TV REVIEWS : The Early Life of a Black Community

“Goin’ Back to T’ Town,” an “American Experience” documentary (at 9 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28, at 8 on KPBS-TV Channel 15 and KVCR-TV Channel 24), is an engrossing look at a turn-of-the-century all-black community in Tulsa, Okla.

In 1907, when Oklahoma became a state, the all-white legislature passed a slew of segregation laws. Greenwood, a piece of land in Tulsa owned by a small group of black businessmen, became an enclave where blacks had some financial, social and political independence.

Part of the price of independence was hostility from white Tulsa, which reached a head with a rampage in 1921 when a newspaper reported--untruthfully--that a black youth had attacked a white woman in an elevator. The ensuing race riot claimed many lives, 35 blocks of black Tulsa were torched and more than 4,000 were left homeless.

Greenwood rose from the ashes, thrived and, by 1936, its business district was known as “the black Wall Street.” But the neighborhood that couldn’t be killed by fire died a slow death from ‘60s integration and urban renewal.

Co-producers Sam Pollard and Joyce Vaughn have done a fine job of capturing the flavor of the era through a mix of old footage, stills and interviews with men and women who grew up in Greenwood. The producers had the good sense to get out of the way and let them tell their stories--the straightforward remembrances are strong, poignant material.

Notes one Greenwood veteran ironically: “I don’t think racial segregation is a good thing, but the quality of our lives, in many respects, was better in the days of segregation, and the challenge today is to make it as good or better.”