs to accompany the story can be acquired by contacting the Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office at 405-522-4478.
