New York City's Black Wall Street Gallery, which was founded to pay tribute to the 1921 Tulsa massacre, was vandalized multiple times this week as organizers prepared to commemorate the deadly event's 100-year anniversary.
Ricco Wright, owner of the gallery, said the property was smeared with white paint on Monday and graffiti was found on a window the next day.
"We are neither shocked nor surprised that merely three days after opening on 26 Mercer Street, in celebration of our ancestors, that we would find a literal whitewashing of Black Wall Street on our front window," Wright said, according to NBC News.
Jeffrey Maddrey, NYPD Chief of Community Affairs Bureau, said the department is actively investigating the incident as a potential hate crime.
"I know hate when I see it," Maddrey said. "And what happened here was all of that."
Surveillance video released on Friday showed a suspect approaching the window of the gallery after 5 a.m. on Monday and smearing paint across the glass.
May 31, 2021 at 05:02 am, an unknown suspect smeared white paint on the window of the Black Wall Street Gallery, at 26 Mercer St. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). Tips can also be submitted at https://t.co/KCXmxiACfC, or @NYPDTips
pic.twitter.com/3S0Oe42HBl— NYPD 1st Precinct (@NYPD1Pct) June 4, 2021
According to police, the unidentified suspect "approached and fled on foot from the north."
As Blavity previously reportedly, more than 300 Black people were killed by a white mob in the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. The mob used weapons, including planes, that firebombed Greenwood's prosperous Black district.
The attack devastated the lives and businesses of many Black people who were capitalizing on the oil boom. It was also a time where dozens in the Black community were becoming doctors, lawyers, and business owners, as well as land owners. The attack dashed these dreams and left a lasting impact on the community for generations.
Salima Koroma, who recently partnered with LeBron James to produce a documentary about the tragic event, said the district "was a Black utopia."
"It's important for Black people to know the beauty we created in this country," Koroma said. "I want people to think about what Dreamland, the place, could have been. It was a Black utopia. The 1920s weren't just roaring for white Americans — we also had our own Black Gatsby."
Koroma's documentary, Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street, debuted on CNN on Monday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the attack.
