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Black Wall Street Gallery Re-Opens with New Location in Greenwood District

The Black Wall Street Gallery re-opens Friday in a new, larger space after a six-month hiatus.

It had been closed since last summer after a dispute over rent payments, and it has come back as a for-profit, black-owned business, still in the Greenwood District.

The gallery's first several exhibits, starting with Oklahoma City artist Shannon Nicole’s “Blacklahoma,” are being referred to as “The Healing Series” and feature several regional artists. Owner and curator Ricco Wright said it’s critical to have spaces for people to come together as Tulsa moves ahead in the search for mass graves from the 1921 race massacre.

"This is a frightening time for our community. We don’t know ourselves right now, but that’s also exciting, too, because we get to help and create who we are," Wright said.

The Healing Series runs through August. It will be followed by the Unity and Love series. The gallery had the Conciliation Series on display in its former location.

Operations Strategist Kiandra Call said the Black Wall Street Gallery will celebrate Greenwood’s rich, prosperous past while looking toward Tulsa’s future.

"So, being able to just pay homage to that, not so much just the massacre and the riots, but the culture that was here. And more people have moved into Tulsa, and Tulsa is on Native American land with many immigrants. So, it can’t just be isolated to just black culture. It’s very inclusive of all the other cultures here," Call said.

Call said the gallery will also host events like music and comedy nights to help people tell their stories.

The Black Wall Street Gallery is at 10 North Greenwood Ave. It opens Friday at 6 p.m., in time for the Tulsa Arts District First Friday art crawl.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.