From Oasis to City Lights: Vanessa Hall-Harper talks achievements and challenges

On Tuesday, District 1 voters will get their last chance to decide who will represent them on Tulsa City Council. The race that started with five candidates has been narrowed to two: incumbent Vanessa Hall-Harper and challenger Corinice Wilson.

The Eagle invited both Hall-Harper and Wilson on a ride around the district they hope to serve for the next two years. 

You can read our conversation below or watch our video with Hall-Harper. 

Editor’s note: Answers have been edited for length and clarity. 

Hall-Harper shared some of the accomplishments she’s most proud of — like Oasis and Greenwood Entrepreneurship at Moton — but also shed some light on what it’s taken to make those a reality:

“A lot of people don’t know the backstory behind any of the initiatives, but I’ll just say — these things are not accomplished without pushback. That’s what I get most criticized about because I speak to those pushbacks. 

When we have the grand openings and the ribbon cuttings, that’s great and it’s certainly celebratory for the community. But most people who are not engaged behind the scenes don’t know or realize that there are those in this city and in this power structure who don’t want to see these things happen. It seems certainly around election time, I’m more criticized for acknowledging and speaking truth to those things as opposed to the reality that they do exist.” 

We stopped by Black Wall Street Square, where the first phase is nearing completion. Here, she told us about her ultimate hopes for the housing development:

“Terry McGee, may he rest in peace, he was a retired fireman from the Tulsa Fire Department. But he was also a home builder and he put together a proposal because I wanted to do something that brought density to the neighborhood as well. 

So he came up with this idea of Black Wall Street Square, and he brought partners in like Habitat for Humanity and Boomtown to develop 24 townhomes for home ownership, and so that’s how this project came to be. His son took over the project or the partnership in Terry’s stead, and so we are looking forward to having 24 townhomes for home ownership right here along the MLK corridor.”

Not too far from the construction and in front of the home she grew up in, Hall-Harper talked about what the community she was raised in meant for her:

“I realize how blessed I am to be able to really have a sense of home. A lot of people don’t have a sense of home when they move around a lot. I appreciate my parents. Growing up, my dad was a structural mechanic at Rockwell, which is now Boeing. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. She did little odd jobs and that kind of thing, but for the most part, I had a mom that fixed us breakfast, lunch and dinner, and snacks in between. It was a unique rearing for me and my siblings.”

One of her top achievements during her decade in office has been bringing Oasis to the district, a full-scale grocery store serving north Tulsans: 

“This is one of the feathers in our cap. Something that I worked very, very diligently on. When I decided to run for office, and I started polling citizens in District 1, I said, ‘What’s your No. 1 concern?’ And I heard overwhelmingly that we don’t have a grocery store in our community, and that we have to leave our community to buy food for our families. 

We already had the land. The land was just vacant, but we needed a grocery store. We needed to move from the big grocery stores that are closing everywhere — and certainly several closed in Tulsa — to the small box store concept back to the neighborhood grocers. 

That is what is solving the food insecurity problem today. We went from neighborhood grocery stores back in the ‘50s and ‘60s to Walmart super footprints. Well, Walmart had a big impact on a lot of the mid-sized grocery stores, they had to close. And so we’re just dealing with what the market brings to us, and this is the solution right now.” 

Another proud moment for Hall-Harper was working with City Lights to stand up a tiny home village to help people dealing with chronic homelessness. The village opens its doors in mid-November:

“We ultimately are going to need these throughout this city if we’re going to truly address the homelessness situation that we have. But what I love about (City Lights) is that they have experience in doing this. 

And so, for them to come here, I’m excited about being able to partner with an organization that’s been doing this work for years, and has a love and a passion for it. Their staff will actually be living here, as opposed to just it being a job. 

They’re going to be able to provide these wraparound resources that are absolutely necessary for people who have been chronically unhoused. And so I love the project, and they are putting a lot of investment in here. It’s not just a Band-Aid. This project is a solution, and that’s why I support it.” 

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