Dreams of Black Wall Street

By Nia Clark

What's Dreams of Black Wall Street about?

A look back in history at a time of great promise and great disappointment for Black Americans who dreamed of and struggled for the promise of community and full citizenship.

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Dreams of Black Wall Street episodes:

09.28.2023
SE04 EP08 The 1863 New York Draft Riots and Massacre
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's government passed a new conscription law requiring certain male citizens to report for military duty if chosen through a lottery. Wealthy men could buy their way out. Black men were not considered citizens and were exempt from the draft. When New York City conducted...
09.21.2023
SE 04 EP 07 WESTCHESTER (THE BRONX)
By 1840 there were nearly 190 African Americans out of more than 4,000 residents in the town of Westchester, located in what is today part of the East Bronx. In 1849, several Black men formed the first Black church in...
09.14.2023
SE04 EP06 WEEKSVILLE (BROOKLYN)
WEEKSVILLE The predominantly African American settlement of Weeksville was a beacon of hope at a time in pre-Civil War New York when Blacks had suffered major legislative and legal setbacks, including discriminatory voting laws that stripped most people of African descent...
08.31.2023
SE04 EP05 NEWTOWN (QUEENS)
Newtown was settled by free African Americans in 1828, after New York state abolished slavery in 1827. It was nearly forgotten to history until, in 2011, a construction crew digging on a site in the present-day Elmhurst community of Queens,...
08.23.2023
SE 04 EP 04 SANDY GROUND (STATEN ISLAND)
Sandy Ground was settled in 1833 by African-American oystermen fleeing the restrictive industry laws of Maryland. It boasts as the “oldest continuously inhabited free Black settlement in the United States.” Located on the southwestern shore of Staten Island near plentiful oyster...
08.15.2023
SE 04 EP 03 SENECA VILLAGE (MANHATTAN)
An exploration of what was once the 19th century settlement known as Seneca Village. Before Central Park was created, the landscape along the Park’s perimeter from West 82nd to West 89th Street was the site of Seneca Village, a community of...
08.03.2023
SE 04 EP02 THE BLACK ELITE IN ANTEBELLUM NEW YORK CITY PART 2
Part 2 of an introduction to the Black elite or "the colored aristocracy" in antebellum New York City that also highlights some of the prominent Black leaders of the era. The Black experience in the city prior to the Civil...
07.27.2023
SE 04 EP02 THE BLACK ELITE IN ANTEBELLUM NEW YORK CITY PART 1
An introduction to the Black elite or "the colored aristocracy" in antebellum New York City. The Black experience in the city prior to the Civil War varied and was contingent upon different socioeconomic factors. New York's Black elite were often...
07.20.2023
SE 04 EP1 PART 2 - BLACKS ON WALL STREET: HOW BLACK PEOPLE HELPED BUILD WALL STREET AND NEW YORK
Part 2 of an exploration of Black neighborhoods and enclaves in antebellum New York City during the 19th century. It includes the final years of slavery and the unraveling of the institution as a stronghold on the economy of antebellum...
07.14.2023
SE 04 EP1 PART 1 - BLACKS ON WALL STREET: HOW BLACK PEOPLE HELPED BUILD WALL STREET AND NEW YORK
An exploration of Black neighborhoods and enclaves in antebellum New York City during the 19th century. This episode illuminates: the origins of what would become Wall Street as a slave auction block; slavery's history in Manhattan beginning in 1636; how...
07.14.2023
SE04 INTRODUCTION
This season will focus on free Black communities and free Black societies during the antebellum period of the 19th century in New York, specifically New York City. They include one in each of what would become the five boroughs of New...
05.20.2022
S3 E12 Durham's Black Wall Street and Wilmington, N.C. More Than a Century After the 1898 White Supremacy Campaign
Many experts view the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D’Etat as a turning point in the fortunes of African Americans in North Carolina and across the nation. The 1898 white supremacy campaign that led to the Wilmington Massacre was an...
04.22.2022
SE3 E11 Pauli Murray: Durham native and Unsung Heroin of the Civil Rights Movement
Not only was Pauli Murray was one of the most important Civil Rights leaders that Black Durham ever produced, she was also one of the most important Civil rights leaders of the 20th century. Murray was a jurist and activist who contributed...
03.31.2022
S3 E10 Documenting Unsung Women Leaders of Black Durham and North Carolina Part 2
Black women have often been omitted or written out of history. This much is true when it comes to many women leaders of Black Durham in the first several decades of the 20th century, when Durham, North Carolina’s Black Wall...
03.17.2022
S3 E9 Documenting Unsung Women Leaders of Black Durham and North Carolina
Black women have often been omitted or written out of history. This much is true when it comes to many women leaders of Black Durham in the first several decades of the 20th century, when Durham, North Carolina’s Black Wall Street...
03.04.2022
S3 E8 Pioneering Black Durham: Success, Sacrifice and Setbacks
The pioneers and leaders of Black Durham during the early 20th century are often lauded for steering their community through the challenges of living in the Jim Crow South while creating some of the most successful African American-lead businesses, educational...
02.10.2022
S3 E7 Race, Class and Politics in Black Durham
An exploration of the complicated intersection of race, class and politics in Durham, North Carolina. Black Durham’s leaders played an integral role in the “Upbuilding” of their community and overcame great obstacles that were common at the time in the...
01.28.2022
S3 E6 Durham's Black Wall Street Part 2
Black Durham’s success did not end with Black Wall Street. Durham’s Black Wall Street was located in the historic Hayti community. Many community members believe it was named after the independent Black nation of Haiti. The neighborhood was the principal...
01.12.2022
S3 E5 Durham's Black Wall Street Part 1
The beginning of an exploration into the community of Durham, North Carolina in the period following the 1898 white supremacist campaign that led to the Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D’Etat that same year. The tobacco boom in Durham in the...
12.29.2021
S3 E4 The White Supremacist Campaign of 1900: How Black Men Lost the Vote
Almost immediately following the white supremacist campaign that culminated in the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D’Etat came the 1900 white supremacist campaign that culminated in the “Suffrage Amendment” to the North Carolina constitution, which helped engineer the near complete...
12.09.2021
S3 E3 The 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat Part 2
The continuation of a deep dive into the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat. The massacre was part of a larger white supremacy campaign organized by Democratic leaders in North Carolina. It resulted in the deaths of potentially hundreds of...
11.24.2021
S3 Commemorative Special: 123 Years after the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat
A special episode commemorating the 123rd anniversary of the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat with highlights from commemorative events in Wilmington, North Carolina. Listeners will hear from a number of local and elected leaders in Wilmington as well as...
11.24.2021
S3 E2 The 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat Part 1
The beginning of a deep dive into the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat. The massacre was part of a larger white supremacy campaign organized by Democratic leaders in North Carolina. It resulted in the deaths of potentially hundreds of...
11.10.2021
SE03 EP1: Wilmington, North Carolina Before the Insurrection of 1898
Journalist, podcast host and producer, Nia Clark, revisits often overlooked but important parts of North Carolina's history that have played a significant part in shaping some of the state's most influential African American communities such as Wilmington, Raleigh, James City,...
11.10.2021
Season 3 Introduction: Durham’s Black Wall Street in the shadows of the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup d’Etat
Journalist, podcast host and producer, Nia Clark introduces season three: This season will explore several important events and places in North Carolina’s history during the 19th and early 20th century, including two different - once prosperous Black communities that share...
08.11.2021
Post-Season Black Wall Street Centennial Special + Season 3 Sneak Peak
Journalist, podcast host and producer, Nia Clark, traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. In this episode, she shares her experience attending many of the centennial commemorative events as well as the people...
04.29.2021
E12 Season Finale - Rosewood: 5 Acres of Land
In studying the systemic devaluing of Black life, it is important to understand how Black life is also - and often - devalued even after death. Like victims of other similar racially motivated or violent atrocities, the victims of Rosewood...
04.01.2021
S2 E11 Rosewood: House Bill 591
When Rosewood descendant, Arnett Doctor, began looking for an attorney to help him seek legal recourse for the survivors of the 1923 Rosewood Massacre he encountered brick wall after brick wall. He could not find a single lawyer to take...
03.07.2021
S2 E10 Rosewood: Justice for All
In America, citizenship implies the ability to enjoy the full rights of freedom. This question of who belongs to American society, who is a real American citizen, has been a central problem since the time of the Revolution.Rosewood is but one...
02.08.2021
S2 E9 Rosewood: Escape
Despite the symbiosis shared by the communities of Rosewood and neighboring Sumner as well as the relative peace that made that symbiosis possible, research shows racial tensions simmered between the two communities long before the Rosewood Massacre. In hindsight, the...
01.20.2021
S2 E8 Rosewood: the Massacre
It has been 98 years since Rosewood, Florida was destroyed. The first week of January marked the 98th anniversary of the tragedy. Rosewood, represented what was possible when Black people pooled their resources and knowledge to build a community even...
12.31.2020
S2 E7 Rosewood: the Community
Like atrocities of a similar nature, the tragedy of the Rosewood Massacre draws attention to the community of Rosewood. It makes us take notice. But once that attention is fixed on these communities, we begin to discover worlds that many...
12.17.2020
S2 E6 Perry, FL: One Month Before the Rosewood Massacre
Throughout much of the 20th century, Florida had been a Ku Klux Klan stronghold. Klansmen found friends in government who occupied offices on local, state and federal offices. By 1925 the Klan had about 3 million members nationwide. Three years...
11.30.2020
S2 E5 Eatonville, FL: One of America's First Incorporated All-Black Towns Endures Before and After Rosewood
Michigan state University English Professor, Julian Chambliss, explains that the idea of town or community creation is not an exception for African Americans. The idea of creating ones own community because one isn’t able to get a fair shake was actually a common response to conditions such as the end of Slavery,...
11.16.2020
S2 E4: 3 Years Before Rosewood - the Deadliest Election Day in US History (Part 2)
A continuation of the exploration of the 1920 Ocoee Massacre. The Ocoee Massacre occurred three years before the Rosewood Massacre and followed a massive Black voter registration and get-out-the-vote movement in Florida. The movement was perceived as a threat to...
11.02.2020
S2 E3 3 Years Before the Rosewood Massacre: the Deadliest Election Day in U.S. History
Exactly 100 years ago, what is known as the bloodiest election day in American history left a grave and everlasting stain on Florida’s history. On Election Day 1920, a number of Black residents who lived in the town of Ocoee,...
10.31.2020
S2 E2: Road to Rosewood
The predominantly African American Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was not the only so-called Black Wall Street in the early part of the 20th century. There were a number of thriving Black communities in the early 1900’s. Some were also...
10.31.2020
S2 E1 290 Years Before the Rosewood Massacre
In order to understand how an incident such as the Rosewood Massacre could occur, it is important to understand the history of Africans and African Americans in Florida. In this episode St. Augustine Historical Society and University of North Florida...
10.31.2020
S2 Rosewood Introduction
An overview of this podcast and this season. Dreams of Black Wall Street examines the course of once-thriving predominantly Black communities that are both known by the moniker, Black Wall Street, as well as those that fit such a description. This...
08.13.2020
S1 E15: Season Finale - Tulsa's Story
For decades, a number of scholars and experts have been at the forefront of efforts to tell the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. During this time the tragedy remained largely unknown among most Americans. In recent years however,...
07.29.2020
S1 E14 The Legacy of Black Wall Street
In the nearly 100 In the years since the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Tulsa, particularly the Greenwood District, has undergone a considerable and slow transformation. Although Greenwood, experienced a regeneration between the 1920’s and 1950’s after the community was rebuilt...
07.15.2020
S1 E13 Where Are The Bodies Buried?
A significant number of African American residents of Tulsa’s predominantly black Greenwood District disappeared during and after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Some researchers and experts believe there could be hundreds of the missing residents. These were people who not...
07.01.2020
S1 E12: "Tulsa's Terrible Secret" and the Erasure of Black History
Up until the later part of the 20th century, there were sustained and concerted efforts to suppress the full truth of the Tulsa Race Riot, which is now acknowledged as the Tulsa Race Massacre. In the decades that followed, the...
06.17.2020
S1 E11: Black Wall Street Reborn
While some African American survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre left Greenwood for good, surprisingly, many stayed even though most returned home to ashes. However, of the black Tulsans who decided to remain in their community and rebuild, most...
06.05.2020
S1 E10 Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied
Despite thousands of potential perpetrators of numerous crimes and potentially hundreds or thousands of witnesses to these crimes, law enforcement officials did not pursue any of them with any real vigor in search of the truth. As a result the...
05.27.2020
S1 E9: Ashes And The Fight For Greenwood
Over the last nearly 100 years, there has been speculation about whether or not the Tulsa Race Massacre was a planned attempt to launch an attack on Tulsa's Greenwood district. While there is no direct evidence of this, experts point...
05.06.2020
S1 E8: When the Smoke Cleared
When the mayhem ceased, and the smoke cleared, Black Wall Street laid almost completely flattened. In less than 24 hours, according to a Red Cross estimate, more than 1,200 houses were burned; 215 others were looted but not torched. Two newspapers,...
04.22.2020
S1 E7: BONUS EPISODE: A Black Wall Street Legend - Peg Leg Taylor and the Legacy of Trauma
According to A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, “Not all black Tulsans, however, countenanced surrender. In the final burst of fighting off of Standpipe Hill that morning, a deadly firefight erupted at...
04.08.2020
S1 E6: Black Wall Street Burning (Part 2) - A Descendants Story
The episode is Part 2 of a deep dive into the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred between May 31st and June 1st of 1921. Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed. Thousands were left homeless. And the Greenwood...
04.01.2020
S1 Black Wall Street 1921 Mid Series Recap
A recap of everything covered in episodes 1-6. Between May 31st and June 1st of 1921, what the Oklahoma Historical Society calls quote, "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history," claimed the lives of potentially hundreds of people and...

What's Dreams of Black Wall Street about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Dreams of Black Wall Street episodes:

SE04 EP08 The 1863 New York Draft Riots and Massacre

SE 04 EP 07 WESTCHESTER (THE BRONX)

SE04 EP06 WEEKSVILLE (BROOKLYN)

SE04 EP05 NEWTOWN (QUEENS)

SE 04 EP 04 SANDY GROUND (STATEN ISLAND)

SE 04 EP 03 SENECA VILLAGE (MANHATTAN)

SE 04 EP02 THE BLACK ELITE IN ANTEBELLUM NEW YORK CITY PART 2

SE 04 EP02 THE BLACK ELITE IN ANTEBELLUM NEW YORK CITY PART 1

SE 04 EP1 PART 2 - BLACKS ON WALL STREET: HOW BLACK PEOPLE HELPED BUILD WALL STREET AND NEW YORK

SE 04 EP1 PART 1 - BLACKS ON WALL STREET: HOW BLACK PEOPLE HELPED BUILD WALL STREET AND NEW YORK

SE04 INTRODUCTION

S3 E12 Durham's Black Wall Street and Wilmington, N.C. More Than a Century After the 1898 White Supremacy Campaign

SE3 E11 Pauli Murray: Durham native and Unsung Heroin of the Civil Rights Movement

S3 E10 Documenting Unsung Women Leaders of Black Durham and North Carolina Part 2

S3 E9 Documenting Unsung Women Leaders of Black Durham and North Carolina

S3 E8 Pioneering Black Durham: Success, Sacrifice and Setbacks

S3 E7 Race, Class and Politics in Black Durham

S3 E6 Durham's Black Wall Street Part 2

S3 E5 Durham's Black Wall Street Part 1

S3 E4 The White Supremacist Campaign of 1900: How Black Men Lost the Vote

S3 E3 The 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat Part 2

S3 Commemorative Special: 123 Years after the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat

S3 E2 The 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup D'Etat Part 1

SE03 EP1: Wilmington, North Carolina Before the Insurrection of 1898

Season 3 Introduction: Durham’s Black Wall Street in the shadows of the 1898 Wilmington Insurrection and Coup d’Etat

Post-Season Black Wall Street Centennial Special + Season 3 Sneak Peak

E12 Season Finale - Rosewood: 5 Acres of Land

S2 E11 Rosewood: House Bill 591

S2 E10 Rosewood: Justice for All

S2 E9 Rosewood: Escape

S2 E8 Rosewood: the Massacre

S2 E7 Rosewood: the Community

S2 E6 Perry, FL: One Month Before the Rosewood Massacre

S2 E5 Eatonville, FL: One of America's First Incorporated All-Black Towns Endures Before and After Rosewood

S2 E4: 3 Years Before Rosewood - the Deadliest Election Day in US History (Part 2)

S2 E3 3 Years Before the Rosewood Massacre: the Deadliest Election Day in U.S. History

S2 E2: Road to Rosewood

S2 E1 290 Years Before the Rosewood Massacre

S2 Rosewood Introduction

S1 E15: Season Finale - Tulsa's Story

S1 E14 The Legacy of Black Wall Street

S1 E13 Where Are The Bodies Buried?

S1 E12: "Tulsa's Terrible Secret" and the Erasure of Black History

S1 E11: Black Wall Street Reborn

S1 E10 Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

S1 E9: Ashes And The Fight For Greenwood

S1 E8: When the Smoke Cleared

S1 E7: BONUS EPISODE: A Black Wall Street Legend - Peg Leg Taylor and the Legacy of Trauma

S1 E6: Black Wall Street Burning (Part 2) - A Descendants Story

S1 Black Wall Street 1921 Mid Series Recap