About Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state built on contradictions and carried forward by resilience. It was Indian Territory before it was a state, the land promised in perpetuity to the Five Civilized Tribes and dozens of other nations forcibly relocated from the East, only to be opened to white settlement in a series of land runs that defined the state's character and gave it its name. More tribal nations call Oklahoma home than any other state, and the 2020 McGirt decision reminded the country that the promises of those original removal treaties are not yet finished business.

The red clay soil, the oil derricks on the Capitol lawn, the memory of Black Sunday's dust storms, the 165 empty chairs at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, Oklahoma's identity is inseparable from its most difficult history. But it is also the state of Will Rogers's wit, Woody Guthrie's music, Jim Thorpe's athleticism, and the Tulsa skyline rising from Art Deco buildings funded by the same oil boom that dispossessed the Osage of their wealth and their lives.

The Oklahoma of today is a state in genuine transition: growing cities drawing young workers from across the region, tribal nations building economic institutions of national significance, wind turbines replacing oil derricks across the western plains, and a university system producing graduates who increasingly choose to stay. The contradictions have not been resolved. But Oklahoma has never been a state that waited for resolution before moving forward.