Oklahoma City's Black Neighborhoods Oral History Project

The Oklahoma City Black Neighborhood Collection is a series of interviews with people who live or have lived in the lesser-known Black neighborhoods. This project was a collaboration between the City of Oklahoma City's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, the Oklahoma Black Museum and Performing Arts Center, and the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program.

History of OKC’s Black communities

Prior to Oklahoma’s statehood in 1907, several predominantly Black communities were established in what is now the Oklahoma City metro area. The people of these communities included free individuals, formerly enslaved individuals, and Freedmen of Indigenous Tribes. These communities were largely self-sustaining, with their own businesses, resources and more.

The aftermath of urbanization, redlining, and Jim Crow laws led to the removal and eventual destruction of these communities. As a result, most of these communities no longer physically exist in what is present-day Oklahoma City.

About the project

The City’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs received a United We Stand grant from Oklahoma Humanities to capture the oral history of Black neighborhoods in Oklahoma City. Through the grant, OKC Arts worked with the Oklahoma Oral History Program at Oklahoma State University and the Oklahoma Black Museum and Preforming Arts Center to identify residents of these disappeared neighborhoods.

The project is called “Oklahoma City's Forgotten Black Communities: Where safe spaces, equity, culture, and creativity lived.”

“As many of these communities no longer physically exist, we recognize the need to preserve their history as a part of the foundation that helped create what is now the greater Oklahoma City metro," OKC Arts Project Manager Leondre Lattimore said.

Hearing these stories will help the City preserve our shared history.

View the Collection

Follow Us

Contact Us

Oklahoma Oral History Research Program
207 Edmon Low Library
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74078
Phone: 405-744-7685
liboh@okstate.edu

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