Learn about OKC’s forgotten Black communities through stories
Published on September 22, 2026
Everyone can now listen to firsthand accounts from Black Oklahoma City residents sharing e their memories of OKC neighborhoods that no longer exist, thanks to a new oral history project titled "Oklahoma City's Forgotten Black Communities: Where safe spaces, equity, culture, and creativity lived."
Hearing these stories helps preserve and honor OKC's shared history.
Watch and/or listen to the interviews on YouTube or the Oklahoma State University Library Digital Collections’ website.
Prior to Oklahoma's statehood in 1907, several predominantly Black communities were established in the Oklahoma City metro area. These neighborhoods were home to free people, formerly enslaved people and Freedmen of Indigenous Tribes. They were largely self-sustaining, with their own businesses, resources and more.
Communities included:
- Sandtown
- Brickyard
- West Town
- South Town
- Walnut Grove
- East Side
- 2nd Street
- 4th Street
- Old Fair Grounds
- Carverdale
- Edwards Addition
- Garden Oaks
- Garden Day
- Hicks Addition
- Harrison Addition
- Green Pastures
- Parkes Heights
- Choctaw
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 exist in present-day Oklahoma City.
"This project is a necessary step toward recovering and sharing our untold history," OKC Arts Project Manager Leondre Lattimore said. "OKC has changed tremendously over the last half century or so, and it's important that we acknowledge the impact of that change in its entirety. Although we are not always able to replace what has been lost and destroyed over time, our hope is to cement the legacies of these neighborhoods and the role they have in shaping our community."
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 Libraries and the Oklahoma Black Museum and Performing Arts Center to identify residents with stories about these neighborhoods that no longer exist.
"Rather than simply collecting memories, I approached each interview as an opportunity to listen carefully to the people who have lived, worked, raised families, built businesses, created art, organized communities, and shaped the cultural life of Oklahoma City," Dr. Autumn Brown of the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program said. "This work drives change because preservation is a form of action. When communities have the opportunity to document their own histories, they gain greater power to shape how their neighborhoods, struggles, contributions, and aspirations are understood. Ultimately, the project is an act of honoring our neighbors. It affirms that their lives matter; their memories are valuable, and their experiences deserve a place in the historical record. By listening to and preserving these stories, we are not simply looking backward—we are creating a fuller record of Oklahoma City that can help us imagine and build a more equitable future."
A special thank you to Dr. Brown and Tonya Finchum for conducting the interviews; Rosetta Funches for helping to source interviewees; Dr. Dorscine Spigner-Littles from the University of Oklahoma, who initiated the research that helped start this project; and all the interview participants who shared their piece of history.
About Oklahoma Oral History Research Program
The Oklahoma Oral History Research Program (OOHRP) is a research division of the Oklahoma State University Library with the focus of broadening archival inclusion of individual and community memory and experiences representing Oklahoma and OSU history and culture through ethical oral history practice. The OOHRP leads oral history projects and partners with communities to support locally driven work.
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