Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce president found dead in Oklahoma home with injured husband
Police reportedly not searching for suspect
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The president of an Oklahoma association for Black-owned business was found dead in her home on Wednesday morning outside of the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Police were called to the surburb of Bixby, home of Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce president Sherry Gamble Smith, at 8.05am on Wednesday, responding to a 911 call coming from inside the house.
There, they found Ms Smith dead and her husband Martin injured. He would later die at a nearby hospital.
“It appears to be domestic in nature but the investigation is still underway to determine the timeline and what lead to this tragedy,” Seth Adcock of the Bixby Police Department told The Independent.
Police are not looking for a suspect at this time, Fox23 reports.
Bixby police and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation are investigating what happened.
The Independent has contacted the state police for comment.
Smith was remembered by those who knew her as passionate about giving back to the Tulsa community and honouring Black history. She regularly organised Juneteenth events in the city.
“It’s going to take those individuals who worked dilligently with her, her children, her family members, other community members that were as passionate about the community as she was to pull together and continue her legacy,” longtime friend and pastor Jamaal Dyer told KRMG. “Take those tools and deposits that she made into our lives and now make them come to fruition.”
“My heart is very heavy over the death of Sherry Gamble Smith, visionary leader of the Black Wall Street Chamber in Tulsa,” Ken Levit, executive director of the Tulsa-area George Kaiser Family Foundation wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “She was a warm and wonderful human being full of generosity in spirit and a conviction to do justice and act with decency always.”
The Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce is a non-profit that seeks to “unify, promote and empower the African American community through entrepreneurship, programming, economic development, education, and training in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” according to its website.
The group’s name is in part a reference to the infamous 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
On 1 June, 1921, a lynch mob of white people burned and looted Greenwood, Oklahoma, a section of Tulsa known as “Black Wall Street” for its high concentration of African American-owned businesses.
As many as 300 people may have been killed, and 35 city blocks were burnt to the ground.