Black Business District Is Making Its Way To Augusta, GA, To Ensure 'Black Entrepreneurs Have The Opportunity To Compete'

A Black Wall Street is establishing itself in Augusta, GA.

According to WJBF Channel 6, an eight-step plan focused on Black entrepreneurship, proposed by Lawrence Freeman Jr. and Thelonious Jones, aims to create a business district encompassing Walton Way, Laney Walker, Broad Street, East Boundary, and other areas. The goal is to promote economic growth and help entrepreneurs generate wealth, with a district modeled after the original Black Wall Street in Tulsa, OK.

The project is inspired by Viola Fletcher, “Mother Fletcher,” the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 2021, which saw more than 300 lives lost and the whole of Black Wall Street businesses destroyed, according to the Tulsa Library. Fletcher was 7 at the time and turned 110 in May 2024, notes People. She is still fighting to rewrite the wrongs of the massacre that left her family in poverty, per Justice For Greenwood.

Fletcher lived in the Greenwood District, a predominantly Black neighborhood with thriving businesses, where the massacre occurred on May 31 and June 1, 1921. An incident took place on May 30 between Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old Black man, and Sarah Page, a 17-year-old white woman in an elevator. In response to differing accounts of what transpired, a fight broke out between Black and white mobs. The white mob set 35 city blocks on fire in the Black community, resulting in more than 300 deaths, 800 injuries, 1,200 destroyed homes, and all Black businesses essentially gone, according to the Tulsa Library.

Freeman mentioned, “What I would like to see happen is going back to our ancestors, our great-granddaddys, great-grandmamas what they did for the Tulsa, Oklahoma Black Wall Street, how they geared up and teamed up and brought in Black businesses.”

He later commented: “Success for us and for me is to be able to say we kept the dream, the vision alive of Mother Fletcher. She’s the oldest survivor.”

Currently Freeman and Jones are seeking community support from businesses, community leaders, and politicians.

“We need our politicians to write the legislation to make sure that we get a piece of the pie because government contracts and government anything brings wealth,” Jones told WJBF Channel 6. “So we need the city councilmen to put aside and make sure that Black entrepreneurs have the opportunity to compete.”