Why is it significant that the town is named Greenwood and that the other briefcase comes from Shad Whitmore's shop?

The
significance of these names is open to interpretation.

Both are mentioned in
thescene in the novel's first chapter, which is sometimes extracted from
and read as a short story. Greenwood is the town that the narrator comes from. The MC announces
him as "the smartest boy we've got out there in Greenwood." The most obvious reference
is to the bustling black community of Tulsa called Greenwood, nicknamed "Black Wall
Street," which had been destroyed by white people. Ellison was a native of Oklahoma City,
so he would have known about the community and its destruction in riots. The Battle...