I-244 Overpass - The Second Destruction
A stop on Greenwood: Tulsa's Black Wall Street, a free self-guided tour.
Stand beneath the highway and listen to the traffic overhead. Greenwood rebuilt after 1921 and thrived again by the 1940s. Then the ground shifted twice. As legal segregation ended, many customers and residents moved to other parts of the city. And in the late 1960s and 1970s, urban renewal and the building of Interstate 244 cleared homes, churches and businesses and drove a concrete wall through the middle of the district.
Many Greenwood residents call it a second destruction. State Representative Regina Goodwin, whose family has deep roots here, has called the highway a double harm.
The debate is not settled. In 2025 Tulsa's mayor, Monroe Nichols, said the city should talk about changing or removing this stretch of road, while the state transportation department has focused on making the area under it more welcoming. Artists have added portraits and murals to nearby underpasses.
Take a moment to notice how the highway splits the neighborhood in two.
Getting here: Keep walking north on Greenwood Avenue to where it passes under Interstate 244.
Did you know?: On the Elgin Avenue underpass nearby, a community art project called Doorways to Hope lines the walls with twenty portraits.
Photo op: From the sidewalk south of the overpass, frame Greenwood Avenue running under the highway, with the historic block behind you.
More on Wikipedia: Interstate 244 · Regina Goodwin · Monroe Nichols
Stops on this tour
- Greenwood Rising - Where Black Wall Street Began
- Deep Greenwood - Plaques Underfoot
- I-244 Overpass - The Second Destruction
- Vernon AME Church - The Basement That Survived
- Greenwood Cultural Center - Keeping the Memory
- Black Wall Street Memorial - Names That Remain
- Mount Zion Baptist Church - A Debt Paid in Full
- Reconciliation Park - Hostility, Humiliation, Hope
- Pathway to Hope - Stitching Greenwood Back Together
- Oaklawn Cemetery - The Search for the Missing