The new Greenwood Women’s Business Center opened its doors at 102 N. Greenwood Ave. in early March with the aim of turning dreams into successful businesses.

Local, state, and federal government officials who worked on the project said the center’s location in Tulsa’s historic Greenwood District – Black Wall Street was only suitable given the district’s status as an economic powerhouse a century ago.

“Entrepreneurship is the new American dream,” stated Greenwood Chamber of Commerce President Freeman Culver III. “Even if you have a job, people are dreaming about starting a business. So we want to be able to help women fulfill their dreams with this center.” 

“You can have dreams, but you’ve got to have resources,” remarked Culver. 

The Greenwood Chamber of Commerce, which owns the facility, is donating the space. Bright office spaces flank the walls of a lobby, which includes a mural of Maya Angelou’s poem Phenomenal Woman.

The Greenwood Chamber, according to Alisa Joseph, Vice President and Director of Programs for U.S. Black Chambers Inc., provided several of the pieces that helped win a $150,000 matching grant from the United States Small Business Association, which had requested proposals to establish a women’s business center in Tulsa.

“And there’s the historical designation of Greenwood, there’s the legacy of what it means form a business owner’s point of view and the massacre that took place and the ability to bring in new business owners, bring in that support and celebrate that legacy of entrepreneurship in the Greenwood area,” Joseph said.

In light of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, when mob violence destroyed what was then the most prosperous Black community in the nation, “it was only fitting that something be birthed out of that,” Joseph said.

This story was originally published by The Journal Record, March 17, 2022.