Stephen Towns - Visual Artist

In the great words of Tulsa's own Uncle Charlie my week in Oklahoma was Outstanding! I got to tour the new Gilcrease Museum after hearing about the build out, I got to join curator Alex Mann and University of Tulsa's Post Doctorate Fellow Aaron Schoenfeldt to discuss our work unearthing less than popular history via our work. And, thanks to Jana & Billy at the Helmerich Center for pulling archival images of Ms. Eddie Faye Gates that I reviewed during my residency.

One if the best parts of the week was getting to walk the streets of Black Wall Street, visit the Greenwood Cultural Center, and sharing the history of Greenwood with my partner and visiting the Tulsa Artist Fellow's Le'andra Leseur's solo exhibition Monument Eternal.

But my favorite thing about last week's trip was Ms. Eddie Faye Gates' family coming out to the talk which wrapped my residency in her name!

Join me next Wednesday, November 5th, as I have the privilege of being the lecturer at the Eddie Faye Gates Annual Program at The University of Tulsa. was an educator, historian, author and activist whose scholarship and commitment to documenting survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Video 1: Mrs. Thelma Whitlow, co founder of the North Tulsa Heritage Foundation Board, which preserves Greenwood's history, where the Massacre happened.

Video 2: Mr. Ernie Fields, a jazz musician who played alongside musicians like Duke Ellington and Count Basie, known for his hit "T Time Blues"

Video 3: Mrs. Pocahontas Greadington, a mathematician who helped conduct studies and wrote mathematics textbooks with Houghton Mifflin

Video 4: Mrs. Jobie Elizabeth Holderness showing Ms. Eddie her rose patterned quilt.

Video courtesy of The Eddie Faye Gates Tulsa Massacre Collection at The Gilcrease Museum.