Angel of Greenwood is set in the real historical community of Greenwood, which was a thriving Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with lucrative businesses and close-knit families. According to The New York Times, approximately 10,000 people lived in the self-sustaining community of Greenwood until 1921, when, over two days, a mob of white people from Tulsa ravaged the community, killing hundreds, displacing thousands, burning buildings, and robbing businesses (“What the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed.” The New York Times, 2021). This terrorist event is now known as the Tulsa Race Massacre, although it was largely ignored and even intentionally buried by the news media at the time. Although in the novel, Greenwood is referred to as if it’s separate from Tulsa, it was technically a neighborhood within Tulsa, although it was an autonomous community and residents didn’t need to leave it often.

Greenwood was one of the most prosperous Black communities in the nation, so it’s speculated that one motivating factor behind the white mob’s attack was resentment over this prosperity. An estimated $1.8 million ($27 million in present-day currency) worth of damage was done to Greenwood. Before being destroyed, Greenwood was home to its own newspapers, churches, schools, doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, restaurants, theaters, and more.