Our Trip to Tulsa's Black Wall Street in 2024

We visited Tulsa's Black Wall Street this past August and had a great time! This is always an emotional trip but a great experience to teach yourself or your kids about Black Wall Street. Watch this video to learn more about our experience, itinerary, and must do's when you visit Tusla.

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Transcript

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We take our team ever since 2021 back to Greenwood to learn that history firsthand to, you know, all of our. Team members are bought into the real vision of our business and not just trying to get a paycheck. Right. Not necessarily augmented reality. I don't even know what it's called. Oh, holograms. Holograms. Kind of like that. Yeah. But it's. And, you know, good job to you. Kudos to you for doing this. This year is we got really good premium workspace. Welcome back, y'all. I'm Devon Travell, and in 2018, I created Black Wall street, the board game. And ever since, we've been selling Black Wall street, the board game, and financial literacy across the world. That's why every single year, we go back to Tulsa, Black Wall street, and we take our team. This is my amazing, beautiful partner in business and in life. Please introduce yourself. Hello, everyone. My name is Sinclair, AKA the health and real estate nerd. Yeah. And today we want to go through kind of a recap of our trip to Black Wall Street. Why we go some highlights and maybe some nuggets that you can take when you visit Greenwood, when you visit Little Africa, when you go to Tulsa, Black Wall Street. And then also share a little bit of story. Some challenges we had from bringing the team to that development experience. Queen, you ready to dive in? Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. So getting right into it, we create a board game called Black Wall Street. The board game built on the history and legacy of Tulsa's Black Wall Street. When you go around the board, you're landing on real businesses that existed 100 years ago in the thriving Greenwood community. So we take our team ever since 2021 back to Greenwood to learn that history firsthand, to really get reinvigorated and inspired to do this work. It is a emotional trip, right? It's a very emotional trip, especially going through the historical center, which we'll talk about in a second. But for us, it's a piece of our core mission, and we need to go there every year, especially if we have new team members to make sure that they're tapped in with the real history and the foundation of our business. Queen, anything you want to add on why we go to Black Wall street or why other people should consider going to Black Wall Street? Yeah, I think for us, because it is the foundation for our business, we are very big on, like, creating a certain culture within our organization and want to make sure that everybody, you know, all of our team members are bought into the real vision of our business and not just trying to get a paycheck. Right. So I think that is something that we. It's an investment that we make as an organization and a choice, an active choice that we've made. We are going to spend money. If y'all are like, dang, that's kind of expensive. It is, it is. Right. But it's an investment. You know, we don't take our money and go buy fancy boats and things like that. Right. We really take. Not yet, not yet. But right now we're intentional about reinvesting our profits and things like that back into our team because it makes us for a great culture. Right. People, we've had our team members literally be like, it is really nice to see that y'all literally invest in us, like time, money, like you invest in giving us these experiences and it makes us feel like a family. And of course, it's a lot harder to walk away from a family than it is to just a job. So I think it makes for us creating a really tight knit group of folks and a place that people want to stick around for. Right. We've got folks like, hey, what full time opportunities do you have? And that's really nice for us that we're creating a culture where people actually want to be here. And. But yeah, I think it's also for us as business owners thinking about the fact that we have team members that are going to be walking around, you know, L.A. Right. There's prospective communities representing our organization. And we also want them to be able to talk through why the history is important, why we do what we do, and to be able to set foot on the ground and actually, you know, see the plaques on the ground where the businesses stood, get to walk the actual streets that existed. You know, take the tour, which we'll talk about, you know, go to the History Center. I think all of that, there's only so much we can tell them about Black Wall street without them being able to physically experience it themselves. I think that it's just something that we've chosen and has given us a good return in terms of the, again, the environment and the culture we create. The fact that our team is knowledgeable about the history and can speak from their own experience. You know, things that they saw in the History center and things like that. This makes it more authentic. Yes, yes. So if you're watching this, I want you to frame this as it can go two ways. Right? It can go. This can be people for people who want to visit Tulsa, Black Wall street, and you want a little bit of a sneak peek into what you can experience and do when you're out. Or this can be for people who have a business and they're looking for ways to create that company culture, ways to create a retreat. This is basically what it is for us, right? It's a professional development experience for our team where we're doing, going over the core ideology. We're going over mission and vision. We're going over the responsibilities. They're taking a tour. And it might not be, you know, Black Wall street for you. It might be a different location, right? It might be going to Atlanta. It might be going to D.C. It might be going to another place that makes sense for your mission, for your vision to meet, for them touch down at the soil and get reconnected to your mission. So you can look at it from two ways again. You're going to Black Wall street or you have a business and you want to frame your retreat similar to how we do it. So let's go over maybe some highlights from the experience. My dove, Anything that stands out to you. We've gone back to black Wall street four times now. @ this point, we've done a team experience a solid two, roughly three times. What's a highlight for you with coming back this time? What is a highlight? I think it's just cool to see that this, I think, was the first year that we've had both returning folks and new folks there at the same time. So to see that everybody was still engaged and having a good, like, few folks who. That was their second time coming back to the museum, right? Our third. But that they were still locked in, like, they were still reading the history because there's still so much to learn and they're still invested in learning that history and things like that. I think seeing and being able to talk to them afterwards, like, you know, what did you notice differently about this time than you did the first time? Like, that's always nice to see different perspectives, right? Someone from this is their first time, like, what are the things they're noticing versus someone that their second time, right? You got the basics of what happened, but now there's. There's so many layers right to it. So just to see, I think, how all the different experiences come together in our team was nice. That's good. And I think for me, one of the highlights consistently has been the Greenwood Rising Historical center, right. Which opened up for the first time in 2021. We were honored to be one of the donors. So, like, it's something that we do every time is we shop. Who can find our name on the wall? Which is always fun. But yeah, that I think is a must see because it puts a lot of history in one place for you. I love how they segment it up into like time periods or even like emotions kind of, which is really good. It'll start off with seeing a video that kind of just talks about the importance of Greenwood and Black Wall street to the community today. Then you're going to a section where it's talking about the oil boom and the entrepreneurs behind the building of Black Wall street or Greenwood. You'll cross the literal Frisco tracks and then you'll go into a nice barbershop experience, TC's Barbershop, where you get to sit down and there's like a. Not necessarily augmented reality. I don't even know what it's called. Hologram. Holograms, kind of like that. But it's interactive. So like you're. But then you sit in the chair and you are now part of the vision, part of the experience, part of the conversation. Like they literally. I think there's at some point where they ask a question to you in the audience, which, that's one of my favorite parts, just how it was done. It is really cool because it's. It's very cool to see the technology, but it's also like, if you listen to the conversation, it's very real to what they're experiencing there one, but also still very relevant to, you know, stuff experienced today. So that's, I think, my favorite part. Yeah. And then after that it gets into a. The arc of oppression, which I think is the most emotional part of it. It'll start going through the enslavement of African people, start talking about the Red Summers, are talking about the Ku Klux Klan. And it gets, it does get very emotional and violent during that time period. It's definitely very heavy. And then immediately after that, they have another very kind of interactive visual experience where you get to see the 24 hours of what occurred during the Greenwood massacre. And then afterwards it goes through the survival and then even the rebuilding of Black Wall street from 1926 to 1950. So again, a great journey. And if you are a history person, if you're a homeschooling parent, if you're an educator and you just want to learn more about the history, highly encourage you. Go to Black Wall street, go to the Greenwood Rising Historical center and there's another experience that we'll talk about you should definitely do as well that supplements it very well. But it's a good self guided, self paced historical center to get some good information. So usually a highlight and a must do immediately after that. Another highlight that I would say for another day because it's going to be a two hour, three hour experience is our tour with Terry Backus. All right. And this is mandatory, especially for our team or anyone else who's visiting Black Wall street because you can get a good sense of the history in the Historical center. But there's something about walking the streets with Terry. Right? There's something about him being like, hey, you see that right there? 100 years ago, that's what this was. Black Wall street was this entire area as far as that car drove down. And then he just tells you a different story, a different perspective than what you're going to see on the walls in the Historical Center. Very personal experience. You can ask him all types of questions. It's just a. Yeah, it's a good vibe and highly encourage you. You can tell the whole energy shifted when I started talking about Terry. Ever since 2021. Yeah. Our first year there, we've always got a tour. And we go back every single year. And every single year, Sinclair, it's a different experience. Yes, it's a different tour. We've never taken the same tour. Never even walked the same way. Never even walked the same way. And it's not like that big of an area which we're walking. But there's just, there's so many things to see and different experiences to have that. Yeah, he does a good job of making a different, you know, each time and you know, definitely tap in. That's tour of. Tour of Black Wall street dot com. Hit it up. Yeah, but that's a highlight and kind of, again, making it. I want to make this specific to Black Wall Street. But then also if you're like, I have a business and I want to do retreat, I want to make it general enough for y'all as well. Don't just have your business retreats and training where you're sitting down all day inside the boardroom, going over meetings. Right. Get them outside. Bring in an industry expert that can do some type of hands on experience, whether you're a photographer and videographer and you want to bring your team together and do a live photo shoot with somebody or do studio tours, whether you're a health nerd or a health coach and you want to Go out there and go to a gym and do a workout with somebody. Like, get out there and do something physical within your industry so that your team can get hands on experience. Definitely. It changes. It changes the game. I think we all especially, I think just in today's society, I think it's probably only going to get worse or exacerbated. But our attention spans are so short. So I feel like sitting in a room for eight hours can be so, like, oh, my gosh, I just need to get out and do something. So, yeah, you know, like, when I'm planning out the agenda, I'm very intentional about, like, okay, we're gonna be sitting for a couple of hours. All right, let's do something active. Or, you know, we're gonna go out and do something, be out in the sun. Okay, let's go inside for a minute. Those are just things to think about for your logistics person. But I think it is good to have a little bit of. Yes, we have dedicated time inside to go over the business. That's important too. But mixing that in with really impactful, active things I think changes the game. In alignment with that. Another highlight and good job to you, Kudos to you for doing this year is we got really good premium workspace. I think it was 36 degrees north. 36 degrees north. CO working space out there in Tulsa. They had two different locations when were there. Both really in the downtown area. Walking distance to Greenwood. Sorry, in the arts district. Actually, both really walking distance to Greenwood. But I think it gave me a little bit more of a sense of pride. You know, I think the hotel conference room, cool. Meeting in a hotel lobby, cool. Which are things that we've done in the past. But there's something about going to a workspace, checking in, them taking us to the conference room. Nice whiteboards, technology, WI fi, large conference table. It just felt like this is a business meeting. We're a startup, and we're about to go get it right now. Yeah. And then seeing, like the other people that are using the space sitting there and looking up at us, Right? A team of 12 or 10amazing melanated people walking in. We got our polos on. I'm sure they're like, well, who are these? There's a couple of people that walk by a couple of times looking in. Like, wait a minute, what's going on here? Who are these people? Which on the flip side of that, sometimes we got some comments like, oh, what sports team are y'all a part of? We got that probably at least twice that I've seen and I'm sure someone else got it. So that's the flip side of being in a large group. Large black group. People think you're all athletes, but the other side is like, hopefully them thinking like, oh, what type of business is this? What team is this? Coming into this co working space as a squad. Yep. So that was good. So find some good space. Find some good space to work in. Another highlight. Unless you have one. I can keep it flowing. I mean, the highlight is always the food. I don't know if that was gonna. Be on your list, but it was not. Look, the food. We have pretty much our staple restaurants that we go to. Although we've added now Mother Road Market. Mother Road Market was good. Yeah. Just like trying to support one black owned businesses as much as possible. So we go to fixins. We go to Sissarus, right? Those black owned businesses that are delicious and definitely want to support and patronize the black owned businesses in. In the downtown area. But yeah, also we go to Nola's. Right. We go to. We just found Mother Road Market, which is like a food market where you got different stalls. Really good. So as foodies, like we create the lifestyle that we want. Everywhere we go, we like to have good food. So even on this trip, that is a part of the experience. We're not going to no run of the mill. Oh, we found. I don't remember what it was called. On the way to the rodeo, we found that other restaurant, the black owned restaurant, Mama Do's. Mama Do's, Yes. Also black owned restaurant, family owned. We believe they're from the islands because they had that accent. Yeah, the owner came out, talked to us. The owner's daughter came out, talked to us. So yeah, that was a. That was a really good vibe. And also it felt more authentic local. Right. I think Sissarus is like a really good experience, but it's not necessarily local food fixings, again, really good experience, but not someone who's from there. It felt like the folks from Mamadou's, although they had that island like or that island accent for like Oklahoma food. It felt local. Tulsa food. Yep, yep. So yeah, I always enjoy the food. Wherever we go, we make sure we are eating good as well as our team. No doubt, no doubt. What was the other thing on my. Hold on, let me see. Oh, my favorite part. My favorite part of. Yeah, I think so. This is my favorite part about this retreat in particular that we did a little bit different Queen. Usually we do the seven steps to Launch. Right. We teach this within our curriculum. It's an easy seven step program based on a book that I wrote back in 2021 called Launch It. Seven steps, launch your business, little plug. Go check it out on Amazon. But instead of making it general and like letting our team members kind of solve whatever problem they want to solve or come up with any idea they want to come up with, we really framed it around the idea of entrepreneurship. And I think this is an important idea for y'all to grasp. If you are a business owner, if you are an entrepreneur, the concept of entrepreneurship is you have people in your team, right. That brilliant ideas. Maybe they have a fashion brand on their own. Maybe they are a great graphic artist on their own. Maybe they're good health coaching on their own. How can they, instead of building a business outside of you, how can they build a business or a department inside of your organization based on their skill set, based on their idea? So what we did was we framed the seven steps around solving the problems that play Black Wall street solves. Right. Increasing financial literacy and access to black history or black history education. That was the problem. After that, they can solve it however they want to solve. Right. Whether that's through media, whether that's through a cool calendar, whether that's through an AI bot, whatever it is. So it was really cool to see them come up with dope play black Wall street business ideas from their perspective. And I feel like we got a lot of ideas that I think are viable that we can actually use and start monetizing within the company this year if we wanted to. So, yeah, that was fun. That was exciting to see, exciting to experience, and I'm also excited to see how we can possibly actually take these ideas and make them real. Yep. Yeah. I think it's also cool because one, it gives people the agency to be creative within the organization. But like, you know, if we have a lot of people that have. That either have their own business or have that entrepreneurial spirit. So I feel like it also can give them. It kind of gives them a little foundation of like you almost have an incubator, like you can create this space within our business so that it kind of gives them the concept of confidence also. So if they, you know, have a venture that they want to do outside of the business as well, eventually they can do that. So I feel like it is really a win, you know, for the, for the team members as well as for the business. Yeah. Something that I thought of later on that I want to Say now for one, people that are listening and then two, for our own notes is at some point, I think we do need to do NDAs with the team. So I'm just. I don't see anyone in our team doing this, but I can see this in a real world situation where you come up with the entrepreneurship idea, they start building it out, they start working on it, and then they're like, well, if I can do this for y'all, I can also just leave, take this entire idea and just go do it for myself. Which, you know, is a cool mindset to have. I don't knock the hustle at all, but if I think there's some ideas that are very specific to Play Black. Play Black Wall street that should stay within Play Black Wall Street. And we need to make sure that as we are nourishing and incubating these amazing ideas, that they do stay in house. So something for us to consider some type of NDA or some type of agreement that says, you know, the business ideas that you come up with that are in alignment with Play Black Wall street, that we've also helped foster during training events, particularly should stay belong the intellectual property of Play Black Wall street, all that stuff. Yeah. I think something for us to consider and something for y'all to consider. Again, we're not. We're not lawyers. Right. So definitely disclaimer. Talk to your own legal professionals, legal services. But I can. I can see a world where, again, we're doing this for 10, 15 years. We're taking people to Black Wall street, we're paying for their travel, where we set up this incubator space. They come up with a million dollar idea, then they say, boom, I'm out. And they do that idea. Yeah, Yeah. I think there's a way to think about it, because I think that is standard. You know, the company I worked for there was that same thing. Same. But I think the one example I'm thinking of is there was one of the ideas where we as a group were kind of like, this is good. You should probably just do this outside of Playback Wall street, though. Like, this is good for y'all to do personally. So in that scenario, I feel like it would kind of be hindering them, you know, so we can take it offline, but something for us to think about how we work it. Agreed. 100% agree. Did I have one more? I think that's it. Well, so the last one also goes into a challenge that we experienced. Right. But another great experience that we got to do that again was Very local and authentic to Tulsa. We went to a rodeo. Sure did. A black rodeo. We went to a black rodeo. It was 40 minutes outside of Tulsa at a Muscogee Nation. And yeah, it was a vibe. Thousands of people out there. Stadium was packed, no seats. It took us a while to find somewhere to actually sit down. Cowboy hats, cowboy booze, people riding on horses everywhere. And it was a really good vibe, good experience that, you know, I would still do again even after what happened. And I'll, you know, me and Sinclair will. Will tell you the struggle of the story, but the. The general, I guess, kind of advice for y'all is even outside of the work day, find some dope experiences you can do with your team to build memories and build trust with one another. Whether that's a rodeo, whether that's going to a museum, whether that's going to the movies. Again, I think theme of our trips are we do some stuff in a boardroom, in a conference room, but we try to make it maybe 50, 60, 40 of being outside and getting some real world experience. Queen, any positives you want to say about the rodeo before we give the short version of the challenge that we experienced? I think it's just cool to the exposure, I think is the thing that is definitely like, okay, if we could. Because I think for us personally, we had just been to a black rodeo in la maybe like a month prior. So I think for us it was like, well, we've kind of seen this, but maybe it's different in Oklahoma. And this would be a really cool experience for someone who hasn't been to a black rodeo. And if we can be people to introduce them to that again, it just, I feel like leads to more loyal team members. Right. If we are introducing them to things that they've never experienced before. So I was like, man, it's 40 minutes away. When's the next time we're going to be able to do a black rotary in Oklahoma? Like, we don't know. It was annual thing, so it just kind of. The stars aligned. We rented a car. So we had the car. It was like 15. It was like, it's not terribly expensive, so let's make it happen. Yeah. Yeah. Even though it turned into a very long. All right, so here's what happened. Well, let's get into it. Here's what happened. So we showed. I'm getting short story right, because I don't want to get into all the details, but the lesson is you need to figure out as a professional, when you take your Team members on these trips, what are the professional parameters? What are the rules? What are the expectations inside and outside the workplace? So we go to the rodeo and there's me, Sinclair and four other of our teammates members. We get there, it's 9pm, it's dark, we're in the middle of nowhere, not a lot of lights. The cell phone service is terrible. And again, thousands of people. There's been multiple times where we've had a group of people that are with us leave us for different reasons. And whenever they leave us, we call. We can't get in contact with them because again, the service is bad. We usually reunite. We're at the end of the night, it's 11pm and you know, these three youthful individuals, adventurous individuals, decide that they want to stay at the rodeo longer. Me and Sinclair, with our old selves, we're like, we're gone. We're going home. One other person who was young and wise is also like, you know what? I'm going to go home with y'all. Young and wise.

Young and wise, right? I'm going to go home with y'all. So they ask us like, hey, do you mind? Can we stay here a little bit longer? Can we Uber? I reply in my text message, I don't think you're going to be able to get an Uber back this late, right? So it's 11:00pm now. We didn't end up leaving until like 11:30. They didn't end up wanting to leave until about 1: 24:36

00, right? And I was like, I don't think you're gonna be able to get an Uber that late. And in the middle of, in the. Middle of nowhere, right? Middle of nowhere. No disrespect, but it was, listen, coming from California, Los Angeles, were in the middle of nowhere. It was country, all right? It was country, rural, all the words. All right, Long story short, they decided they wanted to stay there. We said, okay. So Sinclair and I drove 40 minutes back to Tulsa, relaxed in our hotel room, chilled, had a bottle of wine, relaxing, bonnet on, chilling, not a care in the world. Sinclair, he falls asleep. I then get. Or we got a knock at the door quite loud. I wake up. We have two other team members that are letting me know that these three youthful, youthful spirits are stranded at the rodeo.

It's 1:30, it's one for. I know it was 1: 25:52

40am exactly central time.

It was 1: 26:01

40am I literally just fallen asleep. And I'm like, okay, tell them we'll be there in 40 minutes. And so I start getting dressed. I wake the Devon up. I then get a phone call from one of these youthful spirits, basically saying the same thing. We're stranded out here. This is the only phone that's not dead. Everybody else's phone died. I don't know how much of it you want me to.

Yeah. We couldn't get an Uber, though. Or we tried to get an Uber. It kept canceling on us for an hour and a half. They started shooting at the rodeo, so were safe. But we had a fine cover. It was a whole movie. Like, literally, if The Hangover Part 4 in Tulsa happened, it would be this, right? So again, 1:40am we get in the car, we drive 40 minutes back to Muskogee Nation, pick them up. It's 2: 26:23

20am they walk in the car all sad. Hey, guys, we're sorry. Right? Which we did. Appreciate the heartfelt apology, specifically from one individual who was apologizing for probably 30 minutes straight. Definitely appreciate it. The other two fell asleep, but. And then the next day, heartfelt apology. And it felt authentic. Right? But the. Again, the lesson here is, as a professional, as a business owner, when to say no to things, even when they're adults. Right? These are 21 year olds. 20 year olds, so I mean, they're adults, but in our eyes, like, there's still our responsibility to take care of. And in our hearts we wanted to say no. Right?

Right. When they were like, oh, what is uber? Eh, it's 11:30. I knew in my heart that you weren't going to be able to get an Uber. So I'm just like, I should have said no. Let's go. Sorry, y'all. Like, if y'all want to come back to Tulsa another time, if you want to do this on your own time, do it. But it's a work event and we need to be energized and ready for tomorrow, which we start at 9am the next day. We didn't get to sleep until 3. I know I woke up with not the best energy. Right. 3: 27:34

30, I didn't wake up the best energy. They didn't wake up with the best energy. Their presentations weren't to the par that they could have been for their level of excellence. So I just think professionally there was a lot of suffering for that social outing. So it's a tough line, I think, to walk and to learn. But I feel like you do need to kind of put your foot down as the business owner on what's appropriate and what's not appropriate. What you're going to allow and what you're not going to allow on your business retreats and inside your company culture. Right. And I think, yeah, it's something that we struggle with. Like it's something that we're developing because again, we are trying to create this family culture which has its pros and cons. Right? Pros are you feel real tight knit. It feels like these are little brothers, little sisters, almost like kids. But the con is that, you know, there may be some lines that are a little bit more blurry that ideally would be really clear cut and other scenarios and other companies, other organizations are really clear cut. Like you. I've been to conferences. Like there have been. If I was in this scenario, the last person I'm calling is my boss. Right. Because like I don't want to seem like, oh my gosh, I'm doing something wrong or you know, I don't want them to think of me in a different way or whatever. But, but in this scenario it's. Who else are they gonna call? So it's a challenge for us and us to continue to figure out like, okay, this is something we're going to do differently and we're just gonna accept the challenges or this is something that, okay, we've experienced this now, we gotta now draw this line in the future. This is gonna be how it's gonna be. So yeah, just something we're growing and developing in as I think leaders and business owners. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, that was our experience with rodeo. That was our experience. Fourth time going toast to black Wall street next year. We hope to do it again. Right. Whether the rodeo I would also do again. Except you're coming back with us for sure. Going back to Greenwood. Of course. It's a part of our team culture as part of our ideology at this point. So we'll definitely be tapping back in with Greenwood Rising Historical center. Definitely tapping back in with Terry towards a black Wall Street. But something that I want to do a little bit different next year if we have the opportunity is support more local black owned businesses. There was that Saturday market that was popping off right when were ending our tour. But were on a tight time crunch and we had to leave. I think it would be great next time we can spend some time in the market, maybe even interview some of those entrepreneurs about black Wall street, about their experience. Yeah, just, maybe just that one thing. Let's go to the Saturday market and have some time there so that we can support and our team members can also support those black owned businesses. Other than that, I think this was probably our best trip yet. As far as experience wise, holistic experience, even team development, team bonding, I think this was probably our best trip yet. Agreed. Dope. Dope. All right, y'all. So we appreciate y'all tapping in our overview of our experience going back to Greenwood, AKA Black Wall Street. I'm your host, Devon Travell, creator of Black Wall street, the board game. And I'm Sinclair, AKA the health and real estate nerd. Uhuh. Make sure y'all secure the marriage. Make sure y'all secure the love, and of course, make sure y'all secure the bag.