Special Report: The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre 100 years later

1921 TULSA RACE MASSACRE

The tragedy in Tulsa 100 years ago Tulsa was home to one of the most prosperous Black communities in the country.

In a little more than 12 hours, it was gone. White mobs invaded Greenwood intent on burning, looting and killing.

100 years later Tulsa is still home to the worst incident of domestic racial violence in American history, a fact many don’t know. The city continues to struggle to recover from what disappeared but many believe there is a chance to learn from the past.

ARCHIVE EDITION | SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 THIS PROJECT WAS MADE POSSIBLE THANKS IN PART TO THE GENEROUS UNDERWRITING OF BURT B. HOLMES & THE GEORGE KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION

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TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

The story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre has to be told.

For decades it wasn’t. Not in this city.

Not in the classroom. Not at the dinner table.

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his commemorative archive edition is the result of a methodical examination of the massacre starting in 1999

by Tulsa World Staff Writer Randy Krehbiel. He started with our own archive and those of other newspapers at the time. Since then our reporters and photographers have reported, written and documented the era that allowed Greenwood to burn and its effects on generations.

Krehbiel’s byline is on more than 500 stories since that assignment 22 years ago and his work resulted in Franklin a book, “Tulsa, 1921: Reporting a Massacre.” An excerpt is included in this edition. The Tulsa World newsroom has produced more than 6,000 stories and 2,000 photographs connected to the events of 1921.

Several times, Krehbiel interviewed legendary historian John Hope Franklin, whose name graces the reconciliation park next to Greenwood, which memorializes the massacre.

Franklin was a Booker T. Washington High School alumnus who became one of the world’s most recognized scholars on the role of race in American history. His father, B.C. Franklin was a Tulsa attorney at the

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

One of the statues at John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park is of a man with his hands up created from a photo taken during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. time of the massacre and joined fellow attorneys Chappelle and Isaac “Ike” Spears in defeating the City Commission’s attempt to legislate Greenwood out of existence.

“One of the problems Americans have with history is that we’ve never been really honest,” Franklin said. “We weren’t honest about the Civil War. We weren’t honest about the war with England.”

He said when it came to the

FROM STAFF REPORTS

If you’re interested in learning more about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, here are books and other resources to check out:

The Tulsa World created a website to house all of the content about the massacre in one place. It brings together actual newspaper coverage from 100 years ago of the Tulsa World and the Tulsa Tribune along with current coverage, historical documents and other resources.

“Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921”

By Scott Ellsworth Through extensive historical research, the book documents the events of the massacre. The author is a historian who grew up in Tulsa and regularly returns to the city.

He is a member of the public oversight committee in the ongoing search for mass graves.

Find all of this at tulsaworld.com/racemassacre

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TULSA WORLD

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“Tulsa 1921: Reporting a Massacre”

By Randy Krehbiel The Tulsa World reporter spent two decades researching 1920s newspaper reports and presents the circumstances that led to the deadliest act of racial violence in U.S. history.

“Events of the Tulsa Disaster”

By Mary E. Jones Parrish The book documents fi rst-hand accounts of first-hand massacre survivors, including the author’s escape from Tulsa amid gunfi re. gunfire.

“Black Wall Street”

By Hannibal B. Johnson The longtime Tulsa resident and author traces the history of Tulsa’s nationally renowned African-American community.

The book documents Greenwood’s ascent, its destruction during the massacre, its 1940s renaissance and its decline beginning in the 1960s. The sequel to this book is called “Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples With Its Historical Racial Trauma.”

about related books, documents and more.

100 Years Later series: Read the series published in the days leading up to the 100th anniversary in 2021.

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leading up to the anniversary.

Ten thousand copies are going to be shared with Tulsa Public Schools so that they are used in the classroom. We hope its depth and detail sparks a discussion at every dinner table.

This work by our reporters, photographers and editors is a starting point to provide a chance to review the facts, read the evidence and consider the perspectives of those affected.

This work will continue.

Recommended reading to learn more

Explore the Tulsa World Library online

Timeline: Read about all the events involved in the massacre to present day.

FAQs: Find answers to the most frequently asked questions about the massacre.

Photographs: View galleries related to a number of topics on the massacre.

Special Report: Read the series published on May 31, 2020, that retells the story of Tulsa leading up to the massacre and the aftermath.

Tulsa World & Tulsa Tribune Archive: Read stories published in both newspapers related to the massacre.

Resources: Read reports and learn more

massacre, it’s much the same.

“If the house is to be set in order, one cannot begin with the present; he must begin with the past,” Franklin once wrote.

On the 100th anniversary on the massacre, we provide the public this 64-page edition in every edition of the May 30, 2021, print edition of the Tulsa World across the city. It collects Tulsa World stories printed in the past and all of the stories in our “100 Years Later” series

TULSA WORLD

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“Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921” Multiple authors The nearly 200-page document was commissioned by the state and submitted in February 2001. With reporting that includes survivor accounts, maps and images, the document provides an indepth look at the race massacre and what occurred afterward.

Available in the resources portion of the Tulsa World’s race massacre online library, which is found at: tulsaworld.com/ racemassacre

TULSA WORLD

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A scene of destruction When you put all four back covers together in this commemorative archive edition, it provides a panoramic view of the scene after the massacre.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

About 35 square blocks were destroyed in no more than 12 hours. The June 1, 1921, Tulsa Tribune reported only a few houses, in the vicinity of Booker T. Washington High School, escaped destruction.

According to the June 2, 1921, Tulsa World, officials believed about 25 separate fires were set: “Greenwood Avenue, principal business street in the negro district, is a mass of broken bricks and debris.”

“Only gas and water pipes, bath fixtures, bedsteads or other metal fixtures remain … where homes once stood. The negro residences remaining can almost be counted on one’s hand,” the World reported.

Property losses in the Greenwood District were estimated at around $2 million, but that figure is probably low; those doing the estimating were also trying to buy out the owners.

TULSA WORLD

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

COURTESY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS/UNIVERSITY OF TULSA MCFARLIN LIBRARY

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

COURTESY OF THE GREENWOOD CULTURAL CENTER

The corner of Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street is seen before May 31, 1921, on the left and after being devastated in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre on the right.

Pride before the fall Tulsa was bursting with enthusiasm in 1921. But when the post-war boom faltered, so did oil prices, jobs and construction. Then came the Tulsa Race Massacre and the burning of Greenwood.

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RANDY KREHBIEL | Tulsa World

ulsa called itself the Magic City.

The Coming Metropolis of the Southwest. The Capitol of the Greater Mid-Continent Oilfield.

By that spring of 1921, Tulsa had grown from a dusty town of a few thousand two decades earlier to a city of 75,000. That may have barely put it in the nation’s largest 100 municipalities, but for a place that a bare 15 years before didn’t have a single paved street, Tulsa was punching above its weight.

Untold millions of dollars had passed through Tulsa since the discovery of the Glenn Pool in late 1905, and millions more had stayed. The pipelines, refineries, foundries, railroads, hotels and banks that brought in the Cushing Field and the vast Osages reserves, and that powered Allied forces during the Great War — World War I — were all in Tulsa, or connected to it in some way.

Some of that money found its way into the pockets of a growing and entrepreneurial Black population largely sequestered in the northeast corner of the city.

Known to its residents as Greenwood — for Greenwood Avenue, its main north-south thoroughfare — or Black Wall Street, the district was a beehive of activity: stores, hotels, schools, skilled tradesmen, builders, a professional class.

Greenwood residents sometimes complained about their neighborhood’s unpaved streets, poor-to-nonexistent sanitation and uneven policing, but they treasured it as an oasis in a time and place in which African Americans’ rights and opportunities were tightly limited.

“On leaving the Frisco Station, going north to Archer Street, one could see nothing but (Black) business places,” wrote Mary Jones Parrish, a young mother and entrepreneur. “Going east on Archer for two or more blocks, there you would behold Greenwood Avenue, the (Black’s) Wall Street.

“Every face,” Parrish wrote, “seemed to wear a happy smile.”

It would be argued, apparently with some justification, that not all of that activity was legal. But the newspapers of the day suggest this was no different than in the rest of Tulsa, where police regularly raided rooming houses, cheap hotels, gambling dens and “unlicensed pharmacies.”

Nevertheless, Tulsa was fairly bursting with enthusiasm and pride in the spring of 1921. But pride goeth before a fall, to paraphrase Proverbs, and Tulsa was in for a big one.

If the war had been an economic boon, for Tulsa and the rest of the nation, peace was proving to be a disaster. Commodity prices, for everything from grain to petroleum, plummeted.

Unemployed men, many of them returning veterans, roamed the countryside and hung out on street corners.

According to newspaper stories of the time, cotton rotted in the fields because farmers couldn’t afford to pick it. Wages fell as much as 25%. In a nation of 108 million people, 3.5 million fewer were employed at the end of 1920 than a year earlier.

In Tulsa, the value of building permits fell 30% in one year. Throughout the late winter and spring of 1921, workers and employers clashed over pay. In April, employees of an Okmulgee glass plant walked out after their wages were

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summarily slashed 60%.

Two months earlier, in February 1921, two social workers had delivered a scathing report on the living conditions of Tulsa’s poor and working classes.

“We have heard it said several times that Tulsa has no slums,” they wrote to a committee formed to assess the city’s social problems. “As a matter of fact, Tulsa has an acute slum problem.

“In and around the city lie ragged spots of wretched housings where people live in any kind of miserable shelter, without sewers, water supply or garbage collection, many people crowded together in a shack or tent with no possibility of decent privacy and with no sanitary protection.”

Shortly after, real estate agent C.H. Terwilliger told colleagues that 15,000 people in the city’s northeast quadrant — which would have included Greenwood — did not have sanitary sewers.

By May, the city was on edge. Oklahoma Attorney General S.P. Freeling launched an investigation of the Tulsa Police Department amid charges an auto theft ring was operating out of the TPD’s auto theft detail, and that little effort was being made to control vice and crime.

Law officers were poorly trained and at least as poorly equipped. A police officer was fired and then rehired after punching the Rev. Rolfe Crum, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, following a traffic stop. Police had shot up an Elks Lodge dance while apprehending two thieves, and 50 rounds had been expended in a rooming house shootout on East First Street.

According to Tulsa’s city engineer, the TPD lacked even one fully functional automobile.

The Tulsa Star reported that one of the city’s Black officers, Staley Webb, was fired for complaining about white officers’ abuse of African Americans.

Webb’s claims seem to have been substantiated by a subsequent Star report that five white officers were dismissed for “high-handed treatment” of Blacks.

In Tulsa and elsewhere, African Americans were refusing to accept their second-class status. Perhaps, as many have asserted, it was the war — a war many of them had served in “to make the world safe for Democracy,” President Woodrow Wilson had put it. In any event, African Americans were claiming their rights to an extent not seen since the end of Reconstruction.

Whites — some of them, anyway — reacted violently. In Chicago and a remote settlement in Arkansas’ Mississippi Delta, in Washington, D.C., and small towns from Alabama to Oklahoma, retribution was visited on individuals and communities that dared test racial boundaries.

In Tulsa, it arrived the spring of 1921.

On May 12, 1921, a brief item in the Tulsa Tribune noted that an elderly Black couple, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Irge, had been fined $10 for refusing to sit in the back of a street car.

The incident, predating Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott by 35 years, seems to have attracted little attention.

But 2½ weeks later, when a young Black man known as Dick Rowland was arrested for allegedly trying to press himself on a white elevator operator, and a company of armed Black men went to the Tulsa County Courthouse to protect him, the city’s carefully cultivated reputation went up in flames, consumed by the same fires that destroyed Greenwood. randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com

“On leaving the Frisco Station, going north to Archer Street, one could see nothing but (Black) business places. Going east on Archer for two or more blocks, there you would behold Greenwood Avenue, the (Black’s) Wall Street.

Every face seemed to wear a happy smile.”

Mary Jones Parrish, a young mother and entrepreneur, writing about the Greenwood District before the Tulsa Race Massacre

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100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Greenwood rising

ABOVE: The Greenwood District was booming before the 1921 massacre, earning it the nickname “Black Wall Street.”

LEFT: Two men pose on the roof of the Brady Hotel before the events of 1921.

“I came not to Tulsa as many came, lured by the dream of making money and bettering myself in the financial world, but because of the wonderful cooperation I observed among our people, and especially the harmony of spirit and action that existed between the business men and women.”

That is the way Mary E. Jones Parrish, a young businesswoman, described Tulsa’s African American community in 1921.

By May 1921, Tulsa’s Greenwood had become, as Parrish described it, “the Negro Metropolis of the Southwest.”

Others called it “Black Wall Street,” a title bestowed

by Booker T. Washington, according to tradition.

Like their white neighbors, Greenwood residents took great pride in their community as a place where a person could get ahead through hard work and wise investment. They were not completely free to pursue whatever dream they wished, but they were freer. They built homes and businesses, schools and churches.

Most of all, they built hope.

PHOTOS COURTESY, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, McFARLIN LIBRARY, THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA

— Stories by Randy Krehbiel

Pair of lynchings shake Tulsa

World War I and the rise of white vigilantism World War I cemented Tulsa’s position as a center of the burgeoning oil and gas industry. Much of the oil that powered the Allies to victory came through the city’s pipelines and refineries and much of its production was financed by Tulsa banks.

On a social level, the war created a heightened sense of patriotism that sometimes manifested itself in white vigilantism. The war also fostered a sense of purpose among Black Americans. Some 350,000 served in the U.S. forces, and while most were relegated to support duties, a few units served in combat.

Black Americans came out of the war keenly aware of the injustices they faced at home, more confident of their own abilities and more willing to fight for their civil rights.

Rev. Harold Cooke, one of Tulsa’s most outspoken white supremacists, went so far as to claim that treating African American soldiers “on the same plane as white soldiers” was the leading cause of the race massacre.

COURTESY, TULSA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

A parade passes under Tulsa’s Arch of Triumph, which was erected on Main Street, between Third and Fourth streets, after World War I.

Tulsa Star challenged racism, fought injustice The Tulsa Star, like its editor and publisher A.J. Smitherman, was spirited and bold and sometimes known to swim against the tide. It fought racism in all its manifestations, but also what it considered timidness on the part of African American leaders.

A typical editorial retort appeared on Nov. 27, 1920: “If, as the Tulsa World says, there are leading Colored men who favor the ‘Jim Crow’ railroad transportation laws of Oklahoma, it is the opinion of the Star these so-called black leaders are ripe for

a full coat of tar and feathers and a swift ride on fence rails out of any community in which they live.”

The Star and only the Star reported on such things as Gov. J.B.A. Robertson’s 1920 “inter-racial conference,” and TPD Officer Staley Webb’s dismissal in early 1921 for complaining about white officers’ conduct in Greenwood.

The Star was not a big paper but it seems to have been successful; in early 1921 it moved into a new printing plant on North Greenwood Avenue.

Two lynchings on the last weekend of 1920 held important implications for Tulsa nine months later.

Lynchings in the early 1920s were still common — at least 61 in 1920, according to one source, and 64 in 1921. Most of the victims were Black.

In Tulsa, a white drifter named Roy Belton, also known as Tom Owens, was taken from the Tulsa County jail on Aug. 28, 1920, and hung from a sign along what is now Southwest Boulevard near Union Avenue. He was accused of fatally shooting taxi driver Homer Nida, who had identified Belton before dying.

One day later, Claude Chandler, a black moonshiner accused of killing two lawmen and wounding a third, was taken from the Oklahoma County jail. He was found the next morning hanging from a tree with two bullets in his head.

Belton’s lynching led to the defeat that fall of Sheriff James Woolley and further undermined already shaky confidence in Tulsa law enforcement. Tulsa Police Chief John Gustafson, in acknowledging his men did nothing to stop the murder, said, “in my honest opinion the lynching of Belton will prove of real benefit to Tulsa and vicinity.”

Tulsa Star editor A.J. Smitherman chided Oklahoma City’s African Americans for not protecting Chandler, and by force if necessary.

“No man or set of men have any right to conspire and arm themselves to desecrate the law, but any man or set of men may rightfully and legally take up arms to defend and uphold the law,” Smitherman told his readers.

Mystery surrounds elevator encounter We will probably never know exactly what happened in the Drexel Building elevator on the rainy morning of May 30, 1921.

The general outline of the story is that a young Black man known as Dick Rowland got on the elevator on the third floor of the building at 319 S. Main St., and before the doors opened on the ground floor the white operator, Sarah Page, was screaming.

The building was mostly deserted because of the Memorial Day holiday, but a bystander called police. Rowland fled but

was quickly identified.

The story has many versions.

In one, Rowland stepped on Page’s foot. In another, the car lurched and threw him off balance. A popular story has them romantically connected.

There is even a theory that the entire incident was staged as a pretext for everything that followed.

In any event, Rowland was arrested the next morning — May 31 — thus setting in motion the forces leading to the destruction of Greenwood.

TULSA WORLD

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

Smoke fills the skies over downtown following the torching of homes and businesses during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

The story that set Tulsa ablaze Editor’s note: Tulsa World Staff Writer Randy Krehbiel’s book “Tulsa, 1921: Reporting a Massacre” won the Oklahoma History Society award for Best Book on Oklahoma History and the Oklahoma Book Award for nonfiction. This is chapter four of that book, “The story that set Tulsa ablaze,” reprinted with permission from the University of Oklahoma Press. It tells the story behind the story of what sparked the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Some of the language has been changed because of terminology used in the 1920s.

TOM GILBERT, TULSA WORLD

Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa World reporter and author of “Tulsa, 1921: Reporting a Massacre.”

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RANDY KREHBIEL | Tulsa World

ater it would be said that Sarah Page and the young man called Dick Rowland were acquaintances and maybe quite a bit more. A half century after whatever happened on that downtown Tulsa elevator, a woman who claimed she was Dick Rowland’s adoptive mother would say he and Page had been lovers. Perhaps they were. But the story Damie Rowland told and Ruth Avery recorded, now another half century ago, contains just enough inconsistencies to make one wonder how much Damie Rowland knew firsthand and how much she acquired secondhand and thirdhand over the intervening years.

The fact is, remarkably little is known about these two central characters in the drama that was about to unfold. This is particularly true of Page. Unnamed in initial reports that referred to her as an “orphan” working her way through business college, she was later identified as a fifteen-yearold divorcée from Kansas City who had come to Tulsa while the dust settled on the ruins of a brief and unhappy marriage. Rowland is described by various sources as the biological son of David and Alice “Ollie” Rowland; the adopted son of Dave and Ollie; their biological grandson; and their adopted grandson. The only Richard or Dick Rowland in the city directories of the period was white, but Dave and Ollie did have a sixteen-year-old John Roland living with them at the time of the 1920 census. “John Roland” is listed as a grandson born in Texas. Damie Rowland, Dave and Ollie’s daughter, said in her 1972 interview that Dick Rowland’s real name was Jimmy Jones, that she had taken him off the streets in Vinita when he was a small boy, and that he was born in Arkansas. Alice Andrews, who had just turned nineteen that fateful morning, told interviewer Eddie Faye Gates in the 1990s that Dick Rowland — and she referred to him by that name — was the son of David “Dad” Rowland and was a “well-off boy” who “didn’t have to work” but did.

Robert Fairchild told Gates that he “knew Dick when he was a star football player at Booker Washington High School. He had a reputation of being a ‘good-looking ladies’ man.’ ” Dick Rowland is generally identified as a bootblack (a person employed to polish boots and shoes), but sometimes as a delivery boy. There is a suggestion, but no more than that, that he may have also been engaged in less honorable pursuits. So elusive is the truth about Dick Rowland and Sarah Page that even the one thing history has been most sure of, that they were together in an elevator in downtown Tulsa on the morning of May 30, 1921, is sometimes disputed.

The story told by police and reported the next afternoon in the Tulsa Tribune is that Rowland got into the elevator operated by Page on the third floor of the Drexel Building at 319 S. Main St., and

TULSA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The second building on the right is the Drexel Building, which was a pivotal location in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The building was demolished in 1924 to expand the First National Bank building (now Reunion). The building was on the 300 block of South Main Street in Tulsa. that somewhere on the way to the ground floor the two came into contact. Page screamed, attracting the attention of an employee of Renberg’s Department Store, which occupied the first two floors of the four-story building. The unnamed employee summoned police while Rowland fled. He was arrested the next morning.

Exactly when the elevator incident is supposed to have occurred is unclear. The Tribune says it was “early” in the day, suggesting the morning; it seems unlikely, though, that it happened during the Memorial Day parade, which passed right by the Drexel Building. In that case, there almost certainly would have been more witnesses. Also, Renberg’s was closed because of the holiday, which has caused skeptics to question the entire story. Why, they ask, would the unnamed store clerk have been present? For that matter, why was Dick Rowland in the Drexel Building, since most if not all of the offices on the upper floors were likely closed?

These questions play into a parallel narrative, one in which all that followed was not about race but about real estate; a scheme in which whites and blacks conspired to create a pretext for turning Greenwood into a warehouse district adjacent to the rail yards.

Certainly, an effort was made to exploit the massacre for that purpose. Whether the massacre was planned and instigated toward that end is a more sinister mystery that may never be definitively solved.

The presence of Rowland and the store clerk is probably easily explained. Something must have been going on in the building if the elevator operator was on duty — unless that was made up, too.

The Tribune identified “Diamond Dick” Rowland as a delivery boy.

The Tulsa World, on June 1, said he was a “bootblack.” Either occupation would have given him a legitimate reason for being on the third floor of the Drexel Building, even on a holiday. The third and fourth floors of the building were occu-

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100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

TULSA WORLD

COURTESY, OF THE OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

White men standing along the railroad tracks watch smoke rise after the Greenwood District was set afire by bands of looters on June 1, 1921. pied almost entirely by offices of small oil-related enterprises.

So, Rowland, in fact, could have been delivering — or attempting to deliver, if the office was closed — a pair of shoes or boots or some other package.

Another story, told by Robert Fairchild, is that Rowland had gone into the building to use the restroom. At least two of Gates’s informants, Fairchild and a white woman named Clara Forrest, said the Drexel Building elevator was notoriously difficult to operate, shaking and shuddering and often leaving an uneven step at the threshold that caused passengers to trip as they exited.

There is no record that anyone thought Page’s or the unnamed store clerk’s presence odd.

Perhaps the clerk was stocking shelves or waiting for a delivery.

Perhaps he was going over accounts. That neither newspaper reported the witness’s name may — or may not — suggest something else: that the witness was someone more prominent than a store clerk, perhaps even storeowner Sam Renberg, a major advertiser the newspapers may have been loath to identify.

Tulsans did not have a general knowledge of the incident until more than a day later, on May 31, when a short front-page story in the afternoon Tribune reported Rowland’s arrest that morning by two Tulsa police officers — one white and one black. Why it took a day to bring in Rowland is unclear, and he actually may have been arrested the night before. Chief John Gustafson, during his trial in July, said Rowland was Gustafson arrested the day of the incident and spent a night in the city jail before being transferred. In any event, Rowland’s identity seems to have been known quickly, and perhaps immediately. On June 1, the World reported that Rowland had been hiding. Whatever the case, the alleged assault of a white girl by a black man should have been sensational news, yet it was not reported in the May 30 Tribune or the May 31 World.

Whether the police kept the situation under wraps or the press did we do not know.

And then there it was, on the front page of the Tribune. It was not the lead story. The banner headline went to a wire service account of disarmament talks, and the largest element on the front page was a grouping of ten photographs and a story on a beauty contest promoted by the Tribune. The story of Dick Rowland’s alleged attempted assault and arrest was just five paragraphs at the bottom of the right-hand column. But the

TULSA WORLD FILE

This is an original copy of the May 31, 1921, Tulsa Tribune photographed from the Beryl Ford Collection. This is the day the Tulsa Race Massacre started but there is no mention of the event in this edition of the Tribune. headline — “Nab (Black man) for Attacking Girl in Elevator” — was certain to grab attention.

(The Tulsa Tribune story reads): “A (Black) delivery boy who gave his name to the public as “Diamond Dick” but who has been identified as Dick Rowland, was arrested on South Greenwood avenue this morning by Officers Carmichael and Pack, charged with attempting to assault the 17-year-old white elevator girl in the Drexel building early yesterday.

“He will be tried in municipal court this afternoon on a state charge. The girl said she noticed the (Black man) a few minutes before the attempted assault looking up and down the hallway on the third floor of the Drexel building as if to see if there was anyone in sight but thought nothing of it at the time.

“A few minutes later he entered the elevator she claimed, and attacked her, scratching her hands and face and tearing her clothes. Her screams brought a clerk from Renberg’s store to her assistance and the (Black man) fled. He was captured and identified this morning both by the girl and the clerk, police say.

“Tenants of the Drexel building said the girl is an orphan who works as an elevator operator to pay her way through business college.”

The story was freighted with racially charged language, from the headline to the final sentence. In the circumspect code words of the day, it accused a

young black man of attempting to rape an innocent white girl.

Men had been murdered for less, from Atlanta to Duluth.

Whether the story was intended to precipitate some sort of confrontation or merely grab readers’ attention cannot be said with certainty. Perhaps it simply reflects the sensibilities — and insensitivities — of the time. The Tribune’s publisher, Richard Lloyd Jones, belonged to the clique that brought Attorney General S. Prince Freeling and his assistants to town. Among their complaints were race mixing, vice, and crime they associated with Greenwood and the city’s black population. Jones’s circle also included the industrialist and oilman Charles Page, from whom Jones had bought his newspaper two years before, and the ubiquitous Tate Brady.

Page — no relation to Sarah Page — and Brady sometimes worked toward the same ends, and had common financial interests in both the black and white sections of north Tulsa. The extent to which these moral, social, and economic factors may have influenced the Tribune’s judgment is a matter of conjecture. What is certain is that no reader, black or white, could have missed the story’s implications.

Sex-related lynchings in Oklahoma were rare, but newspapers regularly reported the gruesome vigilante justice visited on black men elsewhere accused of forcing or trying to force themselves onto white women. Just being in the wrong

neighborhood could be dangerous. On January 2, a black man spotted “shuffling along” at Fifteenth and Baltimore, in the white section of town, raised an alarm that resulted in police firing more than twenty shots, all of which miraculously missed the suspect and everyone else in the vicinity. The man, when finally detained, was determined to have been minding his own business and was released.

Over the years, many people have maintained that the May 31 Tribune also contained another, even more inflammatory piece, an editorial that called directly for Dick Rowland’s lynching.

In most accounts, this editorial was headlined “To Lynch (Black man) Tonight.” No example of this editorial is known to exist.

In 1921, The Tribune’s editorials normally appeared on the back page of the newspaper.

When its file copies were microfilmed in the 1940s, the front-page arrest story and about half the editorial page had been torn out. When this happened, under what circumstances, and by whom are unknown. The arrest story had been reprinted in other publications, and so copies of it still exist, but not the supposed editorial. In 2002, an intact copy of a Tribune that appears to be identical to the May 31 microfilmed edition, except that it is dated June 1, was discovered.

This edition, apparently intended for mail subscribers, was probably printed on May 31 but dated a day later because that is when it would have been delivered in mailboxes. This no doubt explains why an early researcher, Loren Gill, cited the June 1 instead of the May 31 Tribune when he wrote about the massacre in the 1940s.

This June 1 edition, however, does not clear up the matter of the editorial. In the space missing from the microfilmed May 31 edition is an editorial about European disarmament.

There is nothing about Rowland. The most common explanations for the fact that no copy of the offending editorial can be found is that it appeared in only one, limited-run edition that Tribune management suppressed, or that the presses were stopped and the “To Lynch (Black man) Tonight” piece was pulled before many copies were printed, with only a few of those making it onto the street. These explanations are certainly possible, but they also pose problems.

First, the assumption that only a few copies of the editorial made it into general circulation is contrary to the assertion that it incited widespread anger and violence among white Tulsans.

Rumors or secondhand accounts of such an editorial may have circulated, but that is not

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COURTESY, THE ORCUTT FAMILY

“Officials believe the fires were started in at least 25 places at the same time as the entire district appeared to be in flames virtually at the same moment,” the Tulsa World reported following the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. the same as actually reading the piece as it is described.

That leads to a second, more difficult point to overcome: None of the Tribune’s most vocal critics — not the World, not Roscoe Dunjee’s Black Dispatch, not the NAACP’s Walter White, who arrived in Tulsa a few days after the massacre to investigate — ever mentioned a “To Lynch (Black man) Tonight” editorial. None of the three had reason to hold back knowledge of such a piece. Instead, they cited exclusively the front-page arrest story. The Black Dispatch reprinted the story under the headline “The Story That Set Tulsa Ablaze.” White, writing in the Nation, attributed the massacre to the Tribune’s careless use of the word “assault.”

The World, on June 2, quoted a police official blaming the Tribune’s “yellow journalism” for what occurred. It followed that story a few days later with a similar statement from state adjutant general Charles Barrett, and generally did all it could to cast as much blame as possible on its rival publication.

The missing editorial may not, in fact, have existed in the form often described, but that does not mean that it was invented from thin air. Clearly, the arrest story was inflammatory on its own. And readers, it must be said, often do not distinguish between news articles and editorials. That the arrest story could have been interpreted as an open call to violence, especially in the telling and retelling, would be understandable. The World’s June 1 report of Rowland’s arrest — also on page one — and how it contributed to the previous night’s violence could be read as supporting evidence for either conclusion regarding the editorial. “There was a movement afoot, it was reported, among white people to go to the county courthouse Tuesday night and lynch the bootblack,” the story reads. It is not clear what is meant by “reported.” This could refer to the missing Tribune editorial, it could refer to general rumor, or it could refer to Police Commissioner James Adkison’s statement that he was warned of such an attempt by an anonymous caller.

If the World story does not refer to the supposed Tribune editorial, it might, in fact, be a source of the editorial legend.

In the confusion of that day and the days that followed, the World’s after-the-fact reporting could have become conflated with the Tribune’s earlier story into a single, cold-blooded call for Dick Rowland’s murder.

The Tribune and World both reported that Rowland was arrested on South Greenwood, which seems odd but is likely accurate precisely because it is odd.

It is the sort of fact that would be checked, certainly by one copy editor and probably by two. After his arrest, Rowland was taken to police headquarters at 109 East Second Street and jailed. At some point, he seems to have made a statement to the police, in which he said he accidentally stepped

on Sarah Page’s foot.

Six weeks after the massacre, Adkison testified that he received a telephone call at three o’clock in the afternoon — some accounts say four — threatening Rowland’s life. “We are going to lynch that (Black man) tonight,” Adkison said the caller told him, “that black devil who assaulted that girl.” Thus, in news reports of Adkison’s remarks, the phrase “to lynch that (Black man) tonight” did appear in print, but in a different context than ascribed to the missing Tribune editorial, and a month and a half after the fact. By then, stories about the supposed editorial seem to have already been in circulation.

Druggist P. S. Thompson mentioned it in the account he gave Mary Jones Parrish, who had been hired soon after the massacre to take down the stories of African American witnesses.

After the call, Adkison hurried to the police headquarters, where he consulted with Chief John Gustafson and then ordered Dick Rowland moved to the Tulsa County jail. This was a reasonable decision. The city jail was easily accessible and none too secure. The county jail was on the fifth floor of the limestone Tulsa County Courthouse, and while embarrassingly easy to get out of — twelve men had escaped a few days earlier by sliding down a forty-foot rope made from bed sheets — it was undeniably difficult to break into if willingly defended. The jail could be reached only by a single elevator and a closed stairwell that could be locked from the inside.

Nevertheless, after turning the prisoner over to Tulsa County Sheriff W. M. “Bill” McCullough, Adkison and Gustafson urged the sheriff to get Rowland out of town. This was a standard tactic for defusing such situations, but McCullough refused to go along with it. Rowland was much safer in the jail, he said, than on the open road. McCullough called in all of his deputies and vowed that no one would take his prisoner.

This was not a decision or a pledge McCullough took lightly.

Ten months earlier, on the same weekend as the Oklahoma City lynching that had so outraged Tulsa Star founder A. J. Smitherman, a white prisoner named Roy Belton was taken from the Tulsa County jail and hanged from a billboard southwest of town, near the present intersection of Southwest Boulevard and Union Avenue. Belton was charged with shooting and beating cab driver Homer Nida as Belton and two companions, posing as passengers, relieved Nida of his cab near the Texaco tank farm on the road to Red Fork. Belton — who first gave the name Tom Owens — was captured after one of his accomplices, Marie Harmon, confessed and identified the man she knew as Owens as the actual killer. Dramatically, in a faceto-face confrontation in Nida’s hospital room, the taxi driver identified Belton as his assailant before dying of his injuries.

James Woolley, the Tulsa County sheriff at the time, would later say he did not take

rumors of a lynching seriously.

When twenty-five men entered the courthouse and took Woolley prisoner, he told the jailer to do all he could to protect the prisoner but to not get anyone hurt. Belton, in fact, was quickly handed over and taken in Nida’s taxi to the scene Woolley of the crime at the head of a long procession of automobiles, including an ambulance.

Belton was hung from a Federal Tire sign on the Jenks road, just south of where it forked off the main thoroughfare from Tulsa to Red Fork and on to Sapulpa, a road that in a few years would become known as U.S. Route 66. Tulsa police, it was reported, helped direct traffic at the scene; Gustafson, on the job only four months at the time, denied the charge but admitted that officers stood by and watched the lynching because they did not want to endanger “innocent bystanders” with gunplay. “I do not condone mob law — in fact, I am absolutely opposed to it,” Gustafson said, “but it is my honest opinion the lynching of Belton will prove of real benefit to Tulsa and vicinity. It was an object lesson to the hi-jackers and auto thieves, and will be taken as such.”

Gustafson blamed the sheriff’s office for not asking for help sooner. “The county officers waited too long to notify us, and we got there a little too late,” said Gustafson. Outraged, Governor J. B. A. Robertson ordered an investigation and offered a reward for information on those responsible for Belton’s death, but no one was ever charged.

McCullough defeated Woolley in the general election later that year. The two were old friends who had traded the sheriff’s office back and forth for a decade, McCullough the Republican and Woolley the Democrat. A former cowboy with an impressive handlebar moustache and a pearl-handled revolver he seldom wore and even more seldom used, McCullough, in 1911, carried out the county’s only execution, the hanging of a black man called Frank Henson, who had been convicted of killing a deputy in the outlying community of Dawson. In a scene straight out of the Old West, McCullough built the scaffolding, tied the hangman’s noose, and dropped Henson to his death. Late in life, the man known as “Uncle Bill” would say that this was the most difficult thing he ever did.

McCullough was no fan of Gustafson, a private detective who had been fired from the Tulsa Police Department five years earlier. McCullough claimed to have advised against Gustafson’s appointment, and considered him to be of questionable character. Evidence gathered by Freeling, Van Leuven, and Short in their admittedly one-sided investigation supported McCullough’s con-

clusion.

This distrust between the two lawmen may have figured into McCullough rejecting the recommendation to sneak Rowland out of town. It also may have factored into the drama about to unfold.

The news that Rowland might be in danger reached Greenwood, or at least the Gurley Hotel, by way of Reverend Bryant, the same Reverend Bryant who had run for county commissioner the previous year, and who in the African American community was called “Doctor Bryant.” He delivered the lynching rumor to Gurley, and together they sought out Deputy Sheriff Barney Cleaver. Cleaver contacted McCullough, who insisted he had things under control.

By six or six-thirty, a crowd was gathering in the street outside Gurley’s hotel. Cleaver would later testify that he tried to disperse this “advance guard” gathering in Greenwood but was laughed at and threatened. Gurley, who had briefly been a deputy during one of McCullough’s previous terms, agreed to go to the courthouse with a man named Webb — presumably Staley Webb — to talk to the sheriff and assess the danger to Rowland. Cleaver also went to the courthouse at about this time, but it is unclear whether he and the other two men went together.

Men gathering at the Tulsa Star’s new printing plant on North Greenwood seethed with angry suspicion approaching certainty. Their confidence in the local authorities was nil.

They were convinced that Dick Rowland would be taken, regardless of what anyone said. A man identified as Henry Jacobs, who said he was present, told investigators that J. B. Stradford told the men, “Boys, we will send and get the Muskogee crowd, and you go on up [to the courthouse] and lay there till they come.”

When Gurley returned with reassuring news, he said later, one of the men gathered at the Star’s new printing plant on North Greenwood loudly proclaimed him a liar and might have killed Gurley had lawyer Isaac H. “Ike” Spears not intervened. A larger group, this one numbering perhaps twenty-five or thirty, loaded into cars and trucks and headed for the courthouse. When they arrived, McCullough told Cleaver to “go out and see what they wanted.”

“The boy is upstairs in the cage,” Cleaver told them. “He’s locked up and no one is going to get him.”

The white crowd around the courthouse grew steadily. Initially, it does not seem to have been particularly unruly or even hostile, and may have been more curious than violent. It had no identifiable leadership or organization and, as events would soon suggest, was not armed or equipped to the extent one might expect for a planned assault on a fortified position such as the courthouse jail.

And, no serious attempt to

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| SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 | TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

REDUCED TO RUBBLE

PHOTOS COURTESY, TULSA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

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ount Zion Church, located at 421 N. Elgin Ave., was burned to the ground 100 years ago during the Tulsa Race Massacre. The church had recently been completed at a cost of $92,000 and was one of 23 churches destroyed during the massacre. In the immediate aftermath, Mount Zion Rev. Ira A. Whitaker ordered 24-hour surveillance over the ruins and then demanded city officials watch as church members cleared the area to ensure that the building did not contain weapons as suspected.

TULSA WORLD | SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

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| SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

COURTESY, GREENWOOD CULTURAL CENTER

Smoke continues to rise from destroyed buildings in the aftermath of the 1921 Race Massacre in Tulsa’s Greenwood community. take Rowland seems to have occurred. But a lot of people, white and black, believed there would be, or that there was a good chance of it, and they acted accordingly. “Since the lynching of a white boy [Belton] in Tulsa, the confidence in the ability of the city officials to protect its prisoner had decreased,” wrote Mary Jones Parrish. “Therefore, some of our group banded together to add to the protection of the life that was threatened to be taken without a chance to prove his innocence.”

Parrish operated a secretarial school in a building on Greenwood. After her last class ended at about nine o’clock, her young daughter called Parrish’s attention to “cars full of people” and “men with guns” in the street outside. “I am told this little bunch of brave and loyal black men who were willing to give up their lives, if necessary, for the sake of a fellow man, marched up to the jail where there were already 500 white men gathered, and that this number was soon swelled to a thousand,” Parrish wrote.

As courageous as these men and as honorable as their intentions no doubt were, their appearance alarmed and then angered the white population.

McCullough and Cleaver convinced the first party of African Americans to go home, and then a second. McCullough, though, had no such success with the increasingly abusive whites. He ordered, pleaded, harangued, and cajoled to no effect. So, apparently, did other prominent white citizens. They were greeted with boos and jeers from a determined knot “at the south entrance of the courthouse heckling speakers who attempted to disperse them.”

Between eight and eightthirty, three white men entering the courthouse were met

by McCullough and Ira Short, who had been elected county commissioner but had not yet taken office. When McCullough ordered them out, the men rather meekly complied and returned to their automobile.

McCullough watched as a “crowd of 20 or 30” gathered around the car. McCullough told his deputies to run the elevator to the top floor, disable it, and barricade themselves in the jail. Then he crossed the street to the car containing the three potential troublemakers. “I was jeered by the men in the car and by persons standing around on the street and sidewalk,” McCullough told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “They called me a ‘n——-lover,’ but the men in the car drove off.”

This rather half-hearted attempt to reach Rowland may have quickly fizzled, but it fed the spiraling racial fear, anger, and hatred the way heat and air feed fire. It, and the whites’ refusal to go home, would bring yet another wave of concerned African Americans, this one even larger and better armed than the ones before. Word soon reached Greenwood’s two movie theaters, the Dixie and the Dreamland, and guns were passed around in at least one

of them. Cars and trucks were commandeered. Some may have thought Sheriff McCullough asked for them. All were determined to make a statement, to stand up not just for Dick Rowland but for their race.

So the inability of McCullough, Gustafson, police captain George Blaine, and a few others to disperse the whites at the courthouse was crucial.

Sheriff McCullough probably did not have the manpower to do it, and certainly not after ordering his available deputies to barricade themselves inside the jail. The city police did have the manpower — barely — had it been properly organized and deployed, but it was not. The local National Guard units, especially in conjunction with the police, would have made a difference had they been brought to bear during the early stages of the crisis, but no one asked for them until it was too late.

By ten o’clock, there were perhaps two thousand whites at the courthouse. Perhaps three hundred Black men — estimates of both groups vary widely — had joined them, with many more conspicuous on the downtown streets. “[A] (Black man),” noted someone looking out a window of the Tulsa World Building at 317 S. Boulder Avenue, two blocks south of the courthouse, “walked into the middle of the street in front of the office, carrying a long shotgun loosely under his arm ... in a few minutes a big car drew up beside. ‘Disarm?’ one of them was heard to say.

‘You bet I won’t disarm.’ ” Gustafson and Adkison had essentially washed their hands of the situation after McCullough spurned their suggestion to take Rowland out of the city. Now they grew uneasy.

Early on, when trouble first began bubbling to the surface, City Commissioner C. S. Younkman had found the police chief at the station and asked him what was going on.

Gustafson said he did not know Younkman but he had heard that there was a crowd at the courthouse. Oddly, he seemed more worried that mob violence would be turned against police headquarters than he was about the county jail holding the supposed focal point of the seething ill will.

But, as dusk approached and tension mounted, the chief and his boss, Police Commissioner Adkison, began to grasp the seriousness of the situation.

In so doing, however, they did virtually nothing to break up or subdue the hostile whites.

Even Younkman’s order to turn fire hoses on the whites surrounding the police station was ignored. Instead, Gustafson and Adkison addressed only the black side of the equation.

Adkison dispatched one of his Black officers, Henry Pack, to Greenwood on a reconnaissance mission, and sent “all available police” to “keep the (Black people) from coming to town.”

Gustafson ordered Detective

Ike Wilkerson, Sergeant Claude Brice, and Officer Sid Jackson to intercept a band of Blacks forming at Second and Cincinnati, about six blocks northeast of the courthouse and a block and a half north of the Frisco tracks; Gustafson himself went out with Captain George Blaine, probably the TPD’s boldest and most fearless officer. At the courthouse, Gustafson and Blaine observed the large crowd and concluded it would be “suicide” to try to disarm anyone.

Driving on, they encountered “three carloads” of Black men about six blocks away at Fourth and Elgin. Gustafson and Blaine followed them back to the courthouse, then returned to the police station, badly shaken.

Shortly after ten o’clock, Gustafson asked Major James A. Bell of the local National Guard for men to “clear the streets of (Black people).”

Bell had learned of the courthouse disturbance sometime earlier, not from law enforcement or city authorities, but from two of his men, a Private Canton and a Sergeant Payne.

At about nine, the pair “came to my door and reported that a crowd of white men were gathering near the Court House and that threats of lynching a (Black man) were being made, and that it was reported the (Black people) in ‘Little Africa’ were arming to prevent it,” Bell wrote about a month later. “As I had heard rumors of this kind on other occasions that did not amount to anything serious I did not feel greatly worried,” Bell continued.

Nevertheless, Bell sent Canton and Payne back to the courthouse to get more information, then called McCullough and Gustafson. McCullough told Bell everything was under control, but Gustafson was less confident. “The chief reported that things were a little threatening, that it was reported that (Black people) were driving around town in a threatening mood,” Bell wrote.

Bell suggested that city officials contact Governor Robertson and ask him to authorize use of the National Guard. Next, Bell notified the commanding officers of the three National Guard units based in Tulsa to “quietly” assemble as many of their men as possible. As Bell was changing into his uniform, a messenger arrived with the news that whites had shown up at the National Guard Armory, across the alley from Bell’s house, demanding rifles and ammunition. The armory was about a half mile east of the courthouse on Sixth Street, across from what was then Central Park. Summer training camp at Fort Sill, in the southwestern part of the state, was only a few days away, and some of the men were at the armory preparing for the trip.

Bell recounted, “Grabbing my pistol in one hand and my belt in the other I jumped out of the back door and running down the west side of the Armory building I saw several men apparently pulling at the window grating.” After chasing those men away, Bell went to the front

of the building and found “a mob of white men three or four hundred strong” clamoring for admission.

“I asked them what they wanted,” Bell recalled. “One of them replied, ‘Rifles and ammunition.’ I explained to them that they could not get anything there.

Someone shouted, ‘We don’t know about that, we guess we can.’ ” Backed by National Guard captain Frank Van Voorhis, TPD motorcycle officer Leo Irish, and “a citizen named Williams,” Bell told the crowd the armory was full of armed soldiers who would “shoot promptly” anyone trying to get inside. This finally did the trick. The mob dispersed, and Bell ordered a guard around the armory with “one man on the roof.” It was at this point that Bell called Gustafson the second time and Gustafson asked for men “to clear the streets.”

Bell said he had to have an order from the governor and “urged haste” in doing so “before it was too late.” That point had already been reached. Wilkerson, Brice, and Jackson had intercepted the group of Black men at Second and Cincinnati and had almost talked them into withdrawing when Deputy Sheriff John Smitherman arrived. “ ‘What the hell are you trying to do here?’ ” Wilkerson later testified Smitherman asked. When Wilkerson said he was assuring the Black men that Rowland was safe, Smitherman replied, “Yes, damn you, you’re one of them. Come on, boys!”

This remarkable exchange, assuming Wilkerson recounted it accurately, hangs in the air a century later. What did Smitherman mean by “You’re one of them?” One of what? One of whom? Those planning harm to Dick Rowland?

Who could not be trusted?

Wilkerson said he did not know, and if Smitherman ever explained himself, it is not recorded.

Led by Smitherman, the men pushed past the three white officers and headed for the courthouse. There, some white citizens had taken it upon themselves to disarm the Black men arriving in ever-greater numbers. Somewhere in the roiling tumult, E. S. MacQueen decided to be a hero. A former investigator in the county attorney’s office, MacQueen had finished a distant second in the 1920 Democratic sheriff’s primary. A man of less-thansterling reputation, by the spring of 1921 MacQueen was reduced to the dubious position of deputy constable for a justice of the peace. Perhaps intent on demonstrating that he, not Bill McCullough, should be in charge, MacQueen confronted an African American man, identified in some sources as Johnny Cole, and demanded Cole’s pistol. Cole refused in no uncertain terms. MacQueen grabbed for the gun; Cole resisted.

The pistol discharged.

All hell broke loose. randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com

TULSA WORLD

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Where it all unfolded 11

Railway Greenwood District

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2 Tulsa County Courthouse, Sixth & Boulder A crowd began gathering here on the night of May 31, 1921, following reports an attempt would be made to take Rowland from the top-floor jail.

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One of the stores burglarized by whites seeking guns and ammunition.

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3 Police HQ, 15 W. Second St. Rowland was first taken here after his arrest on the morning of May 31.

One of the most successful African American communities in the United States.

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1 Drexel Building, 319 S. Main St. An encounter between Dick Rowland, a young black man, and Sarah Page, the young white elevator operator, caused her to scream and him to be arrested, setting in motion the final events leading to the massacre.

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7 Tulsa Star, 126 N. Greenwood Influential African American newspaper urged Black citizens to stand up for their rights.

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10 Mount Zion Church, 421 N. Elgin St. Burned to the ground, the church had recently been completed at a cost of $92,000. Witnesses claimed its tower was used as a vantage point for African American snipers as they were defending their neighborhood.

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11 Booker T. Washington High School NW corner of Exeter Place and Haskell

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9 Gurley Hotel, 112 1/2 N. Greenwood Prominent African American business. Burned during the massacre.

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8 Stradford Hotel, 301 N. Greenwood Prominent African American business. Burned during the massacre.

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Tulsa base of the Oklahoma National Guard, briefly used as a field hospital for injured Black people.

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A two-story brick building, the school survived the fire and became a focal point for relief and rebuilding efforts after the massacre. The school moved from this location in the 1950s.

The school was located in the block north of the point on this map.

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12 Convention Hall, 105 W. Brady St. Black Tulsans were held here on the morning of June 1, 1921. It was later named Brady Theater (on the former Brady Street) and now is called the Tulsa Theater.

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City of Tulsa map

The square indicates the area illustrated in detail above

Tulsa Tribune story adds fuel to fire

Dick Rowland’s arrest was reported in a front-page story in the May 31, 1921, afternoon Tulsa Tribune.

This story, which first appeared in the bottom right of the May 31, 1921, Tulsa Tribune front page, has often been cited as the spark that led to the race massacre.

As early as June 1, the Tribune’s rival, the Tulsa World, quoted the Tulsa Police Department’s chief of detectives as saying the story was largely responsible for inciting whites to become aggressive.

The NAACP’s Walter White and Oklahoma City’s Black Dispatch also blamed the story.

Here is a copy of the story in its entirety:

Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator A negro delivery boy who gave his name to the public as “Diamond Dick” but who has been identified as Dick Rowland, was arrested on South Greenwood avenue this morning by Officers Carmichael and Pack, charged with attempting to assault the 17-yearold white elevator girl in the Drexel building early yesterday.

He will be tried in municipal court this afternoon on a state charge.

The girl said she noticed the negro a few minutes before the attempted assault looking up and down the hallway on the third floor of the Drexel building as if

to see if there was anyone in sight but thought nothing of it at the time.

A few minutes later he entered the elevator she claimed, and attacked her, scratching her hands and face and tearing her clothes.

Her screams brought a clerk from Renberg’s store to her assistance and the negro fled. He was captured and identified this morning both by the girl and the clerk, police say.

Tenants of the Drexel building said the girl is an orphan who works as an elevator operator to pay her way through business college.

Rowland’s life threatened After his arrest, Dick Rowland was taken to the city jail, a decrepit, bug-infested lockup at 15 W. Second St. that was notoriously inadequate, even by the meager standards of the day.

At about 4 p.m., Police Commissioner J.M. Adkison said later, he received an anonymous telephone call threatening Rowland’s life. After discussing the matter with Police Chief John Gustafson, it was decided to move Rowland to the county jail four blocks away.

The county jail occupied the top floor of the new county courthouse. It could be reached only by a single elevator and four flights of stairs locked off from the jail. Gustafson and Adkison later said they urged McCullough to take Rowland out of town but the sheriff refused, reasoning his prisoner was safer in a secured cell than on the open road.

Gustafson ordered his deputies to run the lone elevator to the top floor and disable it, and to barricade themselves in the jail with Rowland.

— Stories by Randy Krehbiel

This is the old Tulsa County Courthouse where Dick Rowland was held in the jail on the top floor. A crowd began to form around the courthouse on May 31, 1921.

Gunshot at the courthouse That evening, a crowd began to form around the Tulsa County Courthouse, where Rowland was being held. No doubt most had read the Tribune story about his arrest or heard about it.

Certainly they had heard another lynching might be in the works.

How many of those people were actually intent on getting to Rowland and how many were spectators is unclear. Sheriff W.M. McCullough said the only attempt to take his prisoner

occurred at 8:20 p.m., when three white men entered the courthouse and were quickly turned away.

In the meantime, someone had called a Greenwood theater with the information that an attempt would be made on Rowland’s life.

This mobilized a portion of the African American population bent on saving any black Tulsan from the same fate as Claude Chandler, a black man who was lynched in Oklahoma County in 1920. Armed and organized, they proceeded to

the courthouse, where McCullough and Deputy Sheriff Barney Cleaver were at first able to persuade the men that Rowland was safe.

But McCullough could not get the white crowd to disperse, and that in turn precipitated a return of Rowland’s defenders.

According to several witnesses, an unsuccessful candidate for sheriff named E.S. MacQueen, tried to take a pistol from a young black man in the crowd. The gun discharged, and chaos ensued.

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TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Guns looted from stores In the wake of the first shots, the Tulsa World reported a few hours later, “Armed men seemed to spring from everywhere ... Practically all hardware stores were emptied of guns and ammunition.”

Several hundred of the unarmed whites first went to the National Guard Armory on East Sixth Street, now the home of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 577, demanding weapons. They were faced down by Major James Bell, several of his men, a civilian and a motorcycle policeman named Leo Irish, with Bell telling them to get moving or get shot.

Elsewhere, citizens and even the police started breaking into sporting goods and hardware stores. The police department itself seems not to have had much in the way of long guns, for it, too, asked the National Guard for rifles and wound up getting them from the security guards at a local refinery.

African Americans retreating through downtown made a brief stand at Second Street and Cincinnati Avenue before retreating into Greenwood and an overnight standoff with an enraged mob determined to put down what was already being described as a “negro uprising.”

Issues with special deputies Although reluctant to send officers to the courthouse or accept help from the National Guard while the situation there could have been controlled, Tulsa’s police chief and police commissioner did not hesitate to hand out dozens — and probably hundreds — of special commissions after the shooting started on the night of May 31.

These special officers would be blamed for much of the murder and mayhem to follow. Maj. James Bell of the Oklahoma National Guard told his superiors “these special deputies were

imbued with the same spirit of destruction that animated the mob. They became as deputies the most dangerous part of the mob and after ... the declaration of martial law the first arrests ordered were those of special officers.”

Special commissions were not unusual, but those of May 31 were never explained.

“We were unable to limit the commissions to our choice,” said Police Commissioner J.M. Adkison. “I usually talked to the men and those I thought would remain cool headed I commissioned.”

— Stories by Randy Krehbiel

Invasion of Greenwood begins Some said a loud whistle signaled the invasion of Greenwood. In any event, at dawn on the morning of June 1, the neighborhood was overrun.

Black Tulsans had been surrendering themselves to National Guardsmen patrolling the district’s western fringe

throughout the night, but in the morning, roughly 30 men under the command of Capt.

John McCuen advanced into Greenwood itself. Their orders were to take into custody every African American they could and subdue any who resisted.

Along the Frisco tracks, Maj.

Charles Daley — a high-ranking officer in both the National Guard and the Tulsa Police Department — and a few others tried to hold back a mob determined to teach Tulsa’s Black population a lesson. The mob, apparently including many given special police commis-

sions, broke through.

“Following the fight last night,” reported the Tribune on the afternoon of June 1, “white men everywhere were threatening to wipe out ‘Little Africa’ forever with the torch.”

They proceeded to do just that.

PHOTOS COURTESY, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MCFARLIN LIBRARY, THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA

Clouds of smoke rise over the Greenwood District during the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Fire in the night By shortly after midnight, African Americans and whites were exchanging gunfire across the Frisco railroad tracks and along Detroit Avenue north to Sunset Hill — the boundary between Black and white Tulsa.

Col. L.J.F. Rooney, commanding the local National Guard units, deployed 30 members of his only rifle company to Detroit Avenue, where most of the best Black-owned homes faced white homes across the street.

The soldiers took with them a decrepit machine gun, probably a World War I souvenir, “turned up” by Major Charles Daley. The gun seems to have been inoperable, but was loaded on the back of the supply company’s truck and driven up and down the street for show.

By 2 a.m., whites had set fire to one or two buildings north of the Frisco tracks. When firefighters arrived, they were chased off by “500 white men.”

It was a portent of things to come.

Firefighters threatened So intent were the white rioters on destroying Greenwood that they stopped firefighters from getting to the blazes.

Firefighters testifying in an insurance case several years later said they were threatened and even shot at when they arrived on the scene of the earliest fires. Later, they received orders from Fire Chief R.C. Alder not to respond to alarms from the Black district because of the danger.

That order remained in effect until the fires

were out of control.

“It would mean a fireman’s life to turn a stream of water on one of those (N)egro buildings,” Alder said. “They shot at us all morning when we were trying to do something but none of my men were hit. There is not a chance in the world to get through that mob.”

Unexplained was why no police or National Guardsmen were dispatched to protect the firefighters and perhaps dispel the mob.

Smoke billows from buildings in Greenwood during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS “Those were white men, they was wearing khaki suits, all of them, and they saw me standing there and they said, ‘You better get out of that hotel because we are going to burn all of this God damn stuff, better get all your guests out.’ … There was a deal of shooting going on from the elevator or the mill, somebody was over there with a machine gun and shooting down Greenwood Avenue, and the people got on the stairway going down to the street and they stampeded.”

O.W. Gurley, owner of the Gurley Hotel, In testimony during July 1921 neglect-of-duty trial of Police Chief John A. Gustafson, who was removed from office (Source: “The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921” by Alfred L. Brophy)

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Role of airplanes uncertain Six airplanes circled the Greenwood area during the morning hours of June 1.

What they were doing, and why there were so many, has long been a matter of passionate debate. Many people believe they were used to shoot at people on the ground and bomb Greenwood.

Officials said the small craft, generally thought to be two-seat, single-engine Curtis “Jenny” biplanes, were merely keeping track of activities on the ground and relaying the information through written messages dropped in weighted metal cylinders attached to streamers.

To what extent this explanation was initially challenged is unclear, but in October 1921 the Chicago Defender published a story in which it said Greenwood had been bombed under orders of

“prominent city officials.”

The story cited a Van B. Hurley, who the newspaper said had given a signed statement to Elisha Scott, a Kansas attorney.

Scott filed dozens of lawsuits on behalf of victims but doesn’t seem to have ever entered the Hurley affidavit into the record. There is no record of a Van B. Hurley living in Tulsa around the time of the massacre or that anyone by that name ever belonged to the Tulsa police force.

But that doesn’t mean the story did not have substance.

Many people believed city officials were behind the burning of Greenwood, and the explanation that the squadron of planes was only used for surveillance struck some as suspiciously thin.

Certainly the planes had a great psychological impact on many. For example, Mary

Jones Parrish wrote about them in her account, as did prominent attorney B.C. Franklin in his.

The Defender story said the planes dropped “nitroglycerin on buildings, setting them afire.”

But nitroglycerin is an explosive, not an incendiary.

It is also highly unstable and dangerous.

That has caused some to speculate that something like Molotov cocktails might have been used, or “turpentine balls” — rags soaked in flammable liquid and wrapped around the head of a stick.

There are several practical reasons why trying to light and throw incendiary devices from an open cockpit airplane of that era would seem a difficult, dangerous and even foolish idea.

But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t done.

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

IN THEIR OWN WORDS “There was a great shadow in the sky and upon a second look, we discerned that this cloud was caused by fast approaching aeroplanes. It then dawned upon us that the enemy had organized in the night and was invading our district the same as the Germans invaded France and Belgium.”

Mary Jones Parrish, author of “Events of the Tulsa Disaster”

National Guard called to action Three active Oklahoma National Guard units were based in Tulsa on May 31, 1921: a rifle company (Third Infantry, Company B), a supply company and a sanitation detachment, which was essentially a medical unit.

The rifle company, commanded by Captain John McCuen, had an authorized strength of 65 but McCuen said he never had more than 30 men at his disposal during the violence.

A special train carrying 100 members of two rifle companies and a machine gun company was dispatched from Oklahoma City at about 5 a.m. on June 1 and arrived in Tulsa shortly after 8 a.m. Adjutant General Charles Barrett accompanied the train.

According to some, the arriving troops were slow into action. Barrett said any delay was caused by his inability to find the local authorities. He established a headquarters in city hall and asked Gov. J.B.A. Robertson to declare martial law, which Robertson did.

By early afternoon, the shooting, burning and looting had stopped.

TULSA WORLD

This is the front page of the third extra edition of the June 1, 1921, Tulsa World. The World published at least two regular editions and three extras on the night of the Tulsa Race Riot. This edition was printed at about 10 a.m. on June 1.

Report in 1921: Machine guns killed dozens; Guard denied it The Tulsa Tribune, on June 1, citing “reports reaching police headquarters,” said “national guardsmen turned a deadly fire from two machine guns” on a group of African Americans, killing “half a hundred.”

Mary Jones Parrish, in her “Events of the Tulsa Disaster,” described machine gun fire from atop a grain elevator located south of the Frisco tracks with direct sight down Greenwood Avenue.

The National Guard vehemently denied the Tribune story. It said it had no machine guns in its Tulsa armory but “dug up” a disabled World War I souvenir that was driven around on the back of a truck in an attempt to intimidate the public.

PHOTOS COURTESY, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MCFARLIN LIBRARY, THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA

Feeding prisoners at McNulty Park baseball field during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Black Tulsans were detained in camps throughout the city Thousands of black Tulsans were taken into what was described as protective custody on May 31-June 1. Some were released within hours, while others remained in a camp at the fairgrounds for days and even weeks.

Gathering up African American residents was supposed to protect those not involved in fighting and help identify those who were. And those who surrendered do seem to have avoided the worst of the violence.

But the action also opened up the Greenwood District for marauding whites to burn and loot and shoot any blacks remaining in the neighborhood.

The first large-scale gathering place was Convention Hall, now known as the Tulsa Theater. After outgrowing that location, detainees were taken to McNulty Park, the minor league ballpark at 10th Street and Elgin Avenue, where the Warehouse Market facade and Home Depot are now. There they were fed and given water while National Guard troops stood watch outside the stadium.

Not all African Americans were detained. Hundreds and perhaps thousands fled the city. Others found refuge in private homes and downtown churches, including First Presbyterian Church and Holy Family Cathedral. A few seem

Black men were marched through the streets with their hands raised during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

A vehicle loaded with people travels down the street on June 1 during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. to have managed to stay in Greenwood throughout its destruction.

And, of course, some were killed or so badly wounded they required hospitalization.

Detainees vouched for by a white person were released.

Others were moved to an exhibit hall at the fairgrounds, then in the vicinity of Admiral Place and Lewis Avenue.

By Thursday evening, June 2, about 1,000 of the 5,500 or so originally taken into custody remained at the camp.

Those released from custody were generally given paper identification cards to wear on their clothing so they would not be arrested.

The fairgrounds camp remained in operation until late June.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS “After lining up some 30 or 40 of us men they ran us through the streets to Convention Hall, forcing us to keep our hands in the air all the while.

While we were running some of the ruffians would shoot at our heels and swore at those who had difficulty in keeping up. They actually drove a car into the bunch and knocked down two or three men. When we reached Convention Hall, we were searched again. There people were herded in like cattle. The sick and wounded were dumped out in front of the building and remained without attention for hours.”

James T.A. West, high school teacher (Source: “Events of the Tulsa Disaster)

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TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

COURTESY, TULSA HISTORICAL SOCIETY & MUSEUM

Mount Zion Baptist Church burns during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Rising from its ashes Weeks after opening, Mount Zion was burned down.

Faith and perseverance rebuilt it.

T

KENDRICK MARSHALL | Tulsa World

here was allegedly a stash of weapons and ammunition stored inside the church waiting to be deployed, according to the unsubstantiated story at the time.

An eyewitness account by William “Choc” Phillips, a white teenager, was documented in the 2001 report of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. It detailed what happened next that day 99 years ago, when armed white mobs swept through Greenwood killing and burning.

Phillips, who later became a Tulsa Police officer, described men firing machine guns at the church, where Black riflemen attempted to protect their already damaged neighborhood.

“While standing on the high ground where the machine gun had been firing, we watched the activity below for a few minutes,” Phillips testified. “Most of the houses were beginning to burn and smoke ascended slowly into the air while people flitted around as busy as bees down there.

“From the number that ran in and out of the houses and the church, there had evidently been a couple of hundred who remained behind when the mob bypassed the area. A short while later, Mount Zion was torched.”

Mount Zion had just opened its new church and held its first service on April 4, 1921. Less than two months later, on June 1, it was looted and reduced to smoldering rubble. The church, at 419 N. Elgin Ave., had just completed an ambitious fiveyear, $92,000 investment in its transition from its previous location, in the 300 block of North Hartford Avenue.

“Because it was the newest building in the neighborhood, they (rioters) came and burned down the church,” said Dr. Sharlene Johnson, current Mount Zion trustee and board member. “You have to remember the time. (Greenwood) was

a thriving community. It was racism, basically. It was just a way to destroy the Black community and Black churches.

“They now call it a massacre.

It was definitely a massacre.”

Rebuilding after devastation In the immediate aftermath, Mount Zion Rev. Ira A. Whitaker ordered 24-hour surveillance over the ruins and then demanded city officials watch as church members cleared the area to ensure that the building did not contain weapons as suspected.

It was a humble reminder that even in the midst of victimization, Black Tulsans had to prove their innocence to white authorities. Another blow the church suffered was that its insurance policy did not cover damages caused by an “act of riot,” according to a clause.

Despite being one of 23 churches burned down during the massacre, Mount Zion members forged on, Johnson said. Congregants lost the sanctuary to violence but the basement remained salvageable. A temporary covering and a few makeshift pews were installed so that worship services could be held.

Services were also orchestrated elsewhere in the area, including at the home of Mabel B. Little, the revered matriarch

of Tulsa’s Black community.

“They decided they were going to rebuild the church,” said Johnson.

And they did just that, though the church carried $50,000 in mortgage debt.

Rather than disband or join neighboring churches, members voted to not file bankruptcy. While some did leave, others spent countless weekends and days attempting to rebuild.

Five years after the fire, Whitaker continued to lead the congregation as it reduced its debt, which was necessary before a new church could be constructed.

Overcoming the challenge The church faced a significant setback when an ill and discouraged Whitaker later resigned.

His absence led the way to frequent leadership changes and a brief shuttering of the church before Mount Zion regained stability under Rev. J.H. Dotson in 1937, when members were still gathering at the dirt floor basement.

Dotson, who came from Muskogee to lead the church, started an aggressive campaign to pay off the remainder of the debt and then finance a rebuild.

Mount Zion records indicate that it was 1942 — 21 years after the initial devastation — that the debt was finally paid off on the strength of determination and donations.

“It is a little easier for them to give their money now, however, because they have tangible proof that they’re getting something for it,” Dotson said in a 1945 Tulsa Tribune story about Mount Zion’s resurgence.

‘The church that faith built’ Ruby Givens has been a faithful Mount Zion member for the last 55 years. Growing up in Claremore, she didn’t witness

the massacre first-hand. What she knew about the events of the day were through her father, a World War I veteran.

The situation, said Givens, was characterized as “negative.”

Deteriorating race relations, however, was something Givens did personally experience following the massacre. Though Oklahomans rarely discussed what happened — out of either embarrassment or shame — the animosity never wavered, she said.

“There was extreme hatred, and it was hatred deserved (toward whites) from Blacks because it was just so unnecessary,” said Givens. “The burning of the church was just total devastation in the community.”

Eventually, a corner lot was laid in 1948 and a newly constructed Mount Zion was dedicated on Oct. 21, 1952, under Dotson’s leadership. Designed

by Mount Zion members W.S. and J.C. Latimer, it was dubbed “the church that faith built.”

The church, like others in Greenwood, was a symbol of economic might that became symbolic of the largest concentration of Black wealth in America. To have Mount Zion return in a state “as good as it ever was,” said Givens, inspired the district’s Black residents to move forward.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008, the current Mount Zion is a multi-level building complete with office and meeting space, with a nursery to go along with old stained glass windows that were donated from Germany.

The sanctuary can hold 1,200 at capacity.

“When the community saw that Mount Zion was rebuilding, they had hope that if Mount Zion could do it, the (rest of Greenwood) could do it,” Givens said. “It was an inspiration to the community to rebuild after seeing what Mount Zion had gone through.” kendrick.marshall @tulsaworld.com

Murder of Dr. A.C. Jackson

TULSA WORLD

Dr. A.C. Jackson, a well-known physician and surgeon, was among the victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Of all the deaths resulting from the race massacre, none was more vividly documented than the murder of Dr. A.C. Jackson.

A well-known physician and surgeon, Jackson was also the most prominent person known to have died in the massacre.

According to Jackson’s white neighbor, former city commissioner John Oliphant, Jackson emerged from his house on North Detroit Avenue at mid-morning on June 1, after fighting in the area had subsided, with his hands in the air.

“Here am I. I want to go with you,” Oliphant testified Jackson told a group of

whites in front of the house.

Oliphant said he told the men, “That is Dr. Jackson. Don’t hurt him.”

Instead, said Oliphant, a white man “in a white shirt and cap” shot Jackson with “a high-powered rifle.”

Oliphant said he recognized one of the men as a former or current Tulsa police officer named Brown, but insisted he could not identify the one who shot Jackson.

Despite Oliphant’s rather detailed description of events, no one was charged in the doctor’s death.

— Randy Krehbiel

TULSA WORLD

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

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COURTESY, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MCFARLIN LIBRARY, THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA

In just 12 hours, the once booming Greenwood District was left in ruins.

Thirty-five blocks of Greenwood destroyed in 12 hours About 35 square blocks were destroyed in no more than 12 hours. The June 1, 1921, Tulsa Tribune reported only a few houses, in the vicinity of Booker T. Washington High School, escaped destruction.

A brick building surrounded by a school yard, Washington became “haven to ten or twenty (N)egro women and their families,” the paper reported.

According to the June 2, 1921, Tulsa World, officials believed about 25 separate fires had been set.

“Greenwood avenue, principal business street in the negro district, is a mass of broken bricks and debris,” the World reported. “Only gas and water pipes, bath fixtures, bedsteads or other metal fixtures remain to mark the places where homes once stood. The negro residences remaining can almost be counted on one’s hand. There is not an undamaged business building owned by negroes in the entire district.”

Property losses were estimated at around $2 million, but that figure is probably low; those doing the estimating were also trying to buy out the owners.

Claims and lawsuits filed later against the city and insurance companies suggest the real figure may have been twice that.

— Stories by Randy Krehbiel

The damage toll Figures from July 31, 1921 Red Cross report House burned 1,256 Houses looted but not burned 221 Families living in tents 245 Number of families registered 1,912 Number of persons registered 5,739 From Dec. 30, 1921, Red Cross report Whites hospitalized at Red Cross expense Blacks hospitalized at Red Cross expense Red Cross first aid cases related to massacre One-room homes constructed Two-room homes constructed Three-room homes constructed One-story brick or cement buildings Two-story brick or cement buildings Three-story brick or cement buildings Families living in tents

48 135 531 180 272 312 24 24 3 49

(Construction summary includes buildings not built with Red Cross assistance.)

Official death toll largely unknown The number of people killed in the race massacre has been a mystery from the start.

As the June 2, 1921, Tulsa World reported, under a story headlined “Dead Estimated at 100”: “The difficulty ... is caused by the fact that the bodies were apparently not handled in a systematic manner.”

Major Byron Kirkpatrick, a Tulsa attorney on Adjutant General Charles Barrett’s staff, acknowledged reports that “a number of bodies were removed in motor trucks operated by citizens.”

“Kirkpatrick said he did not know where (the bodies) were taken,” said the World, “whether they were placed at some specific point for later attention, if they were dumped into a large hole, or thrown into the Arkansas river.”

That early, “unofficial” estimate, made on the night of June 1, presumed 90 African American deaths and 10 whites. Major

85-175

Original estimated death counts in various sources at the time

The number of confirmed dead in the Tulsa Race Massacre is 37, but it’s unknown how many people died. In the June 2, 1921, Tulsa World, officials estimated 100 had been killed.

Charles Daley, a National Guard officer and the police department’s inspector general, told the Tulsa Tribune the toll might be 175. The New York Times, relying on unnamed sources, reported 85 dead.

By the afternoon of June 2, however, the death count had been reduced to just 27. Daley and another National Guard

27

Death count on June 2

37

Number of deaths verified through historic research

officer said a search of the burned area had not, as expected, uncovered additional remains. Officials now scoffed at the rumors of bodies being hauled away to undisclosed locations.

By this time, the bodies of at least 18 African Americans had been delivered to Tulsa funeral directors. According to news re-

18

Number of black victims known to be buried at Oaklawn Cemetery

ports and records, those 18 were buried in Oaklawn Cemetery.

The official death count grew slowly over the summer as a few more bodies were found, mostly in outlying areas, and injured men died of their wounds.

The massacre’s last recorded fatality occurred on Aug. 20, with the death of Commodore Knox, a young black man.

Twenty years ago, the Tulsa Race Riot Commission put the number of verified deaths at 39. However, two of those included a stillborn black child who seems to have been delivered before the massacre and an adult white male shot four days afterward by supposed “guards” on the road between Tulsa and Sand Springs.

Of the 39, 26 were African American and 13 were white. All were male.

Then or now, hardly anyone seems to have accepted that as the true extent of fatalities — which is why the search for unmarked burial sites continues.

Aug. 20

Date in 1921 of the last confirmed fatality related to the massacre, the death of a young black man

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TULSA WORLD

About 35 square blocks were destroyed in no more than 12 hours. The June 1, 1921, Tulsa Tribune reported only a few houses, in the vicinity of Booker T. Washington High School, escaped destruction.

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Tales of tragedy Those who lived and died through the stories told today

ARCHIVE EDITION | SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 THIS PROJECT WAS MADE POSSIBLE THANKS IN PART TO THE GENEROUS UNDERWRITING OF BURT B. HOLMES & THE GEORGE KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION

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| SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

COURTESY, TULSA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Following the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, attorney B.C. Franklin (right) set up his law office in a tent. At left is I.H. Spears, Franklin’s law partner, and center is secretary Effie Thompson.

Franklin successfully challenged a Tulsa city ordinance that mandated that the Greenwood District be rebuilt with fire-proof materials. The ordinance essentially would have kept many Black residents from rebuilding. B.C. Franklin was the father of the late historian John Hope Franklin.

The faces of a tragedy The personalities of leaders and everyday Tulsans are key to understanding what happened when Greenwood burned

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RANDY KREHBIEL | Tulsa World

bove all else, the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre is about people. It’s about how the interplay of words, actions and attitudes resulted in one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the nation’s history. ¶ The tendency is often to see the racial divide literally in terms of black and white, of two monolithic blocks colliding at the Frisco railroad tracks on the night of May 31, 1921. ¶ The truth is more complicated. While race certainly unified some and divided others, the individual personalities involved were distinct. ¶ From Dick Rowland and Sarah Page, the two young people whose interaction on a downtown elevator ignited smoldering tensions, to the people who rebuilt Greenwood from the ashes, each has a story to tell. ¶ Here are a few of the leading figures:

Police Commissioner J.M. Adkisson: The elected official directly overseeing the Police and Fire departments, Adkisson was a real estate and insurance executive by trade. With no experience in public safety, he nevertheless promised reform within the Police Department while at the same time taking a hard line against rampant theft.

Adkisson said he received a telephone call on the afternoon of May 31, 1921, threatening the life of Dick Rowland, prompting the transfer of Rowland from the city jail to the more secure county lockup.

W. Tate Brady: An early Tulsa businessman and booster, Brady was among those who sought to relocate the African American district after the massacre. Because of that, he is sometimes blamed for the massacre itself, but there is no real evidence that he orchestrated Greenwood’s Brady destruction.

P.A. Chappelle: One of the Black attorneys involved in defeating the attempted removal of Greenwood property owners after the massacre. His family remains prominent in Tulsa legal and religious circles.

Barney Cleaver: Believed to have been Tulsa’s first Black law officer when hired by the Police Department in 1908, Cleaver was a sheriff’s deputy at the time of the massacre.

For hours he and Sheriff W.M. McCullough stood on the courthouse steps, trying to disperse the crowd gathering there because of the threats to Dick Rowland’s life.

As one of Greenwood’s Cleaver largest property owners, Cleaver also suffered heavy losses in the massacre.

Rev. Harold Cooke: A Southern Methodist minister, Cooke was one of Tulsa’s most outspoken segregationists and white supremacists and among the loudest voices blaming Black Tulsans for the massacre.

Prior to the massacre, Cooke was involved

in an anti-vice and corruption campaign that portrayed Greenwood as a den of crime and depravity.

B.C. Franklin: In Tulsa only a short time before the outbreak of violence, Franklin joined fellow attorneys Chappelle and Isaac “Ike” Spears in defeating the City Commission’s attempt to legislate Greenwood out of existence.

Franklin O.W. Gurley: One of the first, and perhaps the first, Black entrepreneurs to set up shop at Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street in what was then the northeast edge of Tulsa. Arriving in 1905, Gurley owned the city’s first Black hotel and suffered some of the greatest losses from the destruction of Greenwood.

Police Chief John Gustafson: A private detective with an allegedly shady background until hired as Tulsa police chief in 1920, Gustafson took most of the blame for the department’s having handed out a hundred or more “special commissions” during the crisis.

Convicted of dereliction of duty and removed from office, Gustafson was also accused of allowing a car theft ring to operate out of the deGustafson partment and using his office to steer clients to his private detective agency.

Sheriff W.M. McCullough: McCullough successfully protected Dick Rowland but was widely criticized by white Tulsans for not having done more to break up the crowd at the courthouse and particularly for not taking strong action against the Black men.

Sarah Page: The white teenage elevator operator’s encounter with Black youth Dick Rowland led to Rowland’s arrest and ultimately the massacre. Little is known of Page before or after the incident, although years later it was said she and Rowland

might have been romantically involved.

She seems to have left Tulsa within days if not hours of the massacre.

Mary Jones Parrish: The young mother and secretarial school operator was hired in the aftermath of the massacre to record Black survivors’ stories. Collected as “Events of the Tulsa Disaster,” it is the leading contemporary source on the massacre from that perspective.

Dick Rowland: Identified as “Diamond Dick Rowland” in the Tulsa Tribune story that set in motion the events leading to the destruction of Greenwood, Rowland was a teenager variously identified as a “bootblack” or “delivery boy” whose name might not have been Dick Rowland at all.

Eventually released from jail after initially being charged with assault, Rowland soon disappeared. His fate, and that of Sarah Page, has never been firmly established.

A.J. Smitherman: The fiery editor of the Tulsa Star was accused of encouraging and organizing the contingent of armed Black men who went to the Tulsa County Courthouse to protect Dick Rowland. Fleeing to Massachusetts and then Buffalo, New York, he became a successful newspaper publisher and community leader.

John Smitherman: The younger brother of A.J. Smitherman was a Tulsa County sheriff’s deputy at the time of the massacre and spent a month in jail for clashing with Tulsa police officers he accused of being part of a conspiracy to harm Rowland. Remarkably, upon his release John Smitherman resumed his career and remained a Tulsa law officer until his death in 1956.

Isaac Spears: With Franklin and Chappelle, Spears represented Black property owners whose successful challenge of a fire code ordinance effectively ended the attempt to prevent the rebuilding of Greenwood and force the district’s relocation.

J.B. Stratford: The fiery hotel owner and businessman fled the city after it was alleged that he tried to bring a large number of Black men to Tulsa from Muskogee on the night of May 31-June 1. He resettled in Illinois, where his family became prominent in legal and civil rights circles.

Rev. R.A. Whittaker: Pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, a newly completed edifice that was destroyed in the massacre, Whittaker led the legal action that ultimately stopped the attempt to prevent Black property owners from rebuilding.

Maurice Willows: Brought from St. Louis to lead the Red Cross’ relief efforts in Tulsa, Willows earned broad praise for his even-handed administration in the face of official resistance and duplicity. Years later, grandson Bob Hower published Willows’ papers under the title “1921 Tulsa Race Riot : The American Red Cross — Angels of Mercy.”

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

Remembering lives lost It’s harder than ever to know much about the 37 confirmed dead, but the families of at least two of them vow to never forget.

Dene’ Harjo, from left, her mother Pearl Alford and her sister Cheri Pearson-Jordan visit the grave of their ancestor Eddie Lockard at Oaklawn Cemetery. Lockard, who was killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, is one of two massacre victims to have a marked grave at Oaklawn. The area on the southwest side of the cemetery remains marked off after archeologists discovered what are believed to be remains of other massacre victims in an unmarked grave.

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STORY BY TIM STANLEY | TULSA WORLD •

PHOTOS BY JOHN CLANTON | TULSA WORLD

s he poked through the rubble of his burned-out home and restaurant, Joe Lockard must have felt utterly defeated. ¶ The life he had worked so hard to build — had started and nurtured with his own two hands — had in just a matter of hours been wiped out. ¶ But as overwhelming as Lockard’s losses were, at some point a bigger concern would begin to take priority. ¶ It had been days since he had last seen his younger brother, Eddie. ¶ That, he knew, was not a good sign. ¶ And soon enough, Lockard’s growing fears for his sibling would be confirmed.

What that must’ve been like for Joe Lockard — on top of losing everything in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, to lose his brother as well — is something his great-granddaughter Dene’ Harjo has often wondered about.

And Eddie Lockard is even more of a mystery.

“He worked in Joe’s restaurant, we think,” Harjo said. “But beyond that we don’t know much about him.”

“A lot of those details died with our ancestors,” added her sister, Cheri Pearson-Jordan. “I think back then there was a fear sometimes of actually talking about the race massacre.”

The massacre, which occurred over May 31-June 1, 1921, when white mobs invaded Tulsa’s African American Greenwood District, resulted in the fiery destruction of some 35 blocks of the formerly thriving community.

It also left at least 37 individuals dead, though unofficial estimates have put the number much higher.

Who were the 37?

For most, outside of names, ages and a few details from news reports, it’s hard to say anything definitive.

What can be said about Eddie Lockard, for example, starts with his headstone.

One of two confirmed massacre victims who have graves at Oaklawn Cemetery, his marker lists his birth as Dec. 10, 1888.

That would make him 32 when he died.

Less clear are the circumstances of his death.

Harjo, of Oklahoma City, says the story passed down in her family is that Eddie was riding a horse when he was killed by gunfire from an airplane.

Over the years, rumors and stories that Greenwood was attacked from the air, in addition to the mobs on the ground, have persisted, although there’s never been anything to officially confirm aircraft involvement.

If her family story is true, Harjo said, “he was pretty much a sitting duck, it sounds like.”

According to reports, Lockard wasn’t found until five days after the massacre.

Initially unidentified, his body was discovered near the airport with a rifle lying next to it. He had a gunshot wound to his neck.

Because Lockard was not married and left behind no known children, that makes Harjo and Pearson-Jordan — along with their mother, Pearl

The known dead The official death toll of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is 37, though unofficial estimates have put it as high as in the hundreds.

It includes both Black and white victims, with Black deaths numbering more than twice that of white, at 25 to 12.

Of the 37, 29 were identified.

The other eight victims, most likely all Black, were burned too badly for identification.

Not all of the victims died in Greenwood, nor were all the bodies found there. Aside from those who died in hospitals, several bodies were found north of town near Flat Rock Creek.

The 29 identified include:

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

Pearl Alford holds a photograph of her late grandparents, Rina and Joe Lockard, as she sits in her apartment in south Tulsa. The couple survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and would go on to help rebuild Greenwood. Joe Lockard’s brother Eddie Lockard was killed in the massacre.

Alford, of Tulsa — some of his closest surviving kin.

Partly for that reason, the sisters feel a sense of responsibility toward him.

It begins, they said, with just trying to know who he was.

But therein lies a problem. How do you do that, when it’s someone who’s been all but forgotten by history?

‘Cold-blooded murder’

With his own late relative, Don Adams has had more of an advantage in learning details.

Dr. Andrew C. Jackson, his great uncle, was well known. By the time of his death, in fact, the 42-year-old Greenwood physician was one of the most prominent Black medical professionals in the country.

Adams said he and his brother Jack first became acquainted with their uncle’s story as children growing up in Tulsa.

“From the time I was about 7 or 8, I don’t think a day hardly passed that my aunt or my grandmother didn’t tell me about him,” said Adams, now of Woodbridge, Virginia.

His “Uncle Andrew” has been real to him ever since, he said.

“I knew all of the details. They kind of drilled

Ed Adams, 32 Gregg Alexander, 26 Ernest Austin, 39 F.M. Baker, 28 Harry Barker, 37 Harold Barrens, 19 Homer Cline, 16 George Walter Daggs, 27 Reuben E. Everett, 42 Robert Hankson/ Harkinson, 22 Ed Howard, age unknown Andrew C. Jackson, 42 Arthur James/Janes, 36 George Jeffrey/Jeffries, 36 H. Johnson, age unknown Commodore Knox, 21 George Lewis, age unknown Ed Lockard, 32 Carl D. Lotspeich, 22 Joe Muller/Miller, 35 James R. Paris, 33 Sam Ree, 30 Harry Roberts, 27 Cleo Shumate, 24 William Turner, age unknown Curly Walker, 30 Henry Walker, 40 John Wheeler, 63 I.J./S.J. Withrow, 28

“A lot of those details died with our ancestors. I think back then there was a fear sometimes of actually talking about the race massacre.””

Cheri Pearson-Jordan, descendant of Tulsa Race Massacre survivors

19

20

| SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

TULSA WORLD

Dene’ Harjo, from left, her mother Pearl Alford and sister Cheri Pearson-Jordan visit the grave of their ancestor Eddie Lockard at Oaklawn Cemetery. Lockard, who was killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, is one of two massacre victims to have a marked grave at Oaklawn. The area on the southwest side of the cemetery remains marked off after archeologists discovered what are believed to be remains of other massacre victims in an unmarked grave.

TIM STANLEY, TULSA WORLD

Don Adams, nephew of Tulsa Race Massacre victim Dr. Andrew C. Jackson.

TULSA WORLD FILE

The only known photo of Dr. Andrew C. Jackson, a Greenwood physician killed during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The original is on display in the home of his great nephew, Don Adams, of Woodbridge, Va.

them into me. I think it was part of the healing process for them to talk about him.”

Born in Memphis, Jackson grew up in Guthrie.

After graduating from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, he practiced in Tulsa and Claremore, before training as a surgeon in Memphis.

He returned to Tulsa in 1919.

Adams is especially proud to note that Jackson drew no lines. He was known to treat both Black and white patients, he said.

He and his wife, Julia, a school teacher, were forces for good in the Greenwood community.

Jackson’s death, unlike most of the others in the massacre, was well attested to.

His white neighbor, John Oliphant, former police commissioner and retired judge, witnessed it, and did not mince words: “It was cold-blooded murder,” he later said.

Confronted by a group of whites out front of his home, Jackson had raised his hands to surrender, Oliphant reported, when two of them gunned him down.

This sudden, violent loss — combined with the fact that no one was held accountable — would haunt his survivors for years.

Adams, one of several plaintiffs in a new lawsuit seeking reparations for the massacre, said his aunt kept a photo of Jackson on her wall in Tulsa, and later passed it on to him.

“She said she wanted me to keep it.

It made her cry to have it there.”

The original of the only known photo of Jackson, “it’s been in my living room ever since, more than 40 years.

“I cherish that picture.”

Also cherished, Adams said, is his memory of once meeting Jackson’s widow.

Julia, who’d had no children with Jackson, had gone on to marry again.

But clearly, she was still affected by her first husband’s death.

“She was up in age by then and passed on shortly after that,” Adams said.

“I remember her crying and telling me ‘I still miss him.’”

Land of opportunity

The Lockard family story echoes those of many whose Greenwood ties go deep.

Originally from Texas, they later moved to Oklahoma.

The new state, which boasted more all-Black communities than any other, promised a better life for African Americans.

“I think in my great-grandfather’s mind, this was the land of opportunity, and probably the way he was going to be able to have the American Dream,” Harjo said.

Joe Lockard and his wife Rina settled in Greenwood, where he would establish and run a successful restaurant, the People’s Cafe. By the time of the massacre, he was even planning to expand.

Those plans were dashed.

But Lockard didn’t abandon Greenwood. He stayed put, and would become a pivotal figure in its rebuilding.

His lawsuit, Joe Lockard v. city of Tulsa, was one of two that ultimately prevented the Tulsa City Commission from using an extension of the fire code to keep Black Tulsans from rebuilding after the massacre.

Pearson-Jordan, a Tulsa resident, said her great-grandfather’s resolve is inspiring.

“He had every reason in the world to give up,” she said. “He could very well have said, ‘you know I tried.

I’m just gonna go back to Texas,’ and I don’t think anyone would have thought any less of him as a man.

“But he stayed. And he continued to be a prominent citizen in this community making inroads and changes.”

Lockard not only rebuilt his home, he went back into the restaurant business. He would run a popular barbecue eatery, and pass on cooking skills that are still in the family today.

“My mom still has the knife he used to cut meat,” Pearson-Jordan said.

Despite its rise from the ashes, Greenwood’s rebirth wouldn’t last, though.

Starting in the 1950s, various forces, from urban renewal to new highway projects, would combine to

Dene’ Harjo places flowers at the grave of her ancestor Eddie Lockard at Oaklawn Cemetery.

Lockard, who was killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, is one of two massacre victims to have a marked grave at Oaklawn.

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

Pearl Alford (left) is comforted by her daughter Cheri Pearson-Jordan during a visit to the grave of their ancestor Eddie Lockard at Oaklawn Cemetery for the first time. Lockard was killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. carve up the community, leaving behind only a memory of what had been.

But at least one thing Joe Lockard erected still stands today: His brother’s headstone.

“We have the stories, but it’s good to have that, too,” said Pearson-Jordan, who visited it recently for the first time. “It’s a physical sign of who he was and what happened.”

At the same time, she said, it makes her feel bad for families who don’t have even that.

With rumors of mass burials and unmarked graves related to the massacre still prevalent, the city of Tulsa began a search last year using the markers of Eddie Lockard and fellow massacre victim Reuben Everett to guide them.

An excavation at Oaklawn yielded a site containing at least 12 decomposed coffins buried together which may contain possible massacre victims.

The research team will exhume the bodies in June and begin efforts to identify them.

“It’s hard to think they were thrown out just like trash,” Harjo said.

‘He had so much to offer’

Lockard descendants aren’t alone in knowing the value of a proper headstone.

For far too long, Jackson, who was buried in his hometown of Guthrie, did not have one, Adams said.

That frustrated attempts to locate the grave.

Between multiple visits over the years to Summit View Cemetery, Adams and his brother “searched and searched,” he said. “We were so disgusted because we couldn’t find it. But we never gave up.”

Eventually, they were able to pinpoint the location.

They made sure, he said, it would never be overlooked again.

“It’s a heck of a memorial,” Adams said of the new headstone that was placed there.

Adorned with Jackson’s portrait and an inscription identifying him as a massacre victim, the sight of it fills Adams with pride.

But it also makes him sad, he said.

“I think of how much he had to give. What his contributions could have been.”

“A lot of people die before their time,” Adams added. “But the fact remains, he had so much to offer.”

Standing where it has for nearly a century, Lockard’s headstone has received a lot more attention than Jackson’s.

That’s included from national media.

Pearson-Jordan said the family understands the interest. But, she added, “we want people to know that he’s more than a photo op. We want to put a life and a person to the name.”

Most of what there was to know about Eddie Lockard the person, in the end, is lost to time.

Unlike with Jackson there are no photos.

However, the family does have images of his brother. And in Joe’s features, they can try to visualize Eddie.

What Harjo sees, she said, is a young man who had his whole life still in front of him.

“I imagine him as wanting to have his own business some day, a family of his own,” she said.

He missed out on all of that.

But that’s where Harjo and her sister come in.

In a sense, she said, they are the fulfillment of what both Joe and Eddie Lockard started — of everything they hoped and aspired to in coming to Oklahoma.

“We haven’t just survived, we’ve thrived,” Harjo said.

Harjo, a counselor with Oklahoma City Public Schools, said she and her sister each have successful careers. Moreover, they are active in their communities, and support causes that empower African Americans.

“Yes, his life was lost,” Harjo said of her uncle.

“But his blood is coursing through our veins.” tim.stanley@tulsaworld.com

Dene’ Harjo, from left, her mother, Pearl Alford, and her sister Cheri Pearson-Jordan visit the grave of their ancestor Eddie Lockard at Oaklawn Cemetery. The area on the southwest side of the cemetery remains marked off after archeologists discovered what are believed to be remains of other massacre victims in an unmarked grave.

Eddie Lockard is one of two race massacre victims who has a marked grave at Oaklawn.

21

22

| SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

OSU RUTH SIGLER AVERY COLLECTION

A truck holds wicker caskets used to transport the dead victims from the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. The caption written on the photograph reads, “Truck being used to gather up colored victims during the Tulsa Race Riot 6-1-21.”

The deadliest events in Oklahoma history

T

TIM STANLEY | TULSA WORLD

he 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is not alone in Oklahoma history in the human toll it exacted. Below are 10 events that rank among the deadliest and most notorious in their respective categories. The list was limited to instances where the deaths occurred at the time of the event or within a few hours to a few days, and were a direct result of it.

To be clear: These types of events — whether natural disasters, accidents, terrorism, warfare or mass murder — are alike only in the tragedy they brought and the unimaginable losses they inflicted. Otherwise, they cannot truly be compared.

1863 Battle of Honey Springs

What would be the largest Civil War battle in then-Indian Territory occurred on July 17, 1863.

The result was a lopsided Union victory.

Of the estimated 160 dead, only 20 were Union troops. The rest were all Confederate.

A total of around 9,000 troops were involved in the clash, with Native Americans making up a significant portion of each side. The Union force also contained African-American units.

The battleground, located near Checotah, is now a national historic landmark managed by the Oklahoma Historical Society.

1868 Battle of the Washita/ Washita Massacre On Nov. 27, 1868, a U.S. Cavalry force under command of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer carried out a surprise pre-dawn attack on an encampment of Cheyenne that was believed to include a war party.

The exact death toll from what ensued is not known. At least 21 soldiers were killed, with estimates of Cheyenne dead ranging from a few dozen to 150, and including Chief Black Kettle.

The event, named for the Washita River where it occurred, has remained controversial, in part because many women and children were killed, and also because of contentions that the Indians were peaceful and not among those attacking settlements.

The present-day Washita Battlefield National Historic Site near Cheyenne, Oklahoma, commemorates the event.

1947 Woodward tornado

Traveling more than 220 miles across three states, the tornado that struck Woodward on April 9, 1947, still ranks as the deadliest tornado in Oklahoma history, and one of the worst nationally.

The storm hit the city without warning at 8:42 p.m., leaving at least 107 people dead.

The bodies of three children were never identified.

More than 1,000 homes and businesses were destroyed, along with over 100 city blocks.

1905 Snyder tornado

On May 10, 1905, just three years after it was established, the town of Snyder in southwest Oklahoma Territory was hit by a devastating tornado.

The storm, part of a larger outbreak, arrived at around 8:45 p.m., and by the time it had passed, had destroyed much of the Kiowa County community’s north and west sides.

An estimated 97 were killed, among them Snyder Public Schools Superintendent Charles Hibbard and his family.

It ranks as the second most deadly tornado in Oklahoma history.

1920 Peggs tornado

On May 2, 1920, a tornado hit the com-

AP FILE

The explosion of a 4,800-pound fertilizer-and-fuel-oil bomb in a rented Ryder truck parked outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people. munity of Peggs in Cherokee County at 8:35 p.m., killing almost a third of the town.

In addition to 71 dead, another 100 of its 250 inhabitants were injured.

Among the killed were 11 members of one family. Recovery efforts would discover 20 bodies in one demolished house alone.

1924 Babbs Switch fire

On Dec. 24, 1924, a fire started during a Christmas party at a one-room school house in the small southwest Oklahoma town of Babbs Switch.

Of the 36 people killed, more than half were children.

Many of the fatalities occurred because the building’s single door opened inward only, and it was quickly blocked by people trying to flee.

In response to the tragedy, the state of Oklahoma passed new fire safety requirements for schools.

1984 Tulsa Memorial Day flood

Over an 8-hour period from May 26 to 27, 1984, a flash flood dumped rain on the Tulsa-area in amounts of anywhere from 6 to 15 inches.

The result was the worst flood in the city’s history, with 14 people killed and nearly 300 injured.

More than 5,500 buildings were damaged or destroyed, including more than 20 schools. Additionally, some 7,000 vehicles were destroyed or severely damaged, and many roads and bridges were also destroyed or heavily damaged.

1985 Aerlex Corp. fireworks factory disaster On June 24, 1985, the Aerlex Corp. fire-

works factory at Hallett, between Terlton and Jennings, was leveled by a series of explosions.

Of the 26 people on site, 21 were killed.

The blasts, which sent a mushroom cloud a half-mile into the sky, could be heard in Tulsa, about 25 miles away.

Emergency responders would later find bodies as far away as 200 yards from the factory, where they’d been blown by the force of the explosions.

1986 Edmond Post Office Massacre Just after 7 a.m. on Aug. 20, 1986, postal carrier Patrick Sherrill entered the downtown Edmond post office and began shooting his co-workers.

Over the next 15 minutes, he would kill 14 and wound six before killing himself.

It remains the deadliest workplace shooting in U.S. history.

1995 OKC bombing

The April 19, 1995, truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people, including 19 children.

More than 680 were injured.

Bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was captured within 90 minutes of the blast, would be convicted and executed. Terry Nichols, convicted as McVeigh’s accomplice, is serving multiple life sentences without possibility of parole.

It was the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history until the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Sources: National Weather Service, Oklahoma Historical Society, Tulsa World archives tim.stanley@tulsaworld.com

TULSA WORLD

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Covering a massacre On June 1, 1921, the Tulsa World produced four editions covering the events of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Here are the covers of those papers and some of the coverage in the days after the tragedy.

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U'Al.TKIt Iciilln.. buslni'Fvs anil )ruroloiial South 1'onvpr hvpiiup. bIii1p. local nun i lln' city ure lilaniilnc to managpr of the Pleri oil lorpor-jation- . li'.lil a inrrtliis at which pl.illi DaRRH with two iiinipaiiloiH Mill I" an to tllo I1s oYIopk 10 about left rooms of fund with whli'li to robiillil Thoy wern on Tuff day nlpht. "l.ltilp h frlfn." which was Itolllder mil Six'h Mrppt when racil by flro ilurlns ml barnlnc of the riot. Companion" atliT 'ho I'lotlns 'I'lioday nl;;ht ay Dukeh rpniarkpd. "lt'B ro ami WcdncMhiy. bp".i", when nil turned and ran In ! .iiff..-.,.- .. n, ji.Miim. it,....u j'-- i!'.',..,it, .. n7. i ... ul ui hitmen ion.-.- . of the head in Urn back th g '!' had in the world was con- - Lwas,t Btruck nm) ,.,,, , mlmll( he blaze that dcvasHatoi A brother al the Tulwi hospital. .' a" in the rclRn of death, wind from I.eroy. New York, Wed- nesday afternoon that be would ar- je.itPrday. rlvi I'rlrl.iy afternoon to take iharR. ..n unprecedented burnt of jof 'J h,s ,,rmh;r.. rpniains. .KilIN WHI. KI. Kit, neRro. pnrtpr fii"r .'; on thu par of the ulwayw-i"'.'- i Killpii while prople of Tulsu. can this Klrst National bink. on his work Wednesday U' mi ho wiped out. mornlnR. He was not one of the ho World will Klvo $ 1,000 toward been a resurrectionists and had he MiffeiltlB and (llftrcss faithful eniploie of the ban for ' more than 10 ear unatp and In mint cane ' UK. A C. .JACKSON. neRro killed iiMorent victims of tho mob. it' ..f hlln .i.nnln mil llu Ho.tu I' U lp. 1003 North Denver .. ki..h I n ..... ti.

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ANNAI'dl.lS, M. June 2. today before I'ibi graduates of the fnltiil States naval aculemv to whom hi- hid Jus awarded comPresident Harding express they would now-have to fight and he promised them bey never would while he was pUHldeni, unless It be in ddi nse ot Ule Ami rl. an ronsilenie.

"I hope 5011 never will lie railed on lo draw a sword or fire a gun," said the president, "and I promise m.i young soldiers that so lung an am mir romiii!indi--ln-clil- ef. oti never win have to fight except In de fetipc of th- - American cms lonce and Tor what .Mm will he abb' to answii to Cod and to vour fellow men " "I want no eras en republic,-- ' continued the president. "1 want an merle i unafraid, a republic ot conscience, a republic or sympathy a republic of stiength and a lepubllu of high Ideals."

Would Tight for The president alluded briefly to the difference of opinion that exists over the (tiestlon of being prepared for war. Without ronimltting him self other than to Mate - wanted a "republic strong and unafraid the president told the young officer.

Unit there is nothing nobb i in ihn world than to defend one's imintry and keep this in mind" he said "that Bullet Kills White he fights best who fights Just ' Screlary of the Navy I'd" In One Negro, Hi nby Indulged In some "plain tialk' todnv to the ji;o members of th Knifed, One Shot graduating class of the nnv.il academy who received their ill idonias from the hands of the pres- SCRAP OVER LAWSUIT ident at Hall.

Speaking Irom the standpoint of one who has been both enlisted man and an officer in the na and In Pnlicr Hreak tnlo FiRht, Kill-iiithe marine coins. Secretary lienbv ' One NcRro After One cautioned the voting of fleets against the "foolish vanity of rank." and adHas Heen Stabbed vised them to "win the smlli s" of their men. whbh are "better than anv decoration ' Utpd prrHM HLUp Wlrp.

"So one knows better than I," said Ily -- A V OKLAHOMA t'l'l"t June Ule secretary, 'with what great the enlisted men look upon Wheeler. .'X white and Willie Sadler youths, an officer, who is 'every inch a man ' and Claud Slander. Ncgm as a result of a shooting and I No one knows better than with fray hen' lute tmlav Sadler what contempt the enlisted man cutting was stubbed to death by three neviews an officer unduly burdened groes after nil alleged alienation with the weight of his own It e. We need not worry about by the llrgroes over a lawsuit, said. Slander, the other negro, our rank Our fltnefs for It will be Is ' police officers who lustly appraised by those associated was killed by Wheeler, the white man. with us. The enlisted man will Intervened. was killed by siray Hhnls fired by quickly size you up He wants to the negroes, police said. like you. He wants to respect you. and Slandoi, accompanied H'' ptobaldy feels ho Is ton much bySadler other negroes, are said to have a man himself to want to be on a railroad track and after by one lacking any essen- metalleged an iilteiratlon between them tial element of manhood. up In came lawsuit, which over a Alwas He a .Man. yesterday, Sadler was stabbed "CiO to your men simply and inurt to a house a short He was i arrb-naturally, a man among nun, giv- distance away where he died soon ing the best that's In ou and ex- afterward. pecting good work hi return. There Slander was thnt bv police offiIs n smile in the navy and In the cers who lame up as In- and the marine corps that men teserve for other negroes were firing Into thi those they respect and like. It ls house where Sadler la The otln r Try negioes was better than any decoration.

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to whirl) plnet. ' were taken from Con-- . nnd MeNulty park 1 hi- - w III II be perma nei at headquarters. " l:i hardsnn, exeeutlve ' i he Tulsa County I'ubllr ia of ai. hns rhnrKO h and relief and has ' r, at the y. M. C. A., ""IK'' 'il.'.l. Automobile mportatlnn N under vi ..f J. c. Anthony.

Hi . over stolen (JihiiN. I' 'Inc falls the task of ' inir. so far as Is pos-i- i id ,,st Rood".

Work t b( done from Lumber rnmpa. r Ii. r, with telephone A Hull and V. I.. "i beaibiuartprs at 1012 n l u dint:, telephone Osasn t " harpo of railroad ' Ml "rip T. ai d his assistants, L. C. Murrs. ' 1 Mrs. Jennie K. Ileum ,. ' I.it is' of tlireetlntr, nsslftnlnK. ,f e I'd despatcblnK rails, an l itr inre of niultltudlnous r ' lied Cross offlre. Hod 'cts ' mrters was a hive o' ' '.lav Inrertors were Dl.h ; 1 K inir rornnletincr Ihelp e' NTINt worn, owners or cars i

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(lather ' Itrf ugcrs, A group of lted CYohh workers went out Into Urn Osago hills last night about dark In search or nrgro refugees, gathered up about Hi who are believed to be amonfr the last of the fugitives, loaded them Into cars and brought them back to town. They were still badly frightAH such ened, the workers report. refugees aro being cared for at tho central lted Cross lamp for tho present.

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3i Iioiira from TuphiUv nlEht our wllh ral'l. cirhar.na wtr anampul rTv (inalllon at Ih9 With nppralora at praiilially lm..-l.-oon r Urtiboanla II wa J00 apliriml' iatel hail. Up to l""i' P"r ' all", an In. r. ap Wp a( hil't'.rii.

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ensigns In the I nlted States navy SAY BUILDERS COERCED Your lives of service begin with the I ten DI I'o r ci I to llu) I ' in P'aelng in your hands the to I't'l Ismiis for lliillillii',-Worcommissions, whbh delegate I haigo. you to the defense nf vour cotintrv Some of NKW YOICK, Jnm .' and the upholding or the hnor of your flag. the largest sivlnus hanks and flro "I. too, have lately received from and life Insuiaine nunpanles in roNTlNfi;!) n.v rArn: two Ameilia, tin' l.oekwood legislative inmmllli e was told lotjay. hove, Co- -' I'arilif iilu I'ark. lonipelled who borroweis The camp fiesta and open house wanted to ere t buildings to purto have heen held at the Y. W. C A. chase ulldesll able ri al estate held ramp this Saturday has been by th'se InstltiitloiM before they d indefinitely on ac ount of tho would grant the te.i;isis for loan- week's events in the city and the The real .state unloaded In this prem cupation o fmnny wl'h relb f way came into the possession of measures, foreto an an- these i in poi alloiis through in cording nouncement Just made from the as- closures and they were anxious to sociation. The camp will not he he lid of It. it was alleged. stay opened for parties or week-enAmong lorporatlons so accused until conditions are more settled. were the Prudential Life Insurance company. New York Havings bank.

Hauling irital if-- Adnr, .Manhattan lafc Imuran, c company, Iiy tho AaaorlatPd prern. mnpuny I'Ifn Insurance June 2. Hugh c. Wal-lar- Mutual I'lm.dre city Savings luink. toda American ambassador.

Sailngs bank. Dime .Havings delivered to James K H n Kelt, the bank of Mrookljn. and others.

American actor, a rahie message fiom Secretary of States Hughes In Irani Social. transmitting tin fi 'i of tints In. h Tin i' in am .,.a. n sw So. I'r .snlelit II nil" g l.i Mi lla.ketl ii ' I.. of In r in 'Ma.Hilh Tin li' tor will da tin I'nii.ilv Inn h thi u' on iK.a'.r hifle il on tht ti r d 'el ll is Ii. i ti pus! pit' ' ' Ii ' gerii- I, n tli ail b .n aof in ra ti Ton ' i' g meal-ilppf-

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'YELLOW JOURNALISM'

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offli litis and city polb Waller D.'iggs, ,1.ri vears old, 7:11 were seveiely "scorched" for t lit 4' South Denver, single, local man.igci 'I'he Dai's Di'coH'iiicnls failure"' lo prevent the lace riots of of tin- I'lerce oil iirpoiutlon. D.iggs Illens ii tit I hiislmtw men glut luisdav night and Weduesiliu was archil nliilly shot In Ihn im. k of pletlgc morning by I, .1 Mai tin and olliei tin hind ill. ..ill III o'clock Tucsd ly ill-- ti let. in rebuild Ilium- In ncgm were Nlmls nlKliI when tlii' first 'IIIsi-iiwho composed a mass meet fli'd District .luilg,. W. Illildlsnii at the 1. in limine He died a 'nils grand Jury for .luiie s nt log In the municipal nudum linn few minutes lalei at Ule Tulsa l rrqtitM of IIoImtImiii, lu Ills father will arrive Thursday moinliig The meeiliiK "Im nim In '1'iilsii Thuoilav II I rnl.i y Is ViiIhii mi j ii i til and was i ailed for the purpose of formu llioilghl Horning. that he will lake Ihe hod biting quick relief measures for the li.n k wllh t'fiilrnl m in i:ccnihr him. I'll in r.i arrange l in lake rntlni I'h.irgo of di'stltuto negioes. ami resulted In In. nls ale nwiiillliK the .iilh.il of relief slluiitloii, the lather. the formation of Ihe comli. .1. .Martin charge linn roiintv l.inUeoll, 27 yens old, Hubert by .Mill lilt, whlih Is mittee, mid i lly poller nfflcl U.H ofril tiled who esser nooti alniilt tooldl vested with nillhorlt lo cope with Thiirsilay al the Physicians' and mill fulled in orrrr piopcr pni.

Suigeous' hospllal, shot III aims and trcllon. the relief situation us It deslies.

Mnrllal law iniiilrriilril upon He gave Ills iidtliesH as abdomen.

An Official t'nllap-- f. no funeral arrangement oriln-- of iiiljulmit general, Martin di" lined vehcninrtiv that Jinks, oiniiilllcn riom rrnt yalc made been have lo nptiral-- c prtiwrty bwis. county ami illy ujilhorltlc-- t "fell John Wheeler, negro, porter 'it Maitlal law in Tulsa was grc.il ' In down h the euu'l gency, Klrst National bank, wheie he had modllletl Thursday afternoon by Ail at a time when most of the Double been ctnplnj r.i for 10 yeniH, killed Jtltiint Cieiieral Manrtt. Wetlncstlay by mild hae been averted the while on lila way lo work Wednes night Ktons weie closet) at i; . lock, piompl actions of a few iniiiageoiis day moinlug by a stiay bullet - - pedestrians and motorists wen forus not a member of the leituirecofficiis. At Ibi' same ill u lie did y tho strietH not spine he lllr.eishli of Tulsa tliuilsls. Ilia body will bit taken lo bidden to use7 o'clock, alter theaters: that meekly Htmid by and wnlched Kent Smith, Ark , for Interment. closed, and street railways and vr ' the depredations.

He declared that Dr. A. C JnrkMin, negro, killed orderm! not in mmp. polb e piotectlon In the clly nnd while fleeing from his home which alo aflor 3were o'clock. county have hei n giadually hut had been filed Ho. was tile fore.May Ho IJflrd Sihiii Sill ly falling, and that here Is sub most colored physician In the south-weThe niljiilnnt general's orders for slam nil I'lldenei' of Inefficiency .... and was held In high icgard 'I'lillrw.tnu li. .!!......... n.tu., ..Inl.i .1... tii.irii.il ii.r.,1. .iii.ii ..in- iti.ti xiirgi'sl that If the legally ion not niily bv membeis bf his own law iimv 'I hn lifted, us tit., itmi. soon BY It II Hot "litllted llllt llOl Hies inpc line, but also by many proiiiineni tatlons wern maiio much tuoro wllh llu sitniiMon, we obtain inn or whiles Ills body will piohahly be g. iieioiis llian for Wednesday night. mote spiil.ll men, luefeiably fiom taken lo lltitlirle for burial. nigni s oruers rolluwiinnsiiay llu Aineibaii I.eglon, to assist Ihe other negroes, Then' were (in - mid regulations now He slated Property Owners Asked officios," Martin eight of whom wen- Identified, farce under oiarlliif law In 'I'i.Il,.In that not only the guilty lie hulled III pottei's field of Oaklawn Okl.i.. art. hereby modified as to to Fill Out Blanks Which in h bill also the guilty whites cemetery yesterday.

Those w'ho closing house for the evening of June should be piinh'hi'd, without icgard were Identified woni fill ly Walker. 2 aa follows: Will Be Distributed Im declarations were Henry Walker. IM Ail. nils, Joe lo standing.

"Si enra will he run on their i.hareil b C II Homers, attorney, Muller, (li'orgr Lewis, Hani Itee and eg il IIIreel r schedules. who stall d that every poison of any IM llow.inl.

The 13 hint kri were "Tuxlcab lines, Jitneys, delivery color who lolueil III the rioting burled WANT LIST OF LOSSES should separately and in plain ens will b allowed to run until lit- de have been killed t I I Some tumble u.'in o'clock. clareil also that local business im n easki'is. dug. but getting giaves in "Theaters: will hn allowed to renot fiiltlllliig tlieli duties lo the finally scvcial blacks Milunicernl foi HeRin Preliminary Survey of anmain open tnjhn conclusion nf their hi'iiii'li ei negioes- - that there ap- the tegular programs. work peals lo be no ceutljil agency Cost Necessary to Heliabi-tat- e Mow lira ,l Pallors.

"All hotels, cafes, drug stores, haiged w Ith their t are. geneial stores of every description Arthur James, 35 veals old.

Iiurned Area Whole Cll Must Help. i. okl.i , shot during buttle In will bo allowed to remain open as The entire i It y must help ciiim Africa " Ills brother will ar- before tnnitlal law was declared the burden of ree.onslruciiou, was "IJItln "Automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, In Tulsa some tlmo today ufter Appraisal of all properly de- the statement of II, I, Htandcvon. rive body. etc will he allowed upon Ihn Htrceta stroyed In the line i lot fire Wednen-da- who urged that newspapers and Ihe Sliuiuatea 2 years old, shot until 11 o'clock. niornitig will lie commenced other agent les of pilhlli Ity he used cmCleii Miiliig' Colonel In Charge. ly Tuesday night, died about 10 I'llday mottling by the Tulfn Ileal in the utmost iu speeding Ihe gath- o'lHni "People aro lautlnned against Ills mother. k Tuesday night. lstale exchange to whbh this duty ering of funds.

Mrs William Ingersoll, lives in rongregaiing on street corners or In Martin wan not Was delegated by Ihe executive comKunera! services limine piacr, or engaging in ar- Kan. mittee of tho board of public, wel- that county and city pollen would Neodcsha, will tit held at 2:.10 o'clock thlH giimenlts or heated controversy at be able to cope with thn situation fare yesterday afurnoon. from thn .Mowbray chapel. an nmeti.

Hindquarters will bo opened n a after national guurilHmen leave, and afternoon "Tho Tulsa police department will Interment will ho in Hose Hill. lent at the oilier of (lieenwood and urged that measures be taken to Carl 1). Lotspelrh, 28 years old, be cliaigeil with tho enforcement the safety of tho cillenshlp Ilrady avenueti. Property losers are Itandall, K'nn., shot through breast or these modified regulations requested to report theie and fill against further rioting when ihe Died Wednesday morning at Oklaorders. out the blanks which will he fur- dep. ii t.

"Colonel Hwell I,. Head, third InI'uneral services homa hospllal.

I.nrld Stories Ulaincil.

Clark WhileMlde Is nished them fantry, will be lu command of tho not yet been arranged xilmnge comof the chairman Adjutant (ienernl Chun P. Marrelt liavo K. ,M Maker, 48 years old, Ilavl-lanimilitary forces, with headquarters mittee. declared that liulil stories uppi iilng Han., died Wednesday night at thn city hall. Military guards will Thin Investigation peitalnn both In Ihe newspapers have contiihutid The body be maintained about the burned to negroes and whites, landlords and townid outbiiaka similar to the one at Mornlngslde hospital. tenants. Kintiin should repm I thnlriin Tulsa, and that this iniidltloii was taken to his homo Thursday district or negro quarters at the fair grounds and at or near othei country noon. losses in furniture and wearing ap- pievalls over the entire H. K Austin. 3 who points where refugees are enngri eirs old, parel.

Losers arc- advlpe'd not to These stoili'H, he di" lured. hne hospital gated, for thn protection of the" consult any attorney an competent hampered public offb luls, state, died at tin Oklahoma IKforts are camps nnd thn preservation of ollegal advice will be furnished free utility and city, In tlndi work nnd Wednesday afternoon.

N'o i being Ives. made lo locnttt rial der. The reserve of thn national of i hinge by th' exchange.

All ef- have caused people to icgard the iirrangomontH hao boeii guard will be located at the cltv fort will lie made to olio, t th'i law more lightly than ever before, funeral hall. on Ihe properties deinroyttil, ami at a time when It should he tnado.

"X'nwMnunera ralluniv off., j. t I'lve negroes three of whom have i 'unnl'b'1 iitlnn !'. in at tho respiited was Alia, ks on the most brim Identified. Tho two unidenti- graph and telephone offici will hi. exTbilisi!. iv noonday meeting of the various he admlnltitrnttons. rest rid lot s i xi hinge to the priietb alirtllly of plained, have an undermining effect. fied negroes und "no nf those who operated without were burbd "OHA 1(1 1,'H R HA It It I'.TT. In i on fere nee with Mainr T. D hnd been Identified ."iiveiling the biiiucd area into an "Ili'lgiidlor Ouneral Oklahoma iiidusiilal hi. ll.. n with the ii'imll Kvans, Urn. I H. A Ilnbertson and Thursday In Oaklawn emeterv Tho William Tiiiiui.

National Ouurd." that the n'gio district would he others Thuisdav morning I In- adju- - identified are- and lieorge Keffirv Kverett Ons company of nation u gmrd tin- inevato higln i and mure lunltary tant gineral ngii-inThe two other returned tp Oklahoma t'H Thur-da- v ground to the northeam. The vabiu lein e of what he teimed "yi How Hvioeit was burled IP cause i.f tin- na afternoon of the aiunt property for negro Journalism." which hi stated Is an In, lib s ai e being held tlnnol guard ent arnpmeii! ,n .Mllrlirll-rii'ililliproperty is only ,J500laid to lawlirenk'is and those who S'll residence Mnrgiic Sun do It Is possible tin o' illpel bit whlb for lndusirlal purposes do not wish to abide by I In law i line. i I7 Ki.utli N'or Holm the valuation Mould avctage about! tbnernl llarrilt said ".in Insolent fold, son of A II Cllne shot twice panics may leuvn on 01 h. me St uidav With the addition of Jl,7.10, It was stated.

A ronimlt-- ingro, u liysierbal girl and a yellow In abdomen dm lug the righting TuesAriui-lrni- i n .ti. lefflotl tin n .o. ten whs ,'ippolnii il to work In conoiirnal leporier" iiiusiil thi line day night I'll in i i' .erylies wcri ofricnrs. ellv orri'hll- - lu ll, w tli it If junction with Uie gineral commit- I ioiliiK. held at 4 3d n't lick vest ei day afterI'.ilTr-l'BIIS 1'MIK' I'li.HT tee and the entire mcmbernhlp presAnotlier Mis'llne 'lislay S Mai Ions ofnoon wllh Itev I ent tendered Its servb eH to the work oiiimll li of the ficiating.

The executive Interment was in Hose of lining foi Ihe deslitute and Poind of control will meet again at Hill 'Villi WHATII Kit of the devastuled area.

10 o'i lock Kildav morning ai H J M 4 x ti. u Tl;l.HA. Jin.. 2 Wlnthiow. 10 son of A. M. mini mum (K'liti. nn iisri hall to further discuss ineihod. J Wlni hrow. of Hn north tui.l (limit,, ti, ipua.

I hotel, where it., ;i .nrlips of handling the relief situation and 'the bnv made bis home He was KtMy nnp.titp.1 itKl.alliiMA prnh lehalillpailnK the stilekeu ttcgr.i di 'thnt through Hie neck ' No arrange ably "Notllllii; In S(ii" lliihi'llMin. tlii.atirf t toii'i in n.itiiw.pt ii..rtiun.

Hy .a li d I'resf htalp Wiip Minibeis or tht1 i tilttiiiltti as menti have been made for funeral ir.ct OKI.AHO.MA CITY, Jiint 2.- - iov a liodv este dny ilsppired the si. in. i s, ' Tislio't laal rvpnta. y. M Rptail ir.ilu Mi d s J. II A Itohertson hi rived lu i e of affairs nnd derlsicd tlnv will llni i y Harkir 37 years old, win A I! II. i.'rl.n k rrom Tulsa and teilied when heir assistance Pi In inglng lo was shot liliii limes during the I I'liamhtr nf llltl Ttilaa. e has no Juatlie those who stalled the lot fighting Tuesday night. he leached his home.

Death was It Hi o r. icV. l ll rniiiiiitaainnra. rity hall m i.'clei k statement t" make, in:, onllng in his They are also agreed thit Uleic .t instantaneous m in- is inoiignt seiietury. "What more could theie lime foi oratoy, hut lhl relnt) have s sister In Arvaija. Colo. Thi be to say si this lime'" he asked measures miisi mm' quickly and efauthorities there have been notified fectively secretary asked him If he win li the to institute a seari h for her. Oarket, wished to be interviewed.

VACATIONISTS who was Identified hv thu manage" .Miinkticp 'I nil. or tilt K ' Waffls hoiie. r.O t Houth M. I. I'olllidslone, vice piesidnnt Hoy .Murder Cusp to Jury.

Main, where he had been empioyed KNOX. Intl.. June 3 The rase nf the newlv organised I'lvltaii i lull, as n. cook, came to Tulsa last wees Don't bo without the news Hurkeit, n years old, helped organize a Clvltan club In wllh tin Campbell carnival, the wf-f- t nf Cecil from home while on your charged with the murder of Ilennln Muskogee yesterday and stated upon house manager said, lie iva pla ) unite. wnH his return last night that 10 Hlavln. Ills not identified until lato yesteidm vacation. The World will pl ii'. In. k this I. (!. ompilc tin ih w ot g.t nii'.atlon given Ii. the un al a f ' t " oon IM in o in ' In ,lft.

'I '.i II !' u .If I' p In II I'b'trini: mm hi; m uli'tl to ymi every 'lln d I. ,ii t.

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History erased The Tulsa Tribune ran an article on A1 on May 31 with the headline, “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator.” The story was widely credited as inciting the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. This copy of the paper from that day, saved in the Tulsa World’s archives, shows where that story, which ran in the bottom right corner, was removed from this version saved for the paper’s records.

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FATAL TO THREE1 LOSS

I are In You are about to become commissioned

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I'.rown Is in eharso of K SI. niailotk t)ppt of Rinrlatr ros'i hospllal for nocro ClliB l' II. Klrarbk i'e i, id Cinnabar hos-- ' Walter -J. II Morgan 'h Main street. The Mrs M. Main relief ramp Is the Wm I'.lkp Show Fund

Barrett Modifies Orders

"-

Hevetai off lila Is made a pail la 3IDDIS0N ORDERS QUIZ Implicated Whites as Well as ln csliKiitbin In lie di'Mialale.l aira 'Mlacks Should !e HrotiRlit but falbd lo find am bodies or Crand .Miry Called to Meet charred leiu.ilns. It has been to l!ar Says Martin irpnrtctl that many on June 8; Governor, in had been Inn lie. Inn this Letter, IJrjred Action was scuffed by officials It In

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told them they only laughed at me When tiled in ilierse them tln thieateiii'd lo shoot me. Ho I went home. My wile was badly frlghl-eni-and I told her to bae Ih' distil, t ami go out Into an addition w In re I Minhave some propiily go the family together and left "Kmne of the armed negiois had qiiarteied themselves In one of my houses and I went over lln-iand My that foried them to vacate. time ihe firing had started In earnest 'Ihe blacks were shooting fiom Cle.ivti- hall, which I owned, all. ' was being bnmbarileil the pin-.Knowing that I from the outside could do nothing I remained Inside bv 'lie otf leers until finally My piopcrty was not set on Hie but was burned hoi a use it was In the illicit path of the ri.nin s " Cleaver esilmates Ihe number id l.ln. ks undei arms to have been lie sa i there Is nothing alioiit 7.'i to the itliii'ii that llu negroes had been organizing for the purpose of making sir h an invasion fui some time

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negro, as the leader of the aimed blacks. He bus also the iihuics of threw otheis who were in the armed gang at the court liousi. The rest of tho negroes participating in the fight, he sav.-- wen- former scr n men who had an exaggerated Idea of their own Importance and wanted to show- the white folks Unit nothing could Hit Imldatc them. Tht v lid not I. clung here, had no regular employment and wete simply a floating element with seemingly tin lu life ambition but to tomt'Ut trouble Asked If any of the blacks really partli Ipallng in the buttle had been killed or wounded Cleaver said that he had counted nine of them Iving dead In one place, lie believes that many more were Mile. lie especially laments the death of lioctoi Jackson who. he sas. was one of the best men of his r.n e In Tulsa Page Offers Help.

A hciling balm was adminlHtered to Cleaver's wound this morning when an offer was received from Chalesl'ngo to build him a new

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"1 left tlii' sheriff and a polb e officer of oars unit house about I of expei lence, said tills to a World o'i loi k because I wa-woriled foi reporter an he came out of a cpdh the suteli of on fanill No dlffl ilAPS lug store where he had Just cully was i In getting a suit of summer underwear, through the white lines. When l

DANGERS

I. N s Slnff

Someone In the 300 block on KaJit Second street had an Idea yesterday that inci eased by the sum of $14 The World relief fund for the homeless and suffering negro riot victims Someone went up one side of Second street and down the other In that block and In probably a half hour raised $U, n amounts ranging from a nickel to a dollar. Someone brought an envelope (ontalillng that amount to The World office, inscribed merely "300 block Hast d street."

Not much money, that til, to be picked out from the fl.tl" The World fund when the lat omit was made at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon. Certainly not. Its the IDIJA that's Important, not the $11.

There are thousands mid thousands of lily blocks in Tulsa. Why shouldn't this be a hunch for someone (n every block In town?. YOl' xolunteer In YOCU block. Send In your $1 t or more, or less, as It may be.' livery dollar means Just a little among less suffering and dtstrr-the unfortunate who have been thrown upon tho city's charity by ' the riot and fire.

Conlributons to The Woild yesterday ranged from $1 to 11,000.

Tho Hellable Trunk company phoned that It would glvo r.O pieces of baggage upon recommendation of tho Humane society.

The World fund to date:

i

-

i 1

RULE BY GUARDS

mj

i

Subscriptions Taken in "300 Block East Second" Nets That Sum for Fund

receiving f A It Is Important, direi tor I,. C. Murray Inthing be sent to the and not the V M. '. A.. ' place is fairly swamped h. added burden of belnu As prploimtv rpportcd I'hpiunut i Ibuilnt? aBency for ThoaiHK Miinlnn Npiw PUno I'o '..'h'nj V I'rslg Morion Klpnnnr Kelief Nichols icpit nt Siliool.

Tl 'K' r W.iBhlnuton sehonl is ItlnritnK HtpVenH lr. depot. Here H. U Con- - PaUi-fl Oftlo Suprly harue, and aldlnir In the I'p.irrp, Portr (. Martin Wrlpht ,t, "f food are Orra IJpp. W. A. ppnnpy barge . f thl.i phase of i;Dr. II.T Kprfthntr k at the deiot, Mrs. A l'hl T Abbott W m. Mrs. John Wheeler. Msnhattsn oil fo r. KvlUy i food, elothlnc. beddltlK fUiprmnn No Nima al supplies aro Issued t,outii I r,pkowltl hp

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WOULD PUNISH GUILTY;:::;;:;

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FUND AT $4,447

AN

to i. pl Is in

-

Riot Death Toll Reduced to 30 . ii. . . lo.l.lc late s' idn .tiui ',i ii IK .ll I'll, II I. ' I la in l lid ..I In offl. lain dls I. Hid llo r.i. i Hi ii so tar their an onh .in Known ib ad 10 whites and L'u in Igioes s a lesult of the rioting

MANY RUMORS lie. lost sevi rut houses and all the arrlted In the fjllillv of l mole bodies but officials said w o..,l Adjutant General Stiyn It Aids few Advises ComiiiR Officers That earthly belongings last night that the list of dead would he came upon the had b'lt guard of not rem h nun than In at the most be wrapped In a bandanna the blai k aim iiiltlsi-Lawbreakers; Ui'Krets PreHum to Alore renis Arc Found on could Tillgo on home, that mailing would loll.. wing Is a list of Un- Scores of Wild Reports Filter handkerchief. valence Here known dead as gained In. in a sur happen If the behaved themselves Land Than on Sea the Leader.

Into Police and Military vey made of the local uiulei taking '"You will cause ibis entire part Cleaver named Will Itoblnson. a pill loin by a Win Id if poller to be binned If you keep Offices; Quiet dope peibllei and all around bad of town Sin lib') dlil line I'm Iocs. up,' County e

Up to 91,000

0 .ham In charge of the Hod 3 ,ii,p nt the f.nr grounds, work has been classified, the dfp.ir'ti i" is organised, and depart-nmi- j .Lienors nanied who will ijppj II work lti their Ucpart- -

I

I

'

I

WARNS

W0RLDTS RELIEF

the

Citizens at Moot for Failing to Prevent Kiot b,

Mas.--,

City Tuesday Night and Wednesday.

.,.,.,

1. e hum '.in to bripg Ihe linn s li spoil lble for tin outiage I.' III- I..US id Th- nm- - .1 till t.

J'""'"'Advises 'J00 Alembcrs of Class everything M S has been tint . ... vt . imii 10 nnow vanity ot In in i mutilating and I Intend ti K' hem Hank to KtiRiilf Them Itarnev Cleaver, negro icput

pegi-of-

b

FIRE AT MEETING

Lost Ucnvily in Firp, Gives True Version of Negroes' Sidi; in Terrorism Thnt I'revniled in

DENBY SPEAKS PLAINLY1

Contributions Received in Day Range From $1

'

OFFICIALS UNDER

riis Kcice into Kioting riere Condemned

Tells Naval Crads They Will Not Fight Except Barney Clcnvcr. Who

h

at- -

i

Don't bo without the news from home while on your vacation. The World will be mailed to you every day t ii -- 0e per week. Call O.t.igc 6000, Circulation

Jt'NK

V,

Negro Deputy Sheriff Blames ?ckJ)Pe:eadJr lnciHn9

FOR RIGHT ONLY

Chi- ap.

M, ri u f .i

T'.i f

guilty pay. t In for these inno-ii-iunhoused nuis Unit we would like to do something.

The shame of such wlekednetw baa injured Tulsa Ii.i.h torn bed I'hlrnKo also.

Iet us roIu the present occasion to show not only that we have learned the lesson of decent community feeling, but also to aid tho sufferers In Tulsa.

Surh an art may help to confirm feeling line and maku belter feeling there.

The Chicago Tribune herewith givi-JI.000 to the homeless III Ttils,i and we will be gl.ol to a. id forward gifts In others.

g'nonil director and

!

in Tulsa nml vicinity rk of nriy nature for "r women, i;nll s,igu M C A employ, ment nf-' i he lp will he wnt im-J- . ..

Tills offer Is made to

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THE

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Me ItiiwliM. Krsnie and the Miami Investment 'i pit n The in vernment originally sued ibe de'endsnia In the ssstern dlMrlet of i.ki.homa for recovery of pos-(sn i.r 93 acres of land allotad Peorl In-i w th.,.)cm Wee, a dei'SiKietlreitorvBtlon. the Quapw j.

T miner.il land.

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been completely r tht task tremendous f .re Tills i, that of rm toth'ng ulul shelter foi 'mi'li n negroes of Till.-- i p enter general head-t- ' Kouith and l'iii''Jnn.iil

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Washington School quarters for Disburse ment of Supplies

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TWO NIGHTS

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of Relatives

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better In great want In Tills i. and, as almost happens m them insensate aln.n outhurMn of pre-- J idli e and ranror, Ihe Innocent pay a heavier penalty than Un-

All Votjrops

RELIEF

u mid

..

i

Ibi has been bitter business in Tulsa.

H nan brought out the worst side of human nature.

It may be that tl'ere In a wav b whli h we ran make il buns; out our aide.

There

Make Complete List of in Camp for

W.1I

Difficult lo Chech Nprtopsi.

M'he difficulty of determining the of dcd negroes la ca.ut.rd

by Uie fact that tho bndlctt wero up parenlly not handled In a systeniallo manner. Hymn Klrkpatrlck, aide to IN Adlutant (trneral lbirrett, ruld last IK it that noun nf tho bodies had been hanillnd by guardsmen, but it was reported a number of City Quiet as a Tomb as thai liodleH were ifminved In motor trucks, opurated by rltlzens.

Klrkp.itrlck Soldiers Control Unsaid ho dorjt pot know wherti they were taken they I were Law der placed at initin specific point for If they wero dumped later Tulsa with u race riot In progiesfl Into aattrnllon. large hole, or thrown Into thn martial law Arkansaii river. and Tule. i under prisenls two almost Inconceivably fifteen bodies nf blacks ore In a. different cities. Tho Tulsa of 'I'ues- - loral iindertakinir establishment. Re veritable kaleldl-s- i ports heard over tho city Indlcuten ilav night wan constantly shlftliii? that five tn eight tlmrs that numwith op( crowds, and swift moving vehicles ber nf negroes wero killed during ih.it filled the sidewalks and streets the rlnls. A careful check of tho l erflow Iiik wllh the count. wit ileail la to bo Inki'ii by tho adjutant shrieking of ntltnuiohlln Horns nnd general Thursday, according to t of opened milff-l- i Klrkpntrlrk, to dntormltm tho exact On r.ii a r anil the fieiiient discharge of number of lives lost. It Is poredbln fir, uriii' at limes niacin one think of that some negroeswho weio mortally nt war. wounded wero taken from the city the i In mid contract Is the Tulsa wllh bv tlioso who fled to other towna t to the Tulsa under mar enrlv Wednesday morning. a fa- r There were jr Injured whlto pen- tial law which prevailed for tin history p still in hospitals last night. Of first lime In this city's V, eincMhty No maddened this number slit nro believed by hos night rowds occupied the sidewalks, tin pital uttendantH to bo In a critical up and raced condition. nnley automobiles Tho number of Injured negroes down Main street; not the sound of will probably reach Into the huna gun was heard. No cross-road- s were treated at dreds. Hlxty-elgvillage, whern citizens, retire ut OcKlrst Kid treatment one hospital. o'clock ould tin morn quiet. casionally u car passed along n was given at tho national guard thoroughfare, but It went nt a mod- armory and nt virtually all churched, erate speed and mado as lllln noise, which wero quickly converted Into first old stations. as possible.

In their search to determine the At every street corner In the htlsl-nedistrict wits an nrineil guards-ifla- number of lives lost, guardsmen tochallenging pedestrians and day will Inspert closely thn debris In ie fi w motorists who ventured out Llttlo Africa to find how many ne for an evening spin. Unless they groes wero burned to death. Major paid last night. .ould produce passes properly slgneir Klrkp.itrlck IVnr Another Uprising, l. the adjutant general Hiey were 'lim most disturbing element, told in definite and unmltakiiblci lo get off the streets with- eept the gennrnl regret over tho demit undue delay, and If they showed plnrablc conditions that havn pre they were vailed. Is tho frequent roports and signs of stiibbornnesii placed under arrest and removed to rumors that tiegroen aro preparing Me police station. for revengn and that thoy have ut Ited Ulrd, a negro Kxeept for drug stores nnd nn cafe, ail business housed tleinent, and ntliPr towns, prepara-doheat 7 "o'clock, conforming to tory to m iking a concerted nttack general. city upon the of Tulsa to destroy (Ik orders of the adjutant Hi ci mr service and InlerurbsiiH the business section and the public imj.i rpemUnx for the night ni 9 utilities, precaution has been taken k Kverv ' in Us history tins bustling lo guard .mil nut any possibility of n T .i been so qulii as li whs new ontlnoHk on liehnlf of those ca.'IiimIhv lileht. nor will n bn i. ported lo bo rongretatlng at va- m.iim points on tho outskirts of inlesM martial li n lontlniies r..r e lituens nn a whole i linlt Tulsa. t.'otcrnor Tiikcs tho l,eacl. i.i the Invoking of innrtl.,1of l,n af i'w iibout a serious stale M.uli.il law was proclaimed j ',iii In fint It iippinis (list most ;ov. It A. Ilobertson about 11:30 'lulu ie. did not reilh'.' hi nieanln o doc k Wednesday morning, nntlce i.uttal law until It was Invoked rnculvcid In the form I11'' of a, tebKram from tho governor at' time by Adjutant General flarSUIT IS REVERSED 'ret. who, upon his arrival with three.

LAND onipanles of guardsmsn front Okla-. . v.... thij ( .unie.1 Null of ' !nv. h'ema City at 3 o'clock Whdnesdiiy e,uibllhe.l headquarters In '""rning. i. Iiiiliiin n ""ic inclmmn, of ,ollco Commissioner I

'I

l.wlns

BEGINS

REGISTRATION

i.. Ti

.I

CMICAiio. June j Trili .lie ,t .!,, he til., ia,

Tremendous

of Uniting Families of Riot Victims

T;istv

i

PHMTDAQT

11

tini

for

flea'L

HARDING TO WAR

Gwas $1000 to

IS REORGANIZED

ith martial law in force, forbidding the indiscriminate use of the streets lo vehicles and pedestrians until 8 o'clock Thurstley morniiiK; with fi.OOO negro refugees confined in tlm building! at the county fair grounds east of the city; with "Little Africa" In ashes, and with Adjt. Gen. Charles F. Barrett here in command of seven companies of national guardhtnen, Tulsa is comparatively after a night antl part of a day of race rioting.

Official figures on the niimbeP of dead arc not obtainable because of the chaos antl disorder that have accompanied the riots antl the lack of time by relief workers lo keep an accurate count of casualties. They are unofficially placed at 100 00 negroes and 10 whites.

"We have the situation well under control," Adjutant General I tarred statetl at 8:.'?0 o'clock. "Wo do not anticipate any further rioting, although nothing has been overlooked as a precaution against its recurrence. With Tulsa under martial law, which is now in force, we expect to sec rapid readjustment ol conditions.

lin uuim viviu

miilllnR.

lloiiclinbl Coods (iocs AIoiir.

"Well. If hpah alnl Mr llohlnsnn' If heah aint Mr. HobinRMi '' he kej t Faylnc otei and mrr. TIip man ad diPBB'd took the neRro with him in wilt tnc paru wurrr no one wan .11 blacks, huldler-and 'lowed mercy workers, outside tnc wnue sun bent blankly down upon thi liiRRlns their unloailliiR refiiRcps, meaijer poBsesslons with them Into the park, upon trin ks fi.l' .1 with He hiiRe boxes of food. I.ibnfiil pt cof fee, upon rickety wacon:i filled wi'h huse bundles bursting open with their i ontcnts of clotbi'iR and wi'h household Bonds, from trurks had phnnoRraphs that the refiiR-iplckPd up in HiPlr flight iiod tlia' ' wprp drawn, some of l hem In skinny, mules that brined loud j.i .ie it as i sue they Hood parked In lb.

One nf these wagons wn- - il.awi. ue f Ibe In the. shade; lieieheil on i. p trunk It held was a neRro M i It as (he ai e of spades. lb n .n. hanil chewed a sliaw. " hailed n fell "HI. .Mm nlggilb sufferer fioni the top of tin grand stand. The straw ehewer looked op J lo behold a bl,n k ynitlh in the ,o t The World calls upon you transferting a swaili of i'H nop of humanity to loosen II) eliee'se lo ills recipient mouth st I'inRM and help stiicor you nlggah. that trunk younh s""" "It inns' suhtnlnly nni ...( a time for the work of else's whatevah!" the tra(ei rehe left to orRanlzatlons, The wounded now In the hoswith dignity and iranhferrcd RHlne to b letl to the pitals does not represent nil the turned his attention again to his straw.

Thrro must be rpsponno wounded, aceoldlng to hospital ' Aicopl Their rate. and from ALL attendants at Tulsa and Oklarich and poor alike, to homa hospitals where most nf tho Inside the park) was color and world Tulsa can nnd will wounded whlto men were taken. hent stifling, odorous heat the ' sufferers.

Hi'tween 3D and 4u people had crying of babies, tho sound of inanyi (, tho rpsponse by wounds dressed at the Tulsa hosvobes and the mooing of women Tulsans will pital and then left the superinand npgrops- - thousands of npgiops. .in.l so R(nerous that The huddled together as fur as the i e tendent said, and tit th" Oklahoma lief fund can bo made hospital the niiinber was fixed at could see from one end of th. giand- i '"i.ition fund. The World about l,",.

I'atjents weie also stand lo the other. The maturity of In. pi s so.

And It believes dismissed after a short lime in the them ariepted the Inevitable In good i.i i he ense. as part, crowded mini b"t nnd "ii At the MornliiR-sldestablishments. it was, thorn w'as good heer eseiy w.iir check, your money hospital It was staled that wuir i ash to "The Tulsa mx white people and SI ncRmes place. lief IMitor." A careful rec-I- " had been taken enre of nnd Seated on the floor, an old woman that ll k"pt of all contrlbtitlonB. with a gray handken lib f .loselyi 22 motor operations had been per. ill. i ipiimi will be acknow- - formed. l'rom rtruK stored and knotted about re wilnkled fn o that lriiS' might have been iared from dark reports, it is Indicated that a numdollar and every cent w 111 ber suffering minor inJurUs tn oak, rocked gently hack and forth " i!.e leltef of the needy. Tho the softly.

In her hand she rioting prepared their own moaning quart wer'd - iaruntees thu money will bo veg' of hot measure held the Svent to tholr "home remedies, t" I" li iltsiiensed. that was being doled out etable family doctor or pun hased anwhat Is your answer tiseptics and other preparations by the hundreds by Ited Cross NOW! workers. Someone bent ocr ,.md from drug Mores. touched her on the shoulder "I IllUNt,. CIOTHKS. SCIMM.IIIS "W in doni TIlP followliiR Is ibe latest list of "Sister," she asked VM I l!

'CHAKITIKS. ' Injured white people taken to hos you e.ii your soup' v' In the Kenerr.sity of pitals, and I heir condition Tears stole out fori under th' 1 Mini Knr (iOH-111.

Ilo.nlllll. lids. .111V kind to aftord tern- - lhtklliih ,,' ,. iiANKSON. .lenks. shot in hnlf "Oil, I1W(1," she moaned "ti 'Iff to the destitute ncRi-and throuRh wrists Mry an ole woman wint nan umli'il so re issued by Humane stomaih jerlniiH rnndltlun, may not live. hard all huh life, an' now ev. 'hm, M Welch Wednesday eve- Mull house burnrd in.

MltS. C. A. SKLItV. 1243 South Rone! burned. m.ih che k Hoston, in nervous panic ran Into chalhs "'f the negroes very nro and Main Wednesday burned. Nuthln' hve l got but the dresied and very few haic car at Klshth the clothes on null back' o.

Injuries about r Iothes In the world than mornliiK, with head; still unconscious, and In n that I should live to see sui'h iroubl their hacks. Mr. Web h serious nnil It Ion come to me!" and site r... ked luitk 'I'iintf that are clothes and forth in her misery.

MoriilnRsldc tlospltnl. needed for tho babies llliick but Human.

MRS. 8. A (iIL.MOIIK, 225 Hast Thero U Rreat need young negro woman A comely throuRh arm and he.st for tho destitute ones at Kink. Hhot may standing near her wept. She, too not live o.mds. as even tho with- - fiveA. times: I'KItKV. 923 North Klwood, she said, bad lost everything mat f many paroled by their .ul doing Ehn had. She and her liulbund - will leavo hundreds to bullet bhot throuRli lift wrist, ne owned Iheir own and f"r.

And then, for the well. hi Mi whbli thev u nted. ,t A. K. MASKL. 2T.3t Hast Kotirtli. ' rehabilitation ' of homes Rlanclng bullet in light with everything thiv uunid wound 'here in a Rre.t need of thtKh; 'world but the lollies thai th'v sailRfaetorv eondiilon i turmahtnes, Mr. WelciH H. D. (lILLAHli. 31S South Nor- when tln made lin n s. ape a' had t.'e bullet wound In arm; released dawn this morning, I' h him born nppolnted to folk, burned. Just then her husband ,nnn Wednesday ufternonn. hospital from f'lod for tho refURees nt M' DONALD, 1706 Katt riftccntll. up to her with a half loaf of .r. ,nj cumnds, fig representative Cn.STIM Kii UN r'iK 8KM:v in hip and arm, recov-crln'"aril of county rommln-II- " bullet shots i dispatched cooked food WEATHER TiiUa llospltnl. "inds Wi'dneildiiy evenlnff .

Jim" Mut TUI.SA JIJHS COLLINS, r.22 North ii "d out cooklnR equipment 1 tuth buckthot In ba k. skull and muifi A Thurktlay (iKI.AIIf)MA a'.'l military roraininary condition rather serious. fir Tliur- - y 'ahhshed at tho camp, but arm; AH KANSAS It. N. Hl'LTZKH, '.2H South l lha. ' will purchao all sup. generally fulr in leR removed h operation 'il by the county commis- - hullet Wednesday nlternooii' condition out til t but neccsbarily claiiKCious, !.ir.riN lull "I IWcih '.ane society and other develop 0 ' TulVB t disastrously pi. organizations of tho Uhtnti Junior II. L. CL'ltltV. Illinois hotel, shot Tu!fc.

S3 o'rlmk " w.irklnR orRanlzatlon of of back skin through and miiselo with surprlslnR rapidity x H I Sr..

X M neck; condition not dangerous I frTAM.K I'Adt; SKVUN. nan dff rn-,"0 K. O. LOfJSnnN. 30S South F"unr trvUt.-AJU TWO O, " 5J Afntuunco OS TAOtJ MUccntlDtnt rnk. '

TULSA. OKLAHOMA, FBII)

RED CROSS

LOCAL

--

tuliiliil

beliiR conBtaiUK out In tin' RtrcPl to R"t Dimmit ThoiiBiuidH nf ncRrneB fioni all over the eil were belne i airt-- d in '.'ir In in n d ii.pii and triH'liH. pioli-elei-

inic-llral-

...

NEGRO REFUGEES

Troops Patrolling Streets nnd General Barrett Declares Situation Is Well Under Control; Every Precaution Taken to Prevent Recurrence of Trouble; Many Negroes Ask to Be Taken to Places of Safety; "Little Africa" Smoking Ruins.

Them With William lngcrsoll of Neo-- I jof Mr BclonKinKs dosha. Kan. ThroiiRh Broilinp He-i- t n. m.)Stim:icm nr.. ''all. k'ans shot through the hieHst.i Wednesday morning at thej MEN TO MEET okui.nm.i hospital.

BUS'NESS

BY RELIEF GROUPS 'I V. M ISA K Kit. 10. H.ivUand. Kiln.- ALL FED Idled lit the Oklahoma hospital Wedm of Rebuilding Dis- - '' Que Boxes of Food Carried

caul

OKLAHOMA'S GREATEST NLWSFAFLK

GRAND JURY TO

COUNTY FAIR GROUNDS

a'

.1

Remove Black Riot Blood and Fire

tr'. ' to Be Taken Up

VOL. XV, NO. 215.

i

.

-

CENTS

,

.

Qi

5

GUARDED IN CAMP AT

i

Sufferers

TO

PRICE

IS QUIET

Y

iSI

Tho Mnhmi Mon.iu.

MJTHl It JAMKS. ..f ,i Taken to Hall 'hkp This ua-- one Homeless nin.i. Okl.i of tile bodies which had hci n un Park Offer No Objecirfrntlf ft up nlllll l.ltc Wi il nc-ilNegro Im tions to Plan afternoon a in e brother J.lnmrH of Wynnnn Ii.ih beci notified 'of the death mill will arrive some-(linOUT STAIN lod this morning t" lulni the A SCENE OF vVIPE PATHOS l'!,i;o SIH'MATIS. 24 vrrtr of ago shot c.irl Tuesday evening dud ul.

Generosity can luisai "Mont niesiiny night m tne j,inv ItcfiiKCCK Luffed Their

tr

THE MORNING'

MAY

I.ATION.

i

ENTERPRISE

NKT PAID

l iVF.HACJK ftWOHN

FINAL EDITION TULSA, OKLAHOMA,

I

Accept uions to ueneve

V,

The

CHARACTER

RELIABILITY

FINAL EDITION

DEAD ESTIMATED $2,000

OKLAHOMA'S GREATEST NEWSPAPER

THE MORNING

Tit

NKT PAID iVKKA'lB 8W0HN ' TlON. MAY 34,137 I1m.1v

Sui'lay

June 1, morning edition

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23

24

| SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 | TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

TULSA WORLD | SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

THE BURNING OF BLACK WALL STREET

C

louds of smoke rose over the Greenwood District during the Tulsa Race Massacre. Hundreds and perhaps thousands fled the city. Others found refuge in private homes and downtown churches, including First Presbyterian Church and Holy Family Cathedral. A few seemed to have managed to stay in Greenwood throughout its destruction. The number of deaths during the massacre that can be verified through historical records is 37, but the true extent of fatalities is thought to be higher.

COURTESY, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MCFARLIN LIBRARY, THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA

25

26

| SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

TULSA WORLD

After the massacre

In the aftermath, no one was prosecuted for killings, and insurance claims were rejected; but Greenwood persevered

COURTESY, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MCFARLIN LIBRARY, THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA

A man stands among the ruins after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

I

STORIES BY RANDY KREHBIEL

Tulsa World

t isn’t that Tulsa did nothing for the victims of the race massacre. It’s that it didn’t do as much as it could have or, in the opinion of many, should have.

Disputes among the city’s white leadership hampered relief efforts. No one starved, but no one was made whole, either.

Despite promises and threats, no one was prosecuted for the deaths resulting from the events of May 31-June 1, 1921.

Estimates of property damage vary widely, from $1.5 million to several times that amount. That translates to a minimum of $25 million today and perhaps twice that. Very few insurance claims were paid because most policies excluded riot damage from coverage.

Witnesses in a lawsuit brought by a white property owner, William Redfearn, testified that at least some law officers and many of the special officers commissioned by the Tulsa Police Department participated in the destruction of Greenwood. None, however, could say with certainty that the officers acted at the direction of local authorities.

As a result, the courts, including the Oklahoma Supreme Court, ruled against Redfearn and in favor of his insurance company. The decision effec-

tively ended the hundreds of lawsuits and damage claims filed against insurance companies and the city of Tulsa.

In the days immediately following the massacre, a “public welfare committee” led by the Chamber of Commerce attempted to raise $100,000 but was thwarted by the City Commission and a group intent on acquiring the southern section of the Greenwood District for commercial development.

This group, it soon became apparent, did not have the financial or political backing to carry out its proposal.

This was spelled out in a July 13 editorial by the Tulsa World, which said the community “must take on itself the responsibility of deciding to make full reparation for the losses sustained by the property owners.”

That didn’t happen.

As tracked by the Red Cross, a total of $130,000 in cash and goods was provided by Tulsa County, the city and private donations through the summer of 1921. That was not an insignificant sum at that time, but it hardly compared to the actual property losses in Greenwood.

It was also small compared to the millions raised in Tulsa during World War I and the millions Tulsans were about to spend to bring water from Spavinaw Creek.

Similarly, the criminal investigation into the massacre

The relocation scheme The City Commission’s reconstruction committee was sympathetic to real estate interests wanting to buy most of the burned area and redevelop it as commercial property.

African Americans were encouraged to use the proceeds from these sales to buy lots farther north and east, in what is now the vicinity of Peoria Avenue and Pine Street.

To push matters along, the city commission extended the city’s fire code to include most of the burned area. It was thought African Americans could not afford to rebuild to code, and therefore would have to move.

But they didn’t.

The buyout scheme failed because black property owners refused to sell for less than the full value and because the real estate speculators could not raise the money to pay it.

In late summer, Tulsa County’s three state judges, ruling together, voided the fire code extension as an illegal attempt to gain control of private property.

fizzled out. While a number of people were charged and even jailed on charges such as looting, possession of stolen property and arson, only a handful seem to have gone to trial. A few pleaded guilty to minor offenses.

With one or two exceptions, the African Americans who were jailed in the wake of the massacre were freed by the end of the summer.

Many prominent Black men were indicted for “inciting a riot,” charges that would not be dismissed until decades later.

The only trial of any note involved Police Chief John Gustafson, who was brought before Judge Redmond Cole on ouster proceedings.

A grand jury indicted Gustafson on five counts, including dereliction of duty during the massacre. The other charges involved corruption, including a car theft ring within the department and using his office to sign up clients for his private detective agency.

This trial revealed to Tulsans and the world some of the massacre’s most shocking details, including John Oliphant’s eyewitness account of Dr. A.C. Jackson’s murder and the role of law officers and Gustafson’s special deputies in the destruction of Greenwood.

Gustafson was convicted on two counts, including dereliction of duty, and removed from

office. No criminal charges were brought against him and he resumed his occupation as a private detective.

Still smarting from the failure of the relocation scheme it favored, the Tulsa Tribune on Oct. 2 published a caustic report that nevertheless revealed brisk activity in Greenwood.

“Left to their own resources (Black Tulsans) have, with the assistance of white friends, practically rebuilt ‘Little Africa.’”

By the end of December, some 800 buildings had been completed in Greenwood with others in construction. In 1925, it was host to the National Negro Business League Convention, with keynote addresses by Gov. Martin Trapp and Mayor Herman Newblock.

So Greenwood rebuilt. Some would argue, though, that Tulsa never fully recovered. The grand jury investigating the massacre blamed it, in part, on lax enforcement of Jim Crow, and a lasting effect was to push Blacks and whites, north and south, further apart.

In 1965, when the Oklahoma Legislature was formally scrubbing segregation from state statutes, the lone vote against repeal of two such statutes was

by Tulsa County Rep. Perry Butler.

“I was in Tulsa when they had a race riot,” he said. “I don’t want to see it again.”

What happened to Page and Rowland?

Black attorneys champion area

Little is known of the two people most associated with the massacre. It’s not even certain their names were Sarah Page and Dick Rowland.

Page was new to Tulsa and may have been as young as 15. According to one source, she had come from Kansas City, where she was in the process of obtaining a divorce.

Page disappeared on June 1 and no real trace of her has ever been found.

Various sources indicate Dick Rowland’s name actually might have been John Rowland or Johnny Jones or something else entirely. In any event, he remained in the county jail overnight, protected by six deputies and Sheriff W.M. McCullough. Once the shooting started, Rowland was arguably the safest person in the city.

Prosecutors eventually dropped all charges against Rowland, purportedly at the written request of Page, and he, too, left town.

In the early 1970s, a relative said Rowland and Page had been romantically involved and reunited for a while in Kansas City before going separate ways.

Rowland, the relative said, had died in the Pacific Northwest.

More recent attempts to learn the pair’s ultimate fates have been inconclusive.

Black Tulsans’ efforts to save what remained of Greenwood after the race massacre might have been for naught without the cadre of African American attorneys representing them in the courts.

There were several such attorneys, but the most prominent were B.C. Franklin, Isaac “Ike” Spears and P.A. Chappelle. For what must have been little financial reward, they successfully fought the city’s extension of the fire code ordinance, a tactic intended to pressure Black property owners to sell to white real estate developers.

Franklin, Spears and Chappelle formed a partnership that, during the summer of 1921, operated from a tent in the burned district. With the assistance of a white attorney named Mather Eakes, they brought two lawsuits against the fire ordinance and persuaded a three-judge panel in Tulsa County District Court to preserve their clients’ property rights.

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COURTESY

Greenwood burns on June 1, 1921, after a white mob invaded the district and destroyed 35 blocks of property.

Massacre.

1921 Tulsa newspapers fueled racism, and one story is cited for sparking the burning of Greenwood

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RANDY KREHBIEL | Tulsa World

here are many lessons from Tulsa’s 1921 Race Massacre.

One of them, often overlooked, is that words matter.

Walter White, the intrepid NAACP investigator of that era, wrote that the injudicious use of one word, “assault,” in the May 31, 1921, Tulsa Tribune was in large part responsible for the conflagration that consumed the hopes and dreams and the very lives of Black Tulsans that same evening and night and the morning of June 1, 1921.

Roscoe Dunjee, then-editor of the influential Oklahoma City newspaper The Black Dispatch, agreed and published the entire article containing the offending word under the headline, “The Story That Set Tulsa Ablaze.”

Adj. Gen. Charles Barrett, who arrived in Tulsa on the morning of June 1, expressed similar sentiments, both at the time and in his memoir, published 18 years later.

The story in question carried the headline “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in an Elevator.”

Just five paragraphs long, it appeared at the bottom of the right hand column on Page 1 of the May 31 editions of the Tulsa Tribune, the city’s afternoon newspaper.

The same paper but dated June 1, 1921, was sent to mail subscribers.

Briefly stated, the story said a young African-American identified as “Diamond Dick” Rowland had been arrested that morning for “attempting to assault the 17-year-old white elevator girl” in a downtown building the previous day.

In the terminology of the day, the story essentially accused Dick Rowland of attempted rape.

Within hours of the arrest, and probably after the Tribune story hit the streets, Tulsa police received a threat on Rowland’s life. He was moved six blocks from the ramshackle city lockup to the county jail on the top floor of the courthouse at Sixth Street and Boulder Avenue, where the Bank of America Building now stands.

There the riot that became a massacre began.

Opinions vary on how much that one word in a newspaper contributed to the death and destruction, but it and the story in its entirety are illustrative of the language the white-owned press, in an era when newspapers were the only mass media, used to describe whites and blacks.

Rowland was “a negro delivery boy who gave his name to the public as ‘Diamond Dick.’” He had been skulking about the building for no apparent reason, the story implied.

The girl, Sarah Page, was “an orphan who works as an elevator operator to pay her way through business college.”

It emerged that neither of these descriptions was entirely warranted. Page was not exactly an innocent damsel in distress; Rowland most likely was just trying to do his job — although what, exactly, that job was is unclear.

“Without pausing to find whether or not the story was true, without bothering with the slight detail of investigating the character of the woman who made the outcry (as a matter of fact, she was of exceedingly doubtful reputation), a mob of 100-per-cent Americans set forth on a wild rampage,” White wrote, referring to a motto popular at the time and adopted by, among others, the new Ku Klux Klan.

The morning Tulsa World was perhaps the first to blame its archrival for inciting the riot. It quoted Chief of Detectives J.W. Patton as saying

Dick Rowland’s arrest was reported in a front-page story in the May 31, 1921, afternoon Tulsa Tribune. Headlined “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator,” the somewhat sensational account reported, accurately if perhaps imprudently, that Rowland was to be charged with attempted assault. It said Rowland scratched Sarah Page and tore her clothes.

Tulsa Race Massacre: Facts and figures Number of dead: The true death toll has always been in question.

Thirty-seven death certificates were issued for deaths directly related to the massacre. It is commonly believed the actual number was much higher.

A Red Cross report in 1921 said estimates ranged from 55 to 300. Among the verified dead were nine black victims burned beyond recognition.

Injured: According to the Red Cross, 184 blacks and 48 whites were in surgical care within 24 hours. Another 531 received first aid in the first three days. Maurice Willows, the Red Cross director, said it was impossible to know how many people were actually injured because so many left the city or refused treatment. He said wounded were reported in Muskogee, Sapulpa and other adjoining towns, and as far away as Kansas City.

Homes destroyed: 1,256 burned Homes looted but not destroyed: 215 Square blocks burned: 35 Economic impact: Between June 14, 1921, and June 6, 1922, $1.8 million of claims were filed against the city of Tulsa and disallowed, according to the Race Riot Commission report issued in 2001. In inflation adjusted dollars, that would be more than $26 million today.

police had concluded that Rowland was innocent of wrongdoing and that the Tribune’s “colored and untrue account … incited such a racial spirit upon the part of the whites and under the impression there would be a lynching the armed blacks invaded the business district. If the facts as told the police had only been printed I do not think there would have been (any) riot whatever.”

This version of events was self-serving for both the police and the World. News stories and archival documents reveal that, by action and inaction, many members of the police force, including Patton, were complicit in what happened to Greenwood. The World, though largely supportive of black Tulsans and their resistance to a pig-in-a-poke scheme to exchange their property for lots farther away from downtown, reflected the prevailing racism of the times.

On June 4, 1921, in an editorial headlined “‘Bad N——rs’”, the World lectured the “innocent, hard-working colored element” of Tulsa on the need to control those among them who “boast of being ‘bad n——rs.’”

Even sympathetic reporting reveals the mindset of the times.

Two days earlier, on June 2, the World published the only bylined story about the massacre and its aftermath to appear in either Tulsa daily newspaper. The reporter, Faith Hieronymus, had interviewed African Americans interned at the city’s minor league baseball park on the afternoon of June 1.

Hieronymus seems to have been the only person to have done this, and she wrote movingly of the victims’ plight. But she quoted her subjects in the vernacular and carefully noted that they attributed the destruction of Greenwood to Dick Rowland’s recklessness.

A subhead, probably inserted into the story by an editor to break up the block of type, reads “Black, but human.”

A widespread story, dating from shortly after the riot, is that the Tribune also published an editorial with a headline in the vein of “To Lynch Negro Tonight.” No copy of it has ever turned up and, all things considered, probably never existed.

For one thing, the Tribune’s chief critics — the World, Walter White and The Black Dispatch — never mentioned it. Words very similar to those attributed to the missing editorial appeared in both the World and the Tribune but after the fact in descriptions of what had already occurred.

Further, the Tribune editorialized against lynching immediately before and after the massacre. So to call for it in Rowland’s case would have meant flip-flopping twice in a matter of days.

At the time, many said the arrest story was enough to ignite the simmering racial unrest afflicting the entire nation. White, in fact, thought Tulsa an unlikely place for such an “eruption,” as he called it. The Tribune story, he said, was the spark that set the fire, not the fuel that caused it to roar out of control.

“Her reign of terror stands as a grim reminder of the grip mob violence has on the throat of America, and the ever-present possibility of devastating race conflicts where least expected,” he wrote.

Ninety-eight years later, in a time when harsh and careless words fly around the world in seconds and are instantly etched on eternity, it is perhaps worth remembering when a single word was blamed for countless deaths and a brief newspaper account became known as the story that set Tulsa ablaze. randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com

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100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

‘We create history’ Oral history of the Tulsa Race Massacre has continued to live on through survivors and descendants STORY BY KENDRICK MARSHALL | TULSA WORLD • PHOTOS BY MIKE SIMONS | TULSA WORLD

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KENDRICK MARSHALL | TULSA WORLD

or nearly a century, the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre has been shrouded in mystery to those unfamiliar with the narrative and tucked away in memories of many who’ve either refused to revisit it out of shame or rather not relive all the hurt it bore.

TOP: Jean M. Neal, who works for the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, recently found out that her family lived in Tulsa at the time of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Its place in the annals of mass racial violence in America often gets lost in more renowned confrontations that occurred in Watts in 1965, Chicago in 1968, or some associated with the Red Summer riots of 1919.

But for survivors and descendants of the race massacre, the oral history — at least much of it — has long circulated throughout family trees and among generations past and present.

Over the last decade, Jean Neal has been

SECOND FROM TOP: Brenda Alford poses for a portrait in front of a mural that contains her family members pictures at Lacy Park.

documenting and researching almost everything there is to know about the race massacre.

As an administrative coordinator at John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, Neal has acquainted herself with the event and the people at the center of it.

Little did Neal know, that she — at least along her linage — was part of the massacre, too.

Last month, Neal discovered that she was

SECOND FROM BOTTOM: J. Kavin Ross stands near the former site of his family’s business, the Zulu Lounge. The business was destroyed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. It was never rebuilt.

BOTTOM: Nash McQuarters poses at the intersection of Pine Street and Peoria Avenue where his grandmother Ruth Dean Nash experienced trauma during the Tulsa Race Massacre.

TULSA WORLD

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

J. Kavin Ross cleans off the plaque at the former site of his family’s business, the Zulu Lounge. a descendant through a revelation that her mother’s father had a connection to Tulsa a century ago.

“My mother was talking about it, and she never talks about her dad,” said Neal.

It turns out her grandfather, who came from a line of mechanics, was associated with the Miller family — a group that owned several businesses, including a garage and hotel in the Greenwood District.

“I was like, ‘wow, I didn’t know,’” she said.

“I didn’t put the ages together when I should have.”

Like many Tulsans who grew up in the latter half of 20th century, the story of the race massacre, and its impact within the confines of the city, were largely kept under wraps.

Even being part of McLain High School’s first-ever Black history class as a student, said Neal, didn’t provide enlightenment, either.

“People were so quiet about it, “she said.

“It was like an unspoken piece that people really didn’t talk about it.”

Years later, in her work with still-living survivors, she discovered the oral histories hadn’t always been passed down through generations due in large part to the trauma associate with what transpired.

“There are so many ways to look at how families felt at that time. I can see husbands at that time saying, ‘We don’t talk about that,’’ said Neal.

At 65, Neal still has a passion to tell the story of the race massacre to all who what to hear it. It’s both work and part of her legacy.

“I don’t know when I’m going to retire, but when I do I will be telling the story,” she said.

‘We create history’

Later this summer, Deborah Hunter will be part of a theatrical production that spans a period from the morning after the race massacre ended through the Civil Rights movement.

TULSA WORLD ARCHIVES

The front page of the Tulsa World is shown from June 2, 1921, a day after the race massacre.

“This is a history that is so fresh and yet it has been hidden. We are finding new stuff every day. What better way to honor the youth and empower them with the knowledge to study hard and make a better future.”

J. Kavin Ross

“Porches,” scheduled to run from June 18 through Aug. 2 at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, is described as a combination of “drama, music, movement and poetry.”

The first time Hunter, a descendant of survivors, first ever became aware of the race massacre was in 1971 — the 50th anniversary of the event — in the pages of Impact Magazine, which had published an expansive article on the subject.

“I lived in Kansas at the time and I was visiting home,” she recalled. “And I talked to my grandmother and I asked her many questions about the massacre, because I didn’t know and this was earth shattering news to me.”

The woman who was Hunter’s only paternal grandmother had refused to share any details before begrudgingly admitting being one of several thousand Black residents placed in an internment camp days after the violence in Greenwood erupted.

“And I asked her how did she get out,” said Hunter. “She said, ‘Someone vouched for me.’”

Her curiosity about the race massacre piqued.

She soon discovered a picture of her mother’s oldest sister that now hangs inside the Greenwood Cultural Center. It was then she came to the realization that both sides of her family had been affected by the race massacre.

But a journey that started out as simply tracing family history developed into anger upon learning the disturbing accounts that caused so much grief.

“It was obvious that it (violence) was planned,” Hunter said. “It was not some uprising that just happened. The entire purpose was to wipe out the Black community. I became very angry as I was learning the truth.”

Hunter channeled that hurt into writing and poetry. She made it a point to start the tradition of passing down the story — the candid version — to her children.

TULSA WORLD FILE

Jean Neal, the program and development director at the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, speaks before the opening ceremony march at John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park on May 31, 2017. Neal led gathered marchers to chant, “We are one Tulsa.”

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TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

COURTESTY, THE ORCUTT FAMILY

“The [Black] residences remaining intact can almost be counted on one hand,” the Tulsa World reported on June 2, 1921. “There is not an undamaged business building owned by [Blacks] in the entire district.”

“I think anytime we tell our stories we create history,” said Hunter. “History is important. And the fact that we have to interject ourselves into history is just infuriating.

“But I think it is important for us to tell our stories, because they’re not being taught. We have to be the ones to tell the truth.”

‘I’m so proud of their strength’

For Brenda Alford, who now leads the citizens’ oversight committee into the search for mass graves related to the massacre, it was not until 2003 — after receiving notification from a law firm that her name was included in a lawsuit for reparations — that she came upon family ties to 1921.

“That’s how I found out about that aspect of our family history and the race massacre,” she said. “And I have to say it was pretty devastating.”

Her own great-grandmother, who survived the massacre, died in 1925, is buried in Oaklawn Cemetery — a place she recently has stalked while researchers and a archaeological excavation team scanned unmarked burials to determine whether victims’ remains were housed there.

Her grandparents, James and Vasinora Nails Sr., operated several businesses in Greenwood before the massacre and records indicated one such business was located at the site of what is now Lacy Park.

As a youngster, much of her family’s experience during the race massacre remained secret, though Alford remembers hearing stories about her grandmother “having to hide in a church for some reason.”

It was also Oaklawn where relatives often hinted of clues to the past, too.

When I was a little girl, and whenever we’d pass by the cemetery, the comment would be made, “You know they’re still over there,’” she said.

Decades later, as the city prepares to recognize the race massacre centennial, Alford has come to grips with what she described as “bittersweet” emotions.

“The sweet part is the fact that I am so proud of the (family) legacy,” Alford said.

“I’m so proud of their strength and their courage and their resilience. It is something that I try to carry with me every day of my life.”

The disdain comes from a place that her family — like dozens of Black families and individuals — being stripped of an opportunity to prosper in a community that was specifically designed for that purpose.

“It was unfortunate,” she said.

While the reverberations from the race massacre are still raw a century later, the healing process will only truly begin if Tulsa, noted Alford, confronted what transpired.

“It was history that was held under the rug for so long,” she said. “And now the community is talking about it. I think there’s a healing process. At the end of the day let’s talk about it.”

‘They were able to survive’

Ruth Dean Nash was responsible for relaying the story of the race massacre to her grandson Nash McQuarters at an early age.

McQuarters would accompany his grandmother, who was a 5-year-old in 1921, to annual survivor events and services around Tulsa to commemorate the occasion.

The more he learned about it, the more pride developed.

“I say pride because of knowing what they went through,” he said. “They were able to survive and share their stories. I’m now able to say I’m a descendant of a survivor.”

A senior admission counselor at Tulsa Community College, McQuarters — in his own way — has kept the tale of the race massacre alive through performance art and other means.

He’s portrayed O.W. Gurley in stage productions and participated in youth-centered speaking sessions recounting what he knows about the event.

It is a far cry from McQuarters’ previous reluctance to engage out of frustration that locals should have already familiarized themselves with the narrative.

“I hated having to tell everyone about the massacre because I felt that we should know,” he said. “I think now that I’m older, I realize that everyone doesn’t know and I’d like to be able to explain the stories of survivors.”

What would his grandmother have to say about McQuarters continuing to share?

“I think she would appreciate it,” he said.

‘This is part of me’

State Rep. Regina Goodwin has lived the Greenwood District all of her life and she’s never known a time not being aware of the race massacre.

Her grandfather owned the book, “Events of a Tulsa Disaster” written by Mary E. Jones Parrish that contained a lot of the early details of the riot.

The piece of literature was considered so sacred that it was locked away and a key would be required to access it.

“I knew the history was very special.

The history was very special because it (the book) was literally kept, in terms of safekeeping, under lock and key,” said Goodwin, whose great-grandfather was a prominent businessman at the time of the massacre. “It’s just always been part of the family and part of hearing about it. They were very open with the story.”

Through her community service efforts

J. Kavin Ross walks down North Greenwood Avenue. His family had a business, the Zulu Lounge, that was destroyed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. For several decades, Ross collected testimonies of survivors for the Tulsa Race Riot Commission.

and work as an elected official, Goodwin has always relished the opportunity to assist others with material needs, including facilitating conversations with adults about the massacre who might have yet to comprehend the significance of why it all matters.

“Our history is important,” she said.

“This is an American story. I grew up on Greenwood. I represent the Greenwood District. I am a descendant of race massacre survivors. This is part of me.”

‘A conspiracy of silence’

Kavin Ross is currently chairman of the committee overseeing Tulsa’s mass graves search.

Ross, whose great-grandfather owned Isaac Evitts Zulu Lounge at the current site of the Black Wall Street Mural, explained that relatives suppressed details about the massacre for years out of anguish.

Others he learned, mainly whites, refused to discuss the event because “it was a stain on the city” and Blacks were equally tight-lipped over concerns there would be retribution for doing so.

“My father called it a conspiracy of silence,” said Ross.

Upon living in Houston for 15 years, Ross moved back to Tulsa in the early 1990s to help tell the story after being inspired by scholar John Hope Franklin recount the accounts of 1921 in the PBS documentary “Goin’ Back to T-Town.”

Ross later discovered, in a conversation with Franklin, that he and his father, Don Ross, were acquaintances.

The drive to further delve into race massacre history came by way of the Oklahoma City bombing.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Ross recalled his father being interviewed by a national television network and correcting a reporter who stated it was the worst assault on American soil since the Civil War. “He said the ‘worst one occurred in Tulsa about an hour away,’” said Ross. “And that began the story of Tulsa.”

For several decades, Ross collected testimonies of survivors for the Tulsa Race Riot Commission. He worked with Eddie Faye Gates, a historian, recording interviews and documenting it all.

These days, he shares his insights with children and anyone else who might have an interest in something that has consumed his own life for the last 30 years.

“This is a history that is so fresh and yet it has been hidden,” he said. “We are finding new stuff every day. What better way to honor the youth and empower them with the knowledge to study hard and make a better future.” kendrick.marshall@tulsaworld.com

State Archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck (left) speaks as oversight committee member Brenda Alford listens on July 22, 2020, the final day of a test excavation of Oaklawn Cemetery in the search for possible mass graves from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

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DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MCFARLIN LIBRARY, THE UNIVERSITY OF TULSA

Smoke billows skyward in Greenwood on June 1, 1921, when white mobs invaded the district and burned down more than 1,200 homes. Thousands were left homeless and as many as 300 were believed to be killed during what is now known as the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Power T of a name

KENDRICK MARSHALL | TULSA WORLD

For years it was called a riot.

Not anymore.

Here’s how it changed.

“I kept hearing over and over again that the word riot gives the connotation that you burned your community down. We didn’t do this to our own community. We had it burned down by others. And if it was burned down, it was burned by them.”

Sen. Kevin Matthews, chairman of the 1921 Race Massacre Centennial Commission

he violence and destruction that transpired over a two-day period in the heart of Greenwood between Black and white Tulsans nearly a century ago was widely described as a riot.

Generally, it was the accepted narrative of such nationwide confrontations during the early 1900s that involved outbreaks of racial clashes throughout America.

But with time, research and changing perspectives, many have concluded that riot might not be the appropriate term to chronicle what took place on May 31-June 1, 1921.

“They named it a riot. We didn’t name it a riot,” said state Sen. Kevin Matthews, chairman of the 1921 Race Massacre Centennial Commission in reference to newspaper accounts of the event. “People in my community started to tell me if we were going to tell the history, we needed to tell it from our perspective.”

Notably, Matthews said there was some initial hesitation on his part to consider how the event would be addressed moving forward. But overtures from the public could not be ignored.

Formed in 2017, the then-Tulsa Race Riot Centennial Commission later decided to refer to the event as a massacre “based on community input.” The rationale, members said, was “to shed the name given by the offenders and reclaim the narrative of our history.”

That feedback largely came from an active group of north Tulsa residents who went so far as to start a petition in 2018 called “Greenwood ‘Black Wall Street’ Massacre of 1921” demanding the commission alter its official name.

The petition, which garnered 1,600 signatures, made clear that riot was “seen by members of Tulsa’s African-American community as coded or unclear language” that “perpetuates the tragic event as a riot.”

Support for the name change also came from long-held dissatisfaction that Black residents victimized during the massacre were unable to recoup restitution because insurance claims didn’t cover calamities attributed to riots.

There was also the feeling that what ensued in Tulsa was not similar in nature to riots that occurred in Watts in 1965, Chicago in 1968, or some associated with the Red Summer riots of 1919.

“I kept hearing over and over again that the word riot gives the connotation that you burned your community down,” said Matthews. “We didn’t do this to our own community. We had it burned down by others. And if it was burned down, it was burned by them.”

Nehemiah D. Frank, publisher of the Black Wall Street Times, wrote a column suggesting that riot was “social conditioning at its finest” and the commission itself was causing unnecessary division by legitimizing the word. Today, Frank still is passionate the terms shouldn’t be interchanged because those affected were not allowed to categorize how they were treated.

“If you think about African Americans who experienced the massacre, they experienced it 60 years after (the) Emancipation (Proclamation),” he said. “African Americans are not the inventors of the English language. A riot to a Black person living in 1921 may not have meant the same thing to a white person living in 1921.”

Hannibal Johnson, an attorney who has engaged in extensive research of the tragedy and written several books on the subject over the years, said it’s important to first consider several factors to determine how specific terminology came to be based on the rules of nomenclature, or the process by which something is named: Who named it?

When was it named?

What is the context?

Who was absent from the discussion?

“Race riot is a term of art,” Johnson said. “It was used to describe these kinds of incidents involving Black folks typically being targeted or

assaulted by white vigilante groups.”

Depending on the point of view, some might consider the Tulsa event a massacre. Others could see it as a riot, an assault, a genocide, pogrom or even a holocaust. Many of those terms, said Johnson, could be applicable to what happened 99 years ago.

And in the aftermath of the massacre, people with some direct connection or even documenting it from afar provided their own interpretations.

As the mayhem reached a fever pitch, newspaper headlines like the one that ran in the Klamath Falls, Oregon-based Evening Herald on June 1, 1921, went with “Bitter Race War Rages in Oklahoma — 75 Dead.”

A Tulsa Daily World headline published that same day also used the word war instead of a riot to summarize the turbulence.

“RACE WAR RAGES FOR HOURS AFTER OUTBREAK AT COURTHOUSE; TROOPS AND ARMED MEN PATROLING STREETS,” a section of the morning front page read.

Though many race massacre survivors had routinely referred to the chaos as a race riot in interviews with journalists, historians and documentarians who wanted to hear their stories, Olivia J. Hooker was one of the few who didn’t.

Hooker, who was just a 6-year-old when the massacre occurred, testified in front of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 2007.

During remarks before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on the Tulsa-Greenwood Race Riot Claims Accountability Act, Hooker stated she was a survivor of “the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921” and then pivoted to say “but what really was a massacre.”

It did not stop there.

Even in literature and politics, the variances were apparent.

While there are several published writings that feature the word riot, other works deviated.

In documenting survivor testimonials, author Mary E. Jones Parrish, also a survivor, titled her 1923 book “Events of the Tulsa Disaster.”

Then-Tulsa Star publisher and editor A.J. Smitherman, whose home was destroyed in 1921, crafted a descriptive poem about the experience called “The Tulsa Race Riot and Massacre.”

And long before current Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum normalized the use of massacre, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who spearheaded the Tulsa Race Riot Commission in 1997, was once quoted as saying,”This is not a riot, this is an assault on the Black community.”

But despite diligent reexamination of the motivations and actions of citizens involved in the encounter to justify a name change, some observers have expressed concern that rewriting history would be both inaccurate and inflammatory.

“The riot was a disgrace and a tragedy and stain on our state,” wrote Donald W. Rominger Jr. in a Tulsa World Letter to the Editor in response to a story about Vernon AME Church that referenced massacre. “But, it was not an ‘indiscriminate and merciless slaughter’ as the word ‘massacre’ is defined.” Others, like Carol Mann, on the same topic, felt similarly.

“What bothers me is the renaming of it to be Tulsa Race Massacre,” she wrote. “... renaming it a massacre seems to me to be unnecessarily inflammatory.”

Johnson, however, pointed out that some critics had a point in that all of the violence at the time wasn’t one-sided. Black residents did retaliate against white invaders.

“Part of the potential problem with using the word massacre is (saying) that it was a slaughter without resistance,” he said. “In fact, there was robust but short-lived resistance by Black men in the Black community. But they were outnumbered and outgunned.”

Keeping the story of the event itself alive — even by way of analyzing its moniker — is ultimately paramount beyond grappling over terminology, Matthews said.

“That’s the goal,” he said. “That’s what we want to actually have happen.”

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TULSA WORLD

According to the June 2, 1921, Tulsa World, officials believed about 25 separate fires were set: “Greenwood Avenue, principal business street in the negro district, is a mass of broken bricks and debris.”

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Decades of tragedy What happened over the years and what still remains

ARCHIVE EDITION | SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 THIS PROJECT WAS MADE POSSIBLE THANKS IN PART TO THE GENEROUS UNDERWRITING OF BURT B. HOLMES & THE GEORGE KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION

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TULSA WORLD

COURTESY

Five men sift through the burned ruins of the Gurley Hotel at 112½ N. Greenwood Ave. following the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The men are salvaging bricks from the destroyed hotel.

Rebuilding Greenwood

Through a century of hard work and heartbreak, the spirit of Greenwood labors on RANDY KREHBIEL | Tulsa World

“Little stores and shanties are being opened up for business ... selling everything from fresh meat to ice cream cones.”

Tulsa Daily World June 6, 1921

T

he embers had barely cooled before Black Tulsans began rebuilding Greenwood Avenue. Amid the rubble of their beloved Black Wall Street, they found ways to keep going, just as they always had.

Black Wall Street rose again — and fell again — and for more than half the past century has been trying to figure out its place in a world so much different than the one in which Greenwood flourished.

Dwain Midget, a son of Greenwood and Black north Tulsa, has for more than 30 years been one of the city’s top development officers. He says the Black Wall Street and Greenwood Avenue are not necessarily geographically intertwined.

“Black Wall Street is to be honored,” he said. “It’s to have continual recognition and acknowledgement in history. But we will never have that Black Wall Street on Greenwood again.

“To me, you remember it, and then you make a new Black Wall Street,” he said.

Midget thinks the new Black Wall Street could be north of Pine Street on Peoria Avenue. An active business area is becoming more entrenched, he said, and housing is improving, especially in the Lacy Park neighborhood.

All of that, Midget said, began with planning 30 years ago.

“Things are happening,” he said. “They’re too incremental, but that’s because ... of systemic, institutionalized racism that has to be overcome. It can still be done, and it’s being done, just not fast enough.”

As segments in a timeline, the 10 decades since 1921 roughly mark stages in the life of a place and maybe even a dream.

Greenwood, says Tulsa historian, author and lecturer Hannibal Johnson, is a mindset as much or more as it is a place.

“It’s psychological,” he said. “It’s aspirational.”

OSU RUTH SIGLER AVERY COLLECTION

Houses burn amid a smoked-filled sky during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

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1921-31: Recovery

Defying efforts to keep them from rebuilding, Black Tulsans erected buildings at night to evade enforcement of a fire code passed by the city commission expressly to pressure them to sell. They also pulled cash from unsuspected reserves or found credit to put up new brick buildings that complied with that code.

By the end of July 1921, the Tulsa World reported, several Black owners, including Charles M. Goodwin and Vernon A.M.E. Church, had obtained building permits.

Ten days later the Tulsa Tribune said 65 wood structures and several brick ones had been completed or were under construction.

Tulsa’s 1922 city directory shows more than 80 businesses with North Greenwood Avenue addresses. In 1926, five years after it was burned to the ground, the 100 block of North Greenwood alone was home to more than 50 enterprises of just about every description.

Perhaps the crowning moment occurred in 1925, when Tulsa hosted the National Negro Business League’s annual convention.

COURTESY

Meharry Drug Store is shown in the 1930s.

COURTESY

Traffic and pedestrians move along Greenwood Avenue at Archer Street in 1938.

1941-1951: Peak years

1931-1941: Good bad times

The 1930s were tough for most Americans, and Black Americans were certainly no exception. Yet somehow Greenwood managed to grow and even prosper.

By the end of the decade, the neighborhood was nearing its peak in terms of population and business activity.

But that success was largely built on a segregation that forced more and more Black Tulsans into the confines of a neighborhood with little room to grow, and created a readymade customer base for the little shops lining Greenwood Avenue and the neighboring streets.

That would change dramatically in the decades ahead.

COURTESY

The Rev. Calvin Stalnaker speaks during the groundbreaking in 1947 for the First Baptist Church at 1414 N. Greenwood Ave.

By one count, the Greenwood District counted almost 180 businesses and more than 1,400 residences in 1942.

Data compiled by researcher Amanda Coleman in the late 1990s indicates Greenwood continued to grow through the war years to the end of the decade.

But in 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the race restrictive title covenants that effectively segregated housing in many American cities, including Tulsa.

That was good for Black Tulsans, but not so good for Greenwood.

COURTESY

An unknown marching band makes its way down Greenwood Avenue in the 1940s.

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TULSA WORLD

1951-1961 Hollowing out

The Dreamland Theater closed in 1952. Now an iconic symbol of Black Wall Street at its height, the Dreamland became one of the first casualties of the social, political and economic forces conspiring against Greenwood.

As early as 1917, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled cities and states could not segregate housing based on race. But that was wired around through title covenants that prohibited the transfer of property to non-whites.

When the title covenants were thrown out, African Americans were free to move out.

Red-lining and other obstacles remained, to be sure, but U.S. Census data shows clearly how Black Tulsans spilled out of the old boundaries — Detroit to the old Midland Valley railroad tracks — into adjoining neighborhoods.

COURTESY

Bicycles stand outside the Big 10 Recreation Parlor around 1950.

TULSA WORLD FILE

Demolition work continues on the east side of Greenwood Avenue as part of the Crosstown Expressway project in March 1967.

1961-1971 Bottoming out

TULSA WORLD FILE

Demolition work was occurring on the east side of Greenwood Avenue as part of the Crosstown Expressway project in March 1967. The Kinobu’s Grocery & Market in the photo was located at 555 E. Cameron according to the 1966 phone book.

By 1960, the city of Tulsa classified half of the Greenwood District’s housing stock as dilapidated. Five years later, to the dismay of many Greenwood residents, it initiated an urban renewal project that some might argue has never really ended.

The project originally encompassed only the northern portion of the Greenwood neighborhood but was soon extended to the inner dispersal loop, a total of 309 acres.

TULSA WORLD FILE

The Del Rio Hotel, built in 1921 at 707 N. Greenwood Ave., was demolished in March 1975 as part of an urban renewal program.

1971-1981 Urban renewal

Midget says community leaders such as Homer Johnson and later Julius Pegues and Ralph McIntosh did their best to “blunt” urban renewal.

Johnson, for one, predicted urban renewal would result in Black Tulsans losing ownership of the fading ribbon along Greenwood Avenue. The northern half of the 309-acre project was successfully redeveloped as Heritage Hills, but the southern half attracted little interest and zero investment.

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

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TULSA WORLD FILE

Greenwood was bustling during the filming of “Rumble Fish” on Aug. 19, 1982.

1981-1991 False promise

TULSA WORLD FILE

The Mabel B. Little Heritage Museum is seen in June 1986 According to the story published with this photo, construction of the Greenwood Cultural Center began in late August 1985, It was built in two parts at 300 N. Greenwood Ave. Phase 1 was the Heritage Museum.

1991-2001 Reawakening

By 1991, Deep Greenwood was again home to a handful of businesses. But with no adjoining population base, most of them were struggling and the complex depended largely on government offices to stay open.

Arguably, Greenwood now extended as far north as Turley and west into Gilcrease Hills, and a business district was coalescing around Pine Street and Peoria Avenue.

In 1997, legislation creating a commission to examine the 1921 Race Massacre earned Greenwood an international celebrity that would only grow over the next two decades.

RIGHT; The Greenwood Cultural Center building, taken in 1997.

BELOW: The downtown Tulsa skyline rises behind Greenwood Avenue in 1997.

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD FILE

Formed in 1938, the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce found new purpose during the urban renewal era: saving what remained of Deep Greenwood.

By 1981, the only business remaining in the 100 block of North Greenwood was the Oklahoma Eagle.

Three other businesses — a diner, a small grocery and an upholstery shop — held on six blocks north, between Haskell Place and Independence, but would soon be gone.

In 1980, the Greenwood Chamber received a $1.6 million grant to renovate the 11 remaining buildings in Deep Greenwood. It would be three more years, though, and a host of headaches before work began.

The renovations would not be completed until 1985.

Despite much fanfare, the Greenwood Centre, as it was then called, landed on the commercial real estate market with a thud. Tenants were so scarce the city had to kick in $1.6 million to avoid a default.

Concurrently, the wheels fell off a deal to develop housing, hotels and commercial space on 90 acres north of the IDL. With no other prospects and the economy in a swoon, the city committed $6.5 million to build the University Center at Tulsa — now Oklahoma State University-Tulsa — on the same tract.

Adjoining it, ground was broken in 1985 for the Greenwood Cultural Center.

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TULSA WORLD

2001-2011 Encroachment

Renewed investment in downtown Tulsa brought more interest and money to the old Greenwood, but also what many Black Tulsans regarded as unwanted encroachment.

Construction of ONEOK Field in the historic district quashed the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce’s plans for a mixed use development on a portion of the site and led to extension of the adjoining Arts District onto Greenwood turf.

TOM GILBERT, TULSA WORLD FILE

An aerial shot shows ONEOK Field with the Tulsa skyline during the first baseball game there. The new baseball stadium for the Tulsa Drillers opened in 2010 in the historic Greenwood District.

TULSA WORLD FILE

A boy stands near the Black Wall Street mural during a Juneteenth celebration in the Greenwood District in Tulsa in 2020.

2011-2021 Centennial

Redevelopment of Tulsa’s inner city, Black Tulsans fierce sense of ownership and the approaching 100th anniversary of the 1921 massacre have brought to the surface disagreements both old and new.

Tenants of the Greenwood Centre — the 11-building complex comprising the 100 block of North Greenwood — continued to complain about the buildings’ management.

The Greenwood Chamber, the Centre’s manager, says it’s doing the best it given limited revenue and aging facilities.

Meanwhile, across Archer, new apartments and retail space is about to open — as is the Greenwood Rising History Center.

That the new construction is largely owned by non-Blacks rankles some but is fine with others who figure the increased traffic will help everyone.

The decade began with the opening of John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park two blocks west of Greenwood. It’ll end with a once-in-a-hundred-years test of that concept. randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

Kui Pittman, 7, rides a scooter on the Black Lives Matter mural in August on Greenwood Avenue, where activists had placed symbolic tombstones.

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

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MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD FILE

The Rev. Robert Turner (right) leads a group past City Hall in one of Turner’s weekly protests for reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

L

Making amends remains a hard task

RANDY KREHBIEL | TULSA WORLD

ast week’s appearance of Tulsa-based reparations advocates before a congressional committee was the latest episode in a long-running discussion about who owes what to whom from the 1921 Race Massacre.

Just the word reparations — the making of amends — can stir emotions, and even those who favor them for harm inflicted by the massacre disagree on how best to make those amends all these years later.

Some give high priority to direct payments to the few remaining survivors and the families of those affected by the massacre. Others think this impractical and perhaps not even the most equitable outcome at this point.

They speak more in terms of community-based answers to discrepancies in household wealth and well-being, policing and education.

These differences on reparations seem to be less about one or the other and more about disagreements on what is more likely to succeed, both politically and economically.

“The questions to ask are ‘What’s appropriate?’ and ‘What’s more likely to succeed?’” said Hannibal Johnson, a Tulsa lawyer, historian and author who is working with the Greenwood Rising history center scheduled for opening in a few weeks.

Johnson is among those who think the political and legal obstacles to significant cash payments makes them unlikely. He isn’t against them, he says, he just thinks trying to leverage the Greenwood story and the race massacre centennial against current problems such as housing, small business assistance and diversity is more likely to impact Tulsa, and especially Black Tulsa.

“It’s not that (cash reparations) can’t be done,” he said, “it’s that it’s really difficult, and to imply otherwise is misleading.”

Another argument, though, is that true reparations and reconciliation require direct cash restitution to those damaged, and that cash payments are a lot more definite than vague-sounding programs and promises to do better.

Damario Solomon-Simmons, a Tulsa attorney representing the three centenarian survivors who appeared in Washington last week, has sued the city, county, state, Tulsa Regional Chamber and other entities for restitution. The lawsuit asks for cash payments and other forms of reparations, including several similar to those sought by the 1921 Race Massacre Centennial Commission.

The lawsuit cites the massacre and what Solomon-Simmons, speaking to a congressional hearing, called “a policy of violence that continues to this day.”

“The same perpetrators — the city, the county, the chamber (of commerce), the state are utilizing the massacre to pad their own pockets,” Solomon-Simmons said.

“They’re utilizing the branding of the massacre.”

While Solomon-Simmons complains about the $30 million the centennial commission has raised for the Greenwood Rising history center and other initiatives, a nonprofit he organized last year, Justice for Greenwood, is also soliciting donations in the name of the massacre and the three survivors.

That money, says Justice for Greenwood, supports “holistic reparatory justice to the Massacre survivors and descendants and ... fighting to get them the respect, reparations, and repair they so richly deserve.”

Solomon-Simmons and his allies say Greenwood Rising will primarily benefit white business owners while squeezing out Black entrepreneurs — a claim the commission strenuously denies.

The commission says Black businesses in the vicinity, including across the street, from what remains of the historic Greenwood business district, are already seeing an uptick.

Solomon-Simmons did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this story.

Meanwhile, Tulsa Metropolitan Ministries and All Souls Unitarian Church are trying to raise $100,000 in private funds for both direct payments and other forms of reparations.

The fight has been ongoing

None of this is new.

One day after the destruction of the allBlack Greenwood District on June 1, 1921, a meeting of white business and civic leaders chose former Mayor L.J. Martin to lead what the Tulsa Tribune called a reconstruction committee.

“The city and county is legally responsible for every dollar of the damage that has been done,” Martin said, according to the Tribune.

The New York Times quoted Martin as saying, “Tulsa can only redeem herself … by complete restitution and rehabilitation of the destroyed black belt.”

That never really happened. To be sure, Greenwood rebuilt and grew larger than before. There is evidence that some whites helped some Blacks get back on their feet.

The city and county spent $100,000 on relief through the Red Cross, which also collected about $30,000 in private donations.

All of that, though, seems to have been spent on immediate needs, not reconstruction.

Black Tulsans had to do that almost entirely on their own.

Martin’s admonition was soon forgotten, and after hundreds of lawsuits by Black and white property owners failed, the issue appeared dead.

It reappeared, though, with the state commission authorized in 1997 to re-examine the events of May 31-June 1, 1921.

The concept of reparations had been slowly gaining acceptance since World War II. Germany is believed to have paid Jewish survivors of the Holocaust as much as $90 billion, beginning in 1951.

Making reparations possible presents uncertain resolution Closer to home, the U.S. government paid American Indians $1.3 billion between 1946 and 1978 for land seized without compensation, and in 1988 it paid Japanese-Americans interned during World War II $1.6 billion.

Then, in 1994, the state of Florida agreed to pay a total of $2.1 million to survivors and descendants of property owners from the 1923 Rosewood race war.

The Tulsa Commission, in a 2001 report, recommended cash payments in its list of

reparations, but acknowledged the Legislature had little interest in paying them.

A private group, led by what was then the Tulsa Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, began raising money for that purpose, but that ended with a 2003 lawsuit by attorneys arguing the statute of limitations should not apply in this case.

The lawsuit, like all those before it, failed.

Ultimately a fund started by the Unitarian-Universalist church paid survivors a small amount.

Estimates of the damage in 1921 vary, but were easily in the many tens of millions of dollars by today’s values. Reparations for property damage and deaths are usually thought of in terms of Black victims, but whites also sued for damages in 1921 and at least 12 white men were killed — all of which could become an issue going forward.

Other obvious obstacles include establishing identity and residency of claimants and deciding how any cash reparations would be distributed. Would the family of, say, Jim Cherry, who reportedly lost property valued at $50,000 in 1921, receive the same as Green Smith, a Muskogee carpenter in Tulsa for the day, who was robbed of $50?

Statutes of limitations are the biggest obstacle to reparations lawsuits. In most cases, civil suits must be filed within two or three years of the event in question. Some argue time limits should not apply to reparations because claimants’ judicial options were likely limited, but to date the limits remain intact — especially for cases in which all key witnesses are long deceased.

Mayor G.T. Bynum made searching for remains of race massacre victims a priority and has generally voiced support for addressing equity issues, but says he does not support direct payments as a form of reparations.

“The problem is, where does the cash come from?” Bynum said. “The most commonly mentioned way is some sort of legal judgment that would be paid from the city’s sinking fund. That raises property taxes for everybody.”

Bynum said he prefers addressing inequality documented in reports compiled every year during his administration.

“We have shifted our economic strategy to north Tulsa,” he said. “There is over $1 billion of new investment there during this administration.”

Bynum said he is fine with privately raised money going for direct payments, but said, “Direct cash payments do not solve problems of inequity in this city.”

Skeptics, though, say that investment and change of focus has mainly benefited non-Black businessmen and women and is eroding what remains of the old Greenwood.

ONEOK Field, new construction on North Elgin Avenue and the Oklahoma State University-Tulsa campus were all once in the heart of Tulsa’s Black community.

For the Rev. Robert Turner of Vernon AME Church, the question is pretty simple.

“Politics always asks, ‘Do I have enough votes?’ The courts always ask, ‘Is it legal?’

Morality simply asks, ‘Is it right?’ said Turner, who holds a weekly reparations vigil outside City Hall, during a recent program on reparations at All Souls.

“Morality,” said Turner, “has no expiration date.” randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com

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100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Apprehended Black citizens are accompaned by armed white National Guard troops in front of Convention Hall on June 1, 1921.

An African-American photographer wearing his safe conduct badge looks at the ruins of the Midway Hotel, 420 E. Archer St., after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Fans wait outside of the Brady Theater, now known as the Tulsa Theater, prior to Hop Jam in 2016. The theater was previously the Convention Hall.

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Landscapers Mario Vargas (left) and Luis Ramirez work in an empty lot at 420 E. Archer St.,, former site of the Midway Hotel.

GREENWOOD | THEN & NOW

PHOTOS COURTESY, THE OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Mount Zion Baptist Church burns during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

People walk the streets of downtown Tulsa at 111 South Elgin as the Greenwood District burns in the background.

PHOTOS MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD FILE

Pedestrians walk to a Tulsa Drillers game past Mount Zion Baptist Church.

A worker cleans the sidewalk at 111 South Elgin.

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TULSA WORLD

Willie Sells cuts Haywood Bland’s hair while working at Tee’s Barber Shop on April 1.

Inspiration in motion Greenwood District land ownership has evolved in the last century

Black Wall Street businesses

STORY BY KENDRICK MARSHALL | TULSA WORLD PHOTOS BY IAN MAULE | TULSA WORLD

W

hen O.W. Gurley, an accomplished landowner and entrepreneur, moved his family from Perry in 1905 to what is now known as Tulsa’s Greenwood District, the possibilities for a true Black-centered, self-sustaining hub that enticed freedom from the shackles of Jim Crow laws and oppression had yet to be realized in America.

Gurley, who once worked under President Grover Cleveland, saw an opportunity in the northeast section of the city and purchased 40 acres.

The vision, an almost audacious one at the time considering the unforgiving circumstances societal Black Americans faced, was to create something constructed by Black people for Black people.

Placing that inspiration in motion, Gurley opened a boarding house in 1906 — the first business in the newly minted Greenwood — with the purpose of attracting African American train travelers who frequently found a haven to rest difficult along rail routes seeking similar services operated by whites.

After word spread of opportunities for Blacks in Greenwood, they traveled to the district and more businesses — Black-owned ones at that — quickly sprung up with Gurley’s assistance.

The present-day legacy of Greenwood is that extraordinary pre-Tulsa Race Massacre period when Black people stationed in the mid-South controlled their own cultural and economic destiny underscored by more than 600 businesses at its height.

Over time, however, that dominion over Greenwood once exclusively held by African Americans — through migration, small businesses dying out and political interference by way of redlining, desegregation and urban re-

Black Wall Street T-Shirts

and Souvenirs

Farmers Insurance AOG Real Estate Agency Pillar Group Insurance

T-shirts sit in a folded pile at Black Wall Street Tees and Souvenirs on April 2. newal — had slowly eroded that presence to a mere trickle by the 1980s.

“Even if desegregation had not emerged, you would have seen some of the same developments occur,” sociologist Greg Arquitt told the Tulsa World in a 1997 article about Greenwood’s transition. “It wasn’t just Blacks moving because they could move, the entire population was moving — toward nationally based providers of services and goods as opposed to locally based ones.”

A century later, what’s left of the original Black Wall Street consists of a cluster of Black and white-owned businesses in the shadow of ONEOK Field, a multipurpose sports stadium near Interstate 244 — the concrete and steel symbol that many residents long have considered the death knell of what once was.

The vast majority of the 35 square blocks that make up Greenwood are now owned by the Tulsa Development Authority and Oklahoma’s university system where OSU-Tulsa sits. The majority of the vacant land north of the Inner Dispersal Loop is still owned by TDA. The Greenwood Chamber of Commerce owns the business stretch of 10 brick buildings positioned along Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street.

Last June, the chamber launched a $10 million initiative to help restore the historic buildings

Black Wall Street Tees and Souvenirs Owner Cleo Harris checks on a freshly printed shirt while working in his production area at Black Wall Street Tees and Souvenirs.

Agency 100 Black Men of Tulsa Expressions of Eddye K The Loc Shop Frios Gourmet Pops MuscleSquad Gym Tierra’s Jewelry Stacy’s Medical Scrubs Rose Tax Solutions Big A Bail Bonds Co. Tee’s Barbershop Natural Health Clinic Fat Guys

Customers leave Wanda J’s Next Generation Restaurant in the Greenwood District of Tulsa on April 10.

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

Tierre’s Jewelry and Company LCC’S Owner Rion Mayes Woodiest works on watch while working at his store in the Greenwood District. and provide ongoing resources to businesses in the district and the local community.

“We desire to have unity among our business community,” Freeman Culver, president of the Greenwood Chamber, said about the “Restore Black Wall Street” campaign. “We love the growth of downtown Tulsa and in the Greenwood area, but we want to be part of it.”

The city has earmarked more than a dozen projects in and around Greenwood over the past decade, including the $23 million USA BMX facility, Vast Bank and the mixed-use property GreenArch.

Moved by a desire to facilitate Black land ownership and business development throughout Greenwood, Tulsa City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper helped launch the Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce in 2018.

The goal, said Hall-Harper, was to raise money to purchase land with the intention of rebuilding Black Wall Street and north Tulsa through its Power Group initiative.

“If we want more and better for our community, we are going to have to do it, and it is going to have to be done in the spirit of Black Wall Street through cooperative economics,” Hall-Harper told the World in 2019. “That’s what O.W. Gurley did and that’s what J.B. Stratford did in the early 1900s.”

Hall-Harper in January voiced opposition to a plan that called for moving the Tulsa County OSU Extension Center to the OSU-Tulsa campus in the Greenwood District, saying “it does absolutely nothing” in efforts to renew the district.

LaToya Rose, who has operated Rose Tax Solutions at 107 N. Greenwood Ave. since 2018, has a special connection to the district. Her grandfather owned a business in Greenwood two generations ago and her father, Walter Armstrong, currently runs Big A Bail Bond Co. at 144 N. Greenwood Ave. He has been in the location since 2006.

“It is very important for us as a family

A street signs commemorating Black Wall Street sits on the top of streets form E. Archer Street and N. Greenwood Avenue in the Greenwood District of Tulsa on April 10. to operate on Greenwood,” Rose said. It’s important to share the light and truth even about the massacre and empower them (the public) to know their history and not to get stuck on one part of the narrative.

“For us, it’s more than just making a dollar.”

Angela Myrick specifically chose to open Frios Gourmet Pops dessert shop at 105 N. Greenwood Ave. in 2017 because she is a child of the district and had a legacy of business ownership within her family dating back to the 1950s and ‘60s.

Myrick, a Tulsa native, spent a large portion of her life on Greenwood and “wanted to follow that legacy” decorated throughout her lineage.

She vividly remembers marveling at the

all the businesses that lined the district and hopes even a portion of that sight can return in the future with the prospect of more businesses opening.

“There were businesses up and down for miles and blocks,” she said. “Now it’s very encouraging and makes me feel that a part of that is coming back.”

Phil Armstrong, project director for Greenwood Rising, is optimistic that can be a reality through a multiyear development plan to revitalize Greenwood beyond 2021.

“This is just the beginning — and not only of a journey to racial reconciliation, but to the economic revitalization of what was Greenwood,” Armstrong said. kendrick.marshall@tulsaworld.com

“We desire to have unity among our business community. We love the growth of downtown Tulsa and in the Greenwood area, but we want to be part of it.” — Freeman Culver, president of the Greenwood Chamber, about the “Restore Black Wall Street” campaign

LEFT: A group looks at mural on the wall of AOG Real Estate.

ABOVE: A plaque commemorating a business that was destroyed during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in the Greenwood District.

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100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

Interstate 244 cuts through the historic Greenwood District as seen looking north from the 21 North Greenwood Building.

‘It took the heart out of Greenwood’ I-244 expressway ensured Black Wall Street would never return to its glory days

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GINNIE GRAHAM | TULSA WORLD

ulsa photographer Donald Thompson took the last images of business buildings rebuilt from the ashes of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre just before they were bulldozed to make way for Interstate 244.

There were a smattering of Blackowned businesses along Greenwood Avenue. It was 1967, and the district was going through an economic slump.

The ’60s brought a lot of change fast. Desegregation meant dollars could be spent across the city; urban development bought properties cheap without rebuilding; and banks redlined Black neighborhoods out

of approval for business and home loans. Flight from north Tulsa neighborhoods was in full swing.

It was in the middle of this when local and state leaders decided where to place an expressway through Tulsa.

Calling the Greenwood District’s economic downturn a ghetto, planners put Interstate 244, then called the Crosstown Expressway, right through the district.

It ensured that Black Wall Street would never return to its glory days.

“It took the heart out of Greenwood,” Thompson said. “If this highway had not been put here, I think there would’ve been a resurgence, but Greenwood didn’t have the opportunity to rebuild.”

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

From the initial planning stages Interstate 244, then called the Crosstown Expressway, dissected the Greenwood District. “It took the heart out of Greenwood,” said Tulsa photographer Donald Thompson. “If this highway had not been put here, I think there would’ve been a resurgence, but Greenwood didn’t have the opportunity to rebuild.”

TULSA WORLD

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

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MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

Don Thompson discusses the history of I-244 while walking along Greenwood Avenue.

TULSA WORLD FILE

Demolition work was occurs on the east side of Greenwood Avenue for the Inner Dispersal Loop in March 1967. The Kinobu’s Grocery & Market was located at 555 E. Cameron St., according to the 1966 phone book.

That expressway has frustrated developers and Black Tulsans who have tried to work around the monolith of concrete and steel and the noise that has come with it.

It’s not just a physical barrier; it psychologically isolated Black neighborhoods and businesses from the rest of the city.

But a glimmer of optimism has emerged from this half a century of disappointment and resentment.

Embedded in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion infrastructure plan is $20 billion to “reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic investments,” according to a White House fact sheet.

Also, 40% of that package would fund projects in disadvantaged communities through the Justice40 Initiative. Those goals would be tracked through a newly established Environmental Justice Scorecard.

“The President’s plan for transportation is not just ambitious in scale; it is designed with equity in mind and to set up America for the future. Too often, past transportation investments divided communities … or it left out the people most in need of affordable transportation options,” states the White House sheet.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told The Grio that the highways were constructed “at the expense of communities of color.”

Former Transportation Secretary Antony Foxx said much of the current infrastructure was designed and paid for prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act in “a time before Black people were at the table.”

The notion that transportation systems were built reinforcing racist norms isn’t new.

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

Developer Kajeer Yar is shown atop the 21 North Greenwood Building, which will open later this year. He developed the GreenArch building next door in 2013. I-244 is seen cutting through the Historic Greenwood District in the background.

“The Crosstown Expressway slices across the 100 block of North Greenwood Avenue, across those very buildings that Goodwin describes as ‘once a Mecca for the Negro businessman — a showplace.’ There still will be a Greenwood Avenue, but it will be a lonely, forgotten lane ducking under the shadows of a big overpass.”

— An excerpt from a May 1967 Tulsa Tribune story that included comments from Ed Goodwin, publisher of the Oklahoma Eagle, and L.H. Williams, a pharmacist.

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TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

I-244 cuts through the historic Greenwood District as seen from the 21 North Greenwood Building in Tulsa.

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

Traffic on I-244 passes over Greenwood Avenue, the Historic Black Wall Street. North Greenwood Avenue is cordoned off by Interstate 244 on one end and a rail line on the other.

Demographers, academics and news media for many years have reported data showing how transportation designs harmed and even decimated neighborhoods with large minority populations.

In 2015, the Washington Post did a census data analysis of neighborhoods near physical barriers in several major cities, including Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri; Pittsburg; Detroit; Hartford, Connecticut; and Shreveport, Louisiana.

All showed Black and Hispanic neighborhoods sectioned off from the rest of the cities by barriers such as highways and railroads.

Tulsa can be added to that list.

North Greenwood Avenue is cordoned off

by Interstate 244 on one end and a rail line on the other. The railroad was built in the 19th century and served as a seed for the city’s founding.

Black Wall Street grew to the north of the railroad on Greenwood starting in 1906 with a boarding house owned by O.W. Gurley, who had a vision to attract Black entrepreneurs to the budding town.

After the 1921 massacre burned the 35 blocks of homes and businesses, killing at least 37 people and possibly up to about 300, the district rebuilt. By the 1940s, it was thriving.

Thompson remembers the 1950s Greenwood with more than 2 miles of businesses on both sides of the street. It had everything: theaters, restaurants, grocers, clothing stores, hairdressers, auto mechanics, photo studios and professionals from doctors to accountants.

“People in this area did not have to go anywhere else to find anything they needed or wanted. They had it all here,” Thompson said.

“A dollar would turn over more than seven times before it left this area. They supported each other.”

The 1960s led to an economic struggle that Interstate 244 made permanent. It was constructed as the north leg of the Inner Dispersal Loop to circle downtown with express-

“They remember the early days, when the first buildings were put up in the two blocks north of Archer Street. They saw the riot of 1921, when many of the buildings burned. They saw the street rebuilt, grow and prosper. They saw, too, as a slum festered. And now they are watching Greenwood Avenue die.

Its business district will be no more.”

— An excerpt from a May 1967 Tulsa Tribune story that included comments from Ed Goodwin, publisher of the Oklahoma Eagle, and L.H. Williams, a pharmacist.

ways linking to highways outside the city.

The demise of the Greenwood District was expected, as reported in a May 1967 Tulsa Tribune story headlined “An Old Tulsa Street Is Slowly Dying; Greenwood Fades Away Before Advance of Expressway.”

Reporter Joe Looney interviewed business owners being moved out with a photo of rubble from the torn-down structures. The story included comments from Ed Goodwin, publisher of the Oklahoma Eagle, and L.H. Williams, a pharmacist.

“They remember the early days, when the first buildings were put up in the two blocks north of Archer Street. They saw the riot of 1921, when many of the buildings burned. They saw the street rebuilt, grow and prosper. They saw, too, as a slum festered.

“And now they are watching Greenwood Avenue die. Its business district will be no more.

“The Crosstown Expressway slices across the 100 block of North Greenwood Avenue, across those very buildings that Goodwin describes as ‘once a Mecca for the Negro businessman — a showplace. There still will be a Greenwood Avenue, but it will be a lonely, forgotten lane ducking under the shadows of a big overpass.”

In the intervening years, a fraction of Black Wall Street has been preserved. Most of the original Greenwood District is owned by the Tulsa Development Authority and the state’s higher education system where Oklahoma State University-Tulsa resides. The Greenwood Chamber of Commerce owns 10 brick buildings along Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street.

Interstate 244 “hemorrhaged growth” for Greenwood, said Freeman Culver, president of the Greenwood Chamber.

“Infrastructure definitely should be addressed,” Culver said. “If it could be removed or repurposed to allow for continued growth, it should be acknowledged the land should go back to the Greenwood Chamber. Historically the land was with the Greenwood Chamber.

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

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MIKE SIMONS PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD

This portion of Interstate 244 was constructed as the north leg of the Inner Dispersal Loop, which circles downtown Tulsa with expressways that link to other highways. The demise of the Greenwood District from the I-244 project was expected, as reported in a May 1967 Tulsa Tribune story headlined “An Old Tulsa Street Is Slowly Dying; Greenwood Fades Away Before Advance of Expressway.”

“Greenwood and African-American businesses are resilient. They’ve always learned to make lemonade out of lemons.

But with this infrastructure, it’s not just about removing the bridge; it’s about then communicating with stakeholders in the area to help them build more businesses.”

Many older Black Tulsans, like Thompson, remember feeling angry and helpless as the buildings were leveled. The expressway cut down Black-owned businesses but swerved around the white-owned properties south of the railroad and venues like the Cain’s Ballroom.

“In those days we were denied participation in the political process, both local, county and state,” Thompson said. “The Black community was not at the table, and their voices were not heard, and their needs were ignored. People were denied the opportunity to pass down generational wealth, and many left the state for better opportunities.”

It’s that lack of representation and dismissal of concerns then that follows through to today.

“It was an historical trauma,” Culver said. “There are still people in shock from it. It still stings.”

The expressway blunted development efforts. Business owners don’t want a busy interstate as a next-door neighbor.

The Vernon AME Church, the sole surviving building from the massacre, has been shaken and rattled by highway traffic about 170 feet from its south wall.

Developer Kajeer Yar will open 21 North Greenwood later this year at Greenwood and Archer. He developed the GreenArch buildings next door in 2013. He and his wife, Maggie, were involved in the Hille Foundation’s donation of the adjacent property for the Greenwood Rising History Center.

Yar calls himself a “weird optimist” that Biden’s infrastructure plan could become a reality. That would mean Tulsa could compete for federal funds to redesign the Inner Dispersal Loop.

“I think this is going to be something that could happen within 10 years,” Yar said. “It’s one of those big dream ideas for cities. Why not Tulsa? Cities will be getting those federal dollars, so bringing that money here could do this project.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for the interstate to be built the way it is. There are some odd turns to it. Why was it routed that way? If it were to have gone straight through from east to west, it would’ve cut across First Street.”

Noise and rumbling from passing traffic makes the albatross of Interstate 244 worse. It was constructed with no sound walls, like those seen along Interstate 44 in south Tulsa.

A sound study that was completed during the development of the GreenArch

Photographer Donald Thompson took the last images of businesses in the Greenwood District before they were bulldozed to make way for I-244. “People in this area did not have to go anywhere else to find anything they needed or wanted. They had it all here,” Thompson said about Greenwood. building that found the expressway noise was louder than passing trains on the rail line.

“The people I know with skin in the game in the Greenwood area want to get rid of it,” Yar said. “When you look out beyond the expressway, you see some of the most beautiful land and hills in the city.

And people don’t think about it because of the visual barrier of the expressway.”

By eliminating or even lowering Interstate 244 to below grade with sound barriers, land becomes available for development. This could seamlessly expand into north and east neighborhoods such as Brady Heights and Crutchfield.

This type of expressway redesign has occurred in places such as Dallas and Boston, Yar said.

“These ring roads send the wrong message about downtown. It shouldn’t be a fortress from the rest of the city; downtown should be open and welcoming,” Yar said.

Beyond the economics is a moral imperative, he says.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Yar said.

“It’s a sign that we recognize the mechanisms from the past were misguided, and we’re redressing that now in Tulsa. … The psychological benefits to north Tulsa of removing the expressway would be well worth it.”

Later this year, the Pathway to Hope pedestrian walk will open, linking the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park to notable Greenwood landmarks. Some of Thompson’s photographs will line that trail.

Thompson’s work is internationally known, with pieces hanging in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., in local galleries and on permanent display at OSU-Tulsa. He has published two books, “Hush, Somebody’s Callin’ My Name” and “And My Spirit Said, Yes!” His third book will be out in 2022.

He’s a photojournalist who gets to know his subjects and their stories. He knows Greenwood well.

“I’m optimistic about the state of the country today,” Thompson said. “The youth of today and the next generation will have a say in what will come next. They will dictate what our country and Tulsa will become.”

As he looks at Interstate 244, Thompson points to spaces and names the businesses once there.

“I worked at night and came during the day to get photos before the bulldozers destroyed Greenwood,” Thompson said.

“They went about it so haphazardly without any forethought. They were fast, and I was trying to outrun them. My true regret is not taking more photographs.”

When hearing about the movement and federal proposal to reunite communities of color, his spirit lifts.

“Anything is possible,” Thompson said.

“With the strong faith, right resources, people working together, and local and state governments working for the betterment of all, any community can thrive again.” ginnie.graham@tulsaworld.com

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TULSA WORLD

“Only gas and water pipes, bath fixtures, bedsteads or other metal fixtures remain … where homes once stood. The negro residences remaining can almost be counted on one’s hand,” the World reported.

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Rising from the tragedy A look at the disparities and who is trying to change them

ARCHIVE EDITION | SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 THIS PROJECT WAS MADE POSSIBLE THANKS IN PART TO THE GENEROUS UNDERWRITING OF BURT B. HOLMES & THE GEORGE KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION

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| SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

TULSA WORLD

Continuing the search For Tulsa mayor, Race Massacre mass graves investigation is 98 years too late, but still absolutely necessary

A sign in the foreground reads “Never forget 1921” as forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield walks to a dig site at Oaklawn Cemetery in October to work on a test excavation and core sampling in the search for remains from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

STORY BY KEVIN CANFIELD | TULSA WORLD PHOTOS BY MIKE SIMONS | TULSA WORLD

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ayor G.T. Bynum understands that not everyone will be satisfied with the findings that come out of the city’s 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre mass graves investigation.

And he’s OK with that.

“Ultimately, it will of course be subject to criticism either from people who think we are looking in the wrong place, or people who think we shouldn’t be spending any money on it or any number of things,” Bynum said. “We are doing this for the victims and their families. We are not doing this to make everybody happy.”

The city is also doing it to right a wrong, a wrong that even just a few years ago Bynum could not wrap his head around. It was around 2013, and City Councilor Bynum was watching a web series on Tulsa’s hidden secrets by local historian and journalist Lee Roy Chapman.

“He had a video where he was standing in Oaklawn Cemetery, and he said, ‘This is where a commission found that there might be a mass grave from the Race Massacre,’” Bynum said. “As I had when I first heard about the Race Massacre, I thought, ‘There is no way that is actually true. There is no

way that in a city-owned cemetery we potentially have a mass grave from the Race Massacre and we have never bothered to dig and see if it is actually there or not.’”

But it was true. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, working with city and state officials, identified three potential mass grave sites: Newblock Park, Oaklawn Cemetery and Rolling Oaks Cemetery, formerly known as Booker T. Washington Cemetery.

For myriad reasons, no soil was ever turned.

“The understanding that I have is that there was concern amongst the families of people who were (known to be) buried in Oaklawn that there would be sort of a haphazard excavation with just bulldozers going through and digging trenches and potentially disturbing the remains of people who are buried in the cemetery,” Bynum said.

Politics also played a role. The commission’s authorization was about to expire, and continuing its work required the approval of a skeptical Legislature.

In subsequent years, Bynum said, he believed there was a presumption among local leaders that there would be a huge political backlash against doing the search.

“That was definitely my perception when (former) Councilor (Jack) Henderson and I wanted to move forward on this — that the concern was that it would make Tulsa look

“Ultimately, it will of course be subject to criticism either from people who think we are looking in the wrong place, or people who think we shouldn’t be spending any money on it or any number of things. We are doing this for the victims and their families. We are not doing this to make everybody happy.”

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, on the city’s search for a possible mass grave containing the bodies of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

Mayor G.T. Bynum tours the dig site at Oaklawn Cemetery during a test excavation last summer in the search for possible mass graves from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum views a trench at Oaklawn Cemetery where a mass grave was discovered during the search for victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. It will take more research to determine whether the remains are victims of the massacre. bad and that there would be a pushback against it,” Bynum said.

When Bynum was elected mayor in 2016, that obstacle, whether real or perceived, became irrelevant: He was now the decision-maker. Two years later, he announced the city’s intent to finish the job begun nearly two decades earlier.

“An advantage that we have now that they didn’t necessarily have then is that in 20 years technology when it comes to geophysical scanning has advanced remarkably,’ Bynum said. “So the (state) Archaeological Survey was able to do much more pinpoint, clear, accurate scanning to make sure that we wouldn’t be disturbing the graves.”

Tulsans he’s heard from have generally been supportive of the effort, Bynum, and to those who haven’t been he has a simple response.

“I say the same thing every time: Picture yourself in your house in the middle of the summer and somebody comes up, knocks on your door and says there is a riot going on and you have to come with them for your own safety.

“And you leave your house, you go to the Convention Center, and then you are locked in there for four days and you have no idea what is going on outside, and at the end of that period of time, the doors are open, you are allowed to leave, but you walk back to your house and your whole neighborhood is burned down, your business is burned down and there are members of your family missing, and you never find out what happened to them.

“Wouldn’t you want a city that would try to find them?

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum speaks with state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck in October as crews work on a second test excavation and core sampling at Oaklawn Cemetery in the search for remains from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

“And I have yet to have anybody say, ‘No, I wouldn’t want my city to try and find my family member who disappeared when my entire neighborhood got burned down.’”

The city’s mass graves investigation is being overseen by a citizens committee.

The meetings, especially early on, were sometimes rancorous, the distrust and frustration fueled by a century-long wait for justice boiling to the surface.

Bynum says he gets it.

“Those meetings are incredibly difficult and challenging because this is a very personal project for our city,” Bynum said.

“And everybody that is on that committee by design is personally passionate about this project and has different perspectives on how it ought to move forward. ... Again, I totally understand that. If a member of my family had been murdered and the city didn’t try to find their body for 98 years, I would be suspicious too.”

The chaos and carnage of May 31-June 1, 1921, left at least 37 people dead, and likely many more. More than 1,200 buildings, spread over 35 blocks of the Greenwood neighborhood, were burned to the ground, the vibrant heart of Tulsa’s Black community swept away in the ashes.

Bynum believes the city owes it to those killed and to their survivors to identify the victims.

“What we are trying to do is find murder victims, and that is a super basic responsibility of the city government, and those victims’ families were failed in that regard by the city in 1921,” Bynum said. “And we can’t go back and change that, but we can try to be a better city right now.”

Tulsa World reporter Randy Krehbiel contributed to this story. kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com

State archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck (right) directs Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum’s attention in October to something in a trench excavated at Oaklawn Cemetery in the search for remains from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Researchers confirmed that they found a mass grave at the site.

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TULSA WORLD

TULSA WORLD FILE

In 2007, Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris formally dismissed the original indictment against alleged massacre participants. For many Tulsans, the event remains a sensitive and controversial issue. For some, it is merely something that happened long ago with little relevance today. For others, however, it remains a symbol of oppression and prejudice that speaks to modern race relations.

Clearing the records

New York professor and Tulsa County district attorney helped win dismissal of charges against Black men accused in Tulsa Race Massacre

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KENDRICK MARSHALL | TULSA WORLD

uring a cold winter day in Tulsa, the Greenwood Cultural Center was one of the few places in the city at the time that had working utilities.

That’s because days earlier, on Dec. 8, 2007, a storm encased Tulsa in ice and snow that led to 80 percent of residents being left without power and the city losing an estimated 20,000 trees when it was over.

Three days later, on Dec. 11, then-Tulsa County District Judge Jesse Harris, former Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris and others gathered inside the near downtown multipurpose space for a special court hearing that would right what some had long considered a historic wrong.

Tim Harris filed a motion for dismissal of a then-86year-old indictment related to the 1921 Tulsa Race MasNevergold sacre.

It involved charges for various offenses against 56 men — all of them Black— issued by a Tulsa County grand jury nearly two weeks after the event.

In addition to allegations of rioting, unlawful use of firearms and theft on the Jesse Harris night of May 31, 1921, one of the more serious charges was murder stemming from the death of Walter Daggs, a white man who was among the first people confirmed to have died during the violence.

After Harris argued that he could not find evidence supporting the original indictment, Jesse Harris granted the overture to drop all the charges.

“Justice delayed in this instance is not justice denied,” Jesse Harris said during the 10-minute proceeding. “Justice at any time is an essential part of justice at all times.”

That chapter of massacre lore might have been closed if not for the efforts of Barbara Nevergold, a University of Buffalo professor and historian who researched and wrote extensively about A.J. Smitherman, one of the men later indicted by authorities.

Nevergold’s campaign for Smitherman began in 2003 shortly after a interaction with Tulsa educator and activist Eddie Faye Gates.

Gates, who devoted much of her life to documenting the massacre, told Nevergold about Smitherman, then described as one of the principal figures during the event.

Her curiosity, said Nevergold, about Smitherman’s role in the massacre piqued.

“I really committed the next three years or so, and did a lot of research,” she told the Tulsa World during a recent phone interview.

She and a colleague Peggy Brooks-Bertram launched an Oklahoma Centennial Commemorative Project with an accompanying book entitled, “Uncrowned Queens, African American Community Builders of Oklahoma” that contained a biography of Smitherman written by Nevergold.

Smitherman, a crusading and fiery journalist who founded the Tulsa Star, was a prominent voice for Black empowerment

and vehemently spoke out against lynchings and corruption.

An accounting of the massacre identified him as a leader of a group of armed Black men who went down to the Tulsa County Courthouse on the belief that Dick Rowland might be targeted by a white mob.

A confrontation at the courthouse then ensued, which sparked 16 hours of violence and destruction that left hundreds injured and thousands more homeless.

The massacre, which occurred over May 31-June 1, 1921, when white mobs invaded the predominantly African-American Greenwood District in Tulsa, resulted in desolation of 35 blocks of the community.

It also resulted in at least 37 fatalities.

Unofficial estimates suggest the death toll is substantially higher.

Smitherman, whose newspaper and home were destroyed, was arrested along with his brother, Sheriff’s Deputy John Smitherman.

The men, however, fell victim — like many others who faced charges — to general predispositions of who was responsible for the turbulence.

Adjutant General Charles Barrett, in command of the Oklahoma National Guard at the time, was quoted in local newspapers saying that the riot was caused by “an impudent Negro, a hysterical girl, and a yellow journal reporter.”

Tulsa Mayor T.D. Evans, elected in April 1920, said in a statement published by the World that culpability rested solely on “armed negroes and their followers who started this trouble and who instigated it.

And any persons who seek to put half the blame on the white people are wrong and should be told in no uncertain language ...

It is the judgment of many wise heads in Tulsa, based upon observation of a number of years, that this uprising was inevitable.”

Some later faulted Tulsa newspapers — the World and Tulsa Tribune — for publishing stories and editorials before and after the massacre that sparked the attack on Greenwood.

Despite Black Tulsans in Greenwood suffering the brunt of damage and witness testimonies stating that law enforcement actively assisted white mobs in damaging the thriving community, authorities shifted blame heavily on African American actors instead.

An all-white grand jury summoned the second week of June to investigate the massacre concluded only the armed Black men at the courthouse — not any whites who participated — were the direct cause of the uproar.

“We find that the recent race riot was the direct result of an effort on the part of a certain group of colored men who appeared at the courthouse on the night of May 31, 1921, for the purpose of protecting one Dick Rowland,” according to a statement found in the June 26, 1921, issue of the Tulsa World with the headline “Grand Jury Blames Negroes for Inciting Race Rioting. Whites Clearly Exonerated.’’

After bonding out of jail and his business and property left in ruins, A.J. Smitherman exited Tulsa for stops in St. Louis, Boston, then Buffalo.

In between, there were attempts by Oklahoma authorities to extradite Smitherman back to the state to stand trial on charges of inciting a riot but officials elsewhere in did not capitulate.

In retaliation for the lack of cooperation,

members of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma reportedly attacked and cut off John Smitherman’s ear as an act of intimidation.

Except for a few cases and a trial that resulted in the suspension of Tulsa Police Chief John Gustafson for dereliction of duty, there were no real criminal charges levied against anyone related to the massacre.

It was western New York, in 1925, where Smitherman, his wife and children finally settled. The longtime journalist soon started the Buffalo Star newspaper in 1932.

He would later rename it the Empire Star.

Along the way, he achieved community prominence in the Black community by running for the city council and was heavily involved in the local YMCA. It was Smitherman’s lifelong valor and impact in Buffalo that prompted Nevergold to call and write Tim Harris for nearly a year to make a case for expungement.

“I laid out the fact that I thought he was a person who led an exemplary life,” Nevergold said. “And even having lost everything, he rebuilt his life and became an outstanding citizen in Buffalo with very few people knowing about his background.”

At her request, Harris studied the records and other information released by the Tulsa Race Riot Commission as what he described “a legal duty to dig deep.” Among the items discovered was an affidavit requesting a change of venue on the behalf of Smitherman over concerns he couldn’t get a fair trial due to the racial make up of the jury, and that they would be influenced by grand jury statements reported in local newspapers.

In examining documents, Harris concluded that the evidence presented did not support the guilt of Smitherman or any other person accused by law enforcement, especially after authorities failed to aggressively pursue prosecution in the months after the massacre.

A relative of Smitherman also pressed Harris to dismiss the charges, too.

“I couldn’t really find any strong evidence to support the allegation,” he said. “And I said, ‘You know what. I think one part of what Tim Harris might be able to do as healing for this community is to clear your family’s name and take this outstanding indictment that hangs over A.J. Smitherman and all the other defendants.’”

Charges against J.B. Stradford, one of many indicted along with Smitherman, were dismissed by then-Tulsa County District Attorney Bill LaFortune in 2000.

Reflecting back some 14 years later, Nevergold — with no other ties to the massacre other than chronicling a singular character in the incident — was pleased that her work resonated enough to clear the records of otherwise innocent men and help uncover another untold portion of history.

“For me, this was a significant individual whose story was significant,” said Nevergold, who will host a webinar detailing her investigative work. “He’s a man whose story should come out of the shadows and should be well-known.

“I just like to think of him being a phoenix that really rose from those ashes. I know there are other men and women who survived who also have lives that should be amplified.” kendrick.marshall@tulsaworld.com

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

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Health disparities

Inequity can be traced to racism as far back as the early 20th century, when Black doctors and nurses were not allowed to work in Tulsa’s hospitals

Morton Comprehensive Health Services case manager and registered nurse Darlene Reynolds checks in with Beulah Coburn during a wellness visit at her house in Tulsa.

Morton case manager and registered nurse Darlene Reynolds checks food supplies at Beulah Coburn’s house.

Pharmacist Bob Woodard talks with patient Schirra Wilson at his business, Westview Medical Center.

STORY BY GINNIE GRAHAM | Editorial Writer PHOTOS BY STEPHEN PINGRY | Tulsa World

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egistered nurse Darlene Reynolds was reminding one of her homebound patients to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables to get control of a diabetes diagnosis.

The patient lived in a north Tulsa ZIP code with one of the lowest life expectancies in the county. There are no grocery stores or walking trails near the home, and transportation is difficult due to other disabilities.

“She asked me, “Why do you keep talking about all this? I don’t have any fresh fruits or vegetables, and I can’t get them easily.’ I have canned food. This is what I have to survive. I eat what I have,’” Reynolds said.

Reynolds quickly changed course. She went to the pantry and showed how to reduce the sodium by pouring out the canned liquid and soaking food in tap water.

“What I learned was that I have to meet people where they are,” she said.

Those are the types of obstacles health care providers north of Admiral Boulevard face with their patients.

The usual recommendations for leading more healthful lives are often out of reach or difficult to get for residents.

Tulsa’s historical inequities between north and south neighborhoods include provider access and health outcomes. The past 20 years have focused on improving a life expectancy gap, but it is stubbornly stuck at a decade less of life for those in north Tulsa.

This disparity tracks to the segregation of the early 20th century, when Black doctors and nurses were not allowed to work in Tulsa’s hospitals. In 1918, Frissell Memorial Hospital was built at 314 E. Brady St. for Black medical providers to serve Black residents.

The brick building near the bustling Black Wall Street was reduced to rubble and ash during the race massacre three years later. It was replaced with a makeshift clinic by the National Guard Armory for a day or two.

National Guard Maj. Paul Brown, a Tulsa doctor told management at Morningstar Hospital, predecessor to Hillcrest Medical Center, it would find room for Black patients. More than 60 Black patients were cared for in the basement. Shortly after, a nearby empty building was converted into the Cinnabar Hospital for Black patients.

The American Red Cross opened Maurice Willows Hospital later that year at 324 N. Hartford Ave., which

Rachael Pool stores food prepared in the kitchen into a cooler at the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.

evolved into Moton Memorial Hospital and now Morton Comprehensive Health Services.

Since then, the health care landscape in north Tulsa has mirrored the economic trends, with hospitals and private practices expanding to the south.

The perceived inequalities became factual with the release of a report from the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa showing a breakdown of life expectancy by ZIP codes in the county. Between 2000 and 2002, it found a nearly 14-year gap between the north 74126 ZIP code and the south 74137.

The alarming data touched off a flurry of projects to boost access to medical providers.

The Tulsa Health Department opened a $10 million North Regional Health Clinic; $15 million from a city tax package helped build the Morton Comprehensive Health Services building; and the $20 million OU Wayman Tisdale Specialty Health Clinic opened. The Westview Medical Center expanded; Crossover Health Services opened and investments were made to the Hutcherson YMCA. By 2015, that gap narrowed to 11 years, according to a report from a partnership between the health department, OU-Tulsa and the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

Though a formal analysis hasn’t been conducted since then, indicators point to a persistence of this difference.

Tulsa Health Department Chief Operating Officer Reggie Ivey serves as chairman of a north Tulsa community coalition seeking to eliminate health disparities.

Ivey said clinical access accounts for about 10% of a community’s health. The bigger affects are in behavior (30%) with healthier food options and exercise opportunities and in neighborhood social and economic factors (40%) like low unemployment and high-performing schools.

“There was an intentional focus on bringing more medical providers to north Tulsa, which is a part of the work, but it’s not the only thing needed to improve the health of a community,” Ivey said.

The traditional health care model focuses on patient education, genetics and provider access. The coalition found that’s not enough.

“This frame of thinking does not work,” Ivey said.

“Our approach now says we need to be more upstream in improving health outcomes where you have to focus on things such as classism, racism, sexism and immigrant bias. Because all of these ‘isms impact institu-

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100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

TULSA WORLD

Eric Esau prepares fresh carrots in the kitchen at the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma in Tulsa on April 20.

Rachael Pool stores meals prepared in the kitchen in a cooler at the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.

Tou Yang and Amy Brice go over Covid testing supplies at the Tulsa Health Department North Regional Health and Wellness Center.

tions, and they also impact neighborhood conditions and our schools.

“They impact our entire society, but oftentimes there is not a focus on those sorts of things because they are uncomfortable to talk about; they are uncomfortable to deal with. And it also causes those who are providing health care services and resources to have to look at their own biases.”

Simply, continued health disparities are from factors outside an exam room.

“The choices patients make are representative of the choices they have,” said Jabraan Pasha, M.D., a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, who serves at OU-Tulsa School of Community Medicine as director of student recruitment and pipeline programs and as an associate program director for the internal medicine residency program.

Pasha has become an internationally sought speaker on implicit bias, approaching the subject from a scientific view in a positive light.

“We need to de-stigmatize it and recognize that implicit bias is normal and we all have it,” Pasha said. “It’s dictated by the way our brains work and evolve. It’s OK, and no one should feel ashamed or bad about it.”

Several recent studies — including those from Stanford University, University of Miami and Penn Medicine — have shown that Black patients have better outcomes with Black medical providers. Only 6% of medical school graduates nationally are Black.

Recruiting students from under-represented populations starts in elementary school, says Pasha. OU-Tulsa hosts several math- and science-related clubs and programs to generate interest in young students.

But much work must be done within the existing health care fields to break down bias. Pasha cites studies from countries with universal health care showing similar health disparities among race.

“That isn’t from health care access, but from other factors,” Pasha said.

Health care bias is what drove Nyitti Avington into the care of nurse practitioner Anita Williams, who owns the A&M Healthcare Clinic at Westview Medical Center, 3606 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Avington believes white health care providers were not listening or taking her seriously. She began avoiding health care unless it was an emergency. Through word-of-mouth, she heard about the practice at Westview, which has Black providers.

“I love the culture here,” Avington said. “I have other choices, but I come here. The first time I walked into the clinic, I felt relieved. … I can be honest without being judged or lectured or self-conscious.”

Williams, a McLain High School graduate, opened the clinic after feeling unfulfilled at other health care institutions. Part of the attraction to Westview was getting support from the clinic for the business side of the practice. She now has nine employees with plans to

Antoinette Jackson teaches an Aqua Tabata class for seniors in the pool at Hutcherson YMCA, one of the center’s exercise programs.

expand to an east clinic.

“I walked away from a six-figure salary because this is what God told me to do. And I love, love what I do now,” Williams said. “I thank God he allowed me to have my own practice. I had felt like patients were being treated like numbers. I wanted to make a difference.”

Williams doesn’t bring in a computer when she meets with patients in exam room. She doesn’t have a time limit.

“Patients will not come back if they are not treated with dignity and respect,” Williams said.

For better patient outcomes, providers ought to be interested in understanding bias, said Syeachia Dennis, M.D., the assistant dean for equity and community engagement and professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at OU. “We are never going to have enough Black and brown physicians to treat all Black and brown people,” Dennis said. “So everybody has to learn; everybody had to learn cultural humility, understanding how to communicate with people and understanding some of the barriers to health equity.

“That is the responsibility of everybody who is in health care.”

The Tisdale clinic brought in specialists, added primary care and is re-launching a community advisory board. Dennis said all north Tulsa providers are grappling with having resources outside an exam room.

“Whether that is the food deserts, lack of jobs, unemployment or poor schools, all those social determinants of health a physician or clinician cannot directly impact,” Dennis said. “People in north Tulsa are facing challenges that don’t exist in south Tulsa.

“It’s multi-layered and has to do with access, social determinants and racism. All those things are why the disparities exist. It’s complicated, so the answer to that is multi-layered.”

The long-awaited Oasis Fresh Market at 1717 N. Peoria Ave. is expected to help with fresh food options.

Exercise programs at the Hutcherson YMCA and newly installed bike trails are part of keeping people active.

Other community improvements are a rapid bus transit line, the Peoria-Mohawk Business Park at Peoria Avenue and 36th Street North and pockets of housing development. But, it’s far from a major transformation.

“We understand it’s not just a local problem but a national problem,” Ivey said. “This country intentionally structured its system to repeatedly exclude certain groups of people from full participation and representation based on race and ethnicity.”

Westview Medical Center business manager Brian Woodard said recruiting providers remains a challenge.

The clinic added a pediatric practice in 2009 after Woodard couldn’t find a pediatrician for his own children.

“We need to de-stigmatize it and recognize that implicit bias is normal and we all have it.

It’s dictated by the way our brains work and evolve.

It’s OK, and no one should feel ashamed or bad about it.”

Jabraan Pasha, M.D., a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, who serves at OU-Tulsa School of Community Medicine as director of student recruitment and pipeline programs

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

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Ana Duran reads a book to Taryn Brantley and Halo Treleaven and other 2- and 3-year-olds at the Child Development Center at Hutcherson YMCA in Tulsa.

Leslie Myers teaches a Cardio Dance class for seniors at Hutcherson YMCA.

Birdie Clifton prepares meals for seniors at the Carter Center, which is part of Hutcherson YMCA.

“You can drive down Utica Avenue, and it’s doctor after doctor after doctor. You can drive down Memorial Drive and see rows of dentists,” Woodard said. “There is nothing out here. We have spots here and there, but there are not enough doctors to serve all the people.”

When Crossover Heath Services, 940 E. 36th St. North, opened in 2014, other clinics were welcoming.

“Most people from a business standpoint would think there would be competition,” Woodard said. “But there is more than enough here to serve all the people.

We saw that when we opened the pediatric practice. We couldn’t keep up with the demand.”

At Morton, Reynolds stays busy doing home visits and serving as a case manager to connect patients with community resources. That often means going well beyond health care.

Once, she intervened on behalf of a couple expecting a child who were homeless because an apartment manager would not return calls. In February, a grandmother who is disabled and raising four grandchildren, some sick with COVID-19, was unable to get water delivered for days after a city waterline break.

“Sometimes it takes someone to advocate for our patients whenever they are in need. They are sometimes not taken seriously,” Reynolds said.

Morton’s creation after the race massacre has created loyal patients through the decades. About 40% to 50% are uninsured, but officials expect about 75% of that

People exercise in O’Brien Park. Exercise opportunities are one of the biggest indicators of health for a community.

group to qualify for Medicaid once the state implements expansion.

However, Chief Executive Officer Susan Savage joins a long list of providers opposed to the state’s decision for Medicaid to be managed by private companies.

“I have not heard anyone say how this actually impacts that patient who has not had access to insurance prior to Medicaid,” Savage said. “I‘ve heard we’re going to see improved delivery of services, great efficiency and it’s good for health care.

“But I haven’t heard anyone talking about how that patient will benefit from a system that is going to be quite bureaucratic and quite cumbersome when the Health Care Authority has done an outstanding job of managing Medicaid.”

Morton operates its own transportation system to get patients to appointments, offers a diabetes classes has partnerships with the Salvation Army, Tulsa Housing Authority and Family and Children’s Service to reach more patients.

“The people who come through our doors often have life circumstances that are hard, so a health problem may be symptomatic of other bigger issues,” Savage said. “It can make me cry seeing the level of commitment people have trying to find a way to help somebody in need that is not judgmental. … My ethics say to me that health care is a right, not a privilege.

“It should not be a factor of one’s economics.”

Nurse practitioner Anita Williams consults with patient Nyitti Avington at her A&M Healthcare Clinic inside of Westview Medical Center.

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TULSA WORLD | SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

Dr. Leroy M. Cole preaches at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Tulsa on a Sunday.

The church was destroyed during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

A mural of Jackie Robinson, the first Black athlete to play Major League Baseball, looks out over fans at ONEOK Field.

The hallway between businesses in the Greenwood District are decorated with photographs, historical documents and artifacts that document the history of Black Wall Street through the decades.

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

The Rev. Robert Turner (right) receives the “Book of Redemption” from Francisco Rodriguez of the Museum of the Bible at Vernon AME Church. The book is a ledger that kept track of parishioners who donated money to rebuild the church after it was destroyed during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

A WEEK IN GREENWOOD

Seven days in the historic district in downtown Tulsa a century after a tragedy that left it in ruin

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

Traffic travels on Interstate 244 above the Black Wall Street mural.

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

Dr. Leroy M. Cole leads his church in a welcome song for visitors in the audience during a Sunday morning service at Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

Taking cover from the rain under umbrellas, Erica Roberts of Washington, D.C., her mother, Cassandra Roberts of Atlanta, and Ebony Iman Dallas of Oklahoma City look at a plaque in the sidewalk just north of where I-244 cuts across the Greenwood District. The Robertses said they were in town as part of a mother-daughter Black history tour they created for themselves. The plaque is in memory of Hodnett Construction, which was destroyed during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and never re-opened.

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

Construction of Greenwood Rising, Black Wall Street’s History Center, continues at the corner of Archer Street and Greenwood Avenue.

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

Mike Helms, who goes by “Mike the Barber,” cuts Tay Taft’s hair at Tee’s Barber Shop on Greenwood Avenue in Tulsa. Tay came to Tee’s to get a haircut hours before he graduated from Sapulpa High School.

Vicky Brunson teaches Langstyn Calvert, 10, during a ballet class at VickyB’s Dance Company in the Greenwood District. Brunson, who has been dancing since she was 3 years old, now teaches children of all ages and has owned her dance studio for six years.

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

Angela Robinson opened Black Wall Street Corner Store and More on Greenwood Avenue on May 19.

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TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

‘Still so much we can learn’

Meet 10 Tulsans helping proclaim the history of the city’s too-long-ignored race massacre

T TIM STANLEY | Tulsa World

he Tulsa World recently talked to 10 Tulsans who, each in their own way, have committed to telling the story of Greenwood and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre while helping raise awareness of its toolong-ignored history. ¶ Who are they and what motivates them? What are their hopes for the centennial? Meet them here:

MICHAEL NOBLE JR., TULSA WORLD

Mechelle Brown, program director at the Greenwood Cultural Center, leads tours of the historic Greenwood District and refers to herself as a “historical storyteller.”

MECHELLE BROWN

I

t was while working as a nursing aide to an older Tulsan that Mechelle Brown’s mother first became aware that the city had a dark chapter in its past.

“She had moved here from Arizona and didn’t know anything about Tulsa’s history,” Brown said. “Until this elderly white man she was caring for began to ramble on in his old age.”

The man’s references to “fires, shooting, killing and the smoke” made Brown’s mother curious. So she took her questions to her Tulsa in-laws.

“They told her, ‘We don’t talk about that around here — and don’t go asking anybody about it,’” Brown said.

A child at the time, the late 1970s, she still remembers overhearing that conversation.

“It stuck with me,” she said.

After growing up during that era of silence, when out of fear Black Tulsans didn’t bring up the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Brown has plenty to say on the subject today.

In fact, as a representative of the Greenwood Cultural Center, where she serves as program director and tour guide, leading

tours of historic Greenwood, she’s been talking about it for the last 25 years.

“I actually refer to myself as a historical storyteller,” Brown said.

Starting at the center in 1996 as an office assistant, she learned firsthand from historian Eddie Faye Gates. Gates was giving tours at the time, and Brown got to accompany her, including once as she took civil rights icon Rosa Parks around.

The questions visitors ask have not changed, Brown said. For one, they want to know how the once-thriving Black community came to be, considering the times in which its residents were living.

Then they want to know what happened after it was rebuilt — “why we don’t have Black Wall Street today.”

Something that has changed over the years, though, is the story Brown tells.

“Our knowledge has definitely evolved with new information, new photographs, new oral histories. We’re able to tell a more accurate — a more complete — story now.”

The city’s ongoing mass graves investigation — Brown serves on a subcommittee of that effort — has prompted more people

to come forward with family stories, she said.

“It’s been nearly 100 years, but there’s still so much we can learn.”

Brown hopes young Blacks in Tulsa, especially, are paying attention.

“For role models they often look to athletes and musicians and artists, but we want them to know that there are people, possibly in their own bloodline, who grew up in this community that they should honor and respect and look up to.”

From business owners and attorneys and doctors to electricians and plumbers, Greenwood was home to a strong, independent people who “had a sense of pride and community spirit,” Brown said.

“That’s the part of the story that gives me a joy and that I want to make sure our children know,” she said.

Brown has no plans to stop telling that story. And with all the visitors expected during the centennial, she’s recruiting more docents to help.

For Tulsans and non-Tulsans alike, “I hope we all feel empowered and motivated by Greenwood and its resilience and strength and courage,” she said.

ROBERT TURNER

T

MICHAEL NOBLE JR., TULSA WORLD

The Rev. Robert Turner first heard about the Tulsa Race Massacre while studying law at the University of Alabama. After following the call to ministry, Turner found himself lead pastor of historic Vernon AME Church, the church most identified with the massacre.

he idea of reparations for slavery had always been consistent with the Rev. Robert Turner’s vision of America.

“When bad things happen in this country, we’re supposed to follow that up with good things to compensate for the bad,” he said.

But it wasn’t until he was studying law at the University of Alabama that Turner learned about other possible applications of the same idea.

“My professor was working on a (reparations) case out of Tulsa” related to the 1921 Race Massacre, he said. “He knew I was an advocate for reparations. He brought it up to show me that reparations work might be a direction I could go as a lawyer.”

Only one problem: By that point, Turner’s heart had begun to lean more toward ministry than law. Soon, he’d leave law school to pursue that calling.

What he had no way of knowing, Turner said, was that “by going into ministry, God would directly put me in a place where I could fight for reparations.”

And, of all places, it would be in the very

city his professor had mentioned.

After pastoring several churches in Alabama, his home state, Turner moved to Tulsa in 2017, taking over as lead pastor of historic Vernon AME Church, the church most identified with the massacre.

In his four years since arriving, Turner has become an advocate for massacre survivors and their descendants. He’s injected his voice into the reparations conversation, as well, including taking up his megaphone to lead a regular weekly call for reparations in front of City Hall.

Turner was instrumental in getting the city to launch its ongoing mass graves investigation, and he’s been a vocal member of the graves committee.

He hopes the upcoming centennial will serve to honor the “faith and resilience” of the Greenwood residents who rebuilt.

At the same time, the world needs to know the massacre has never been properly investigated nor justice rendered, Turner said.

“And until that happens,” he added, “Greenwood remains first and foremost a crime scene.”

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

MARC CARLSON

A

MICHAEL NOBLE JR., TULSA WORLD

Marc Carlson is director of special collections at the University of Tulsa’s McFarlin Library. Through his research he has been able to increase the library’s race massacre archive over the years.

s a senior history major at Oklahoma State University, Marc Carlson was having trouble coming up with a topic for a term paper.

“It was supposed to be about something that most people had never heard of,” he said. “And so my wife suggested the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.”

“I was not familiar with it. But she’d learned about it as a student at Memorial (High School).”

Working at the University of Tulsa’s McFarlin Library at the time, 1989, Carlson decided to start his research on the subject there.

But he immediately ran into a problem: All the massacre-related newspaper articles from 1921 were missing.

“They had been razored out of the periodicals,” Carlson said.

Whoever was behind it, he added, “I suspect wanted to make it much harder to study the topic.”

Carlson forged ahead anyway. Using interlibrary loans, he was able to acquire the missing articles. And after completing his paper, he donated them to McFarlin.

That, essentially, is how the library’s Race Massacre archive got its start, Carlson said.

Today, more than 30 years later, that archive has grown impressively. And it’s due largely to the ongoing efforts of Carlson, who later became special collections director.

“As I’ve done research over the years, I’ve been adding to it, growing it,” he said.

Carlson has put special focus on massacre-related photos and just recently made an exciting discovery about one of the more than 200 in the collection.

He believes he now knows the identity of the man in a widely circulated image of a white rioter in a cap, chewing a cigar and toting two shotguns: Fred Barker of the infamous Barker gang.

The gang had Tulsa-area ties, and Carlson said he’d “suspected that they were probably involved. But I hadn’t found any proof. Then I ran across his mugshot. I’m 95% certain.”

“They were in town, and they would’ve been all over” an event like the massacre, he said.

The discovery is one more piece of the larger story, of which a little more is learned with every passing year. Carlson and TU are grateful to have played a part in that.

“The people of Greenwood — their story deserves to be told,” he said. “I have the greatest respect for them and what they were able to achieve, both before and after the massacre.”

“My hope for the future,” Carlson added, “is that this doesn’t get forgotten again.”

HANNIBAL JOHNSON

B

efore writing four books on the subject, Hannibal Johnson had to learn about it for himself.

“Growing up in Fort Smith, Arkansas, I knew nothing of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre,” said the Tulsa historian and attorney.

Even after moving to Tulsa in 1984, fresh out of law school, it would be a few more years before he heard or learned anything.

Johnson’s first efforts to write about the massacre came in the 1990s as a guest editorialist for the Tulsa-based Oklahoma Eagle, a Black-owned newspaper that traces its origins to the year after the massacre.

What he began to realize as he dug deeper, he said, was that the massacre was just “one chapter in a grander narrative.”

And it was that bigger story — of Greenwood’s founders and leading citizens and the “indom-

itable spirit” they showed — that he felt compelled to share.

Today, no one has written and spoken more widely on the history of Greenwood and the 1921 massacre than Johnson, who is also education chairman of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission.

His latest book debuted recently: “Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples with its Historical Racial Trauma.”

As more people around the world come to know the story because of the centennial, Johnson hopes the message they take away is that “our shared humanity is paramount.”

“So much turns on our ability to recognize the personhood, value and dignity of every other person in this world,” he said. “If and when we do that, our challenges around peaceable co-existence will diminish exponentially.”

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

Hannibal Johnson, shown at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, is education chairman of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission.

KRISTI WILLIAMS

T

he beloved great aunt who used to babysit her.

For many years, that was the primary image Kristi Williams had of her Tulsa relative Jamie Edwards.

But there was so much more to her late aunt’s life. And as Williams learned the details — especially those relating to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — her admiration for her only grew.

“We would hear the stories (about Edwards surviving the massacre), but we just didn’t know what that was all about,” said Williams, who moved from Philadelphia to Tulsa in the fifth grade.

At the time the massacre broke out, her aunt, a Greenwood resident, was with a date at the Dreamland Theater. She would end up fleeing to Claremore and didn’t return to Tulsa for several years.

Williams began learning the larger story surrounding the massacre in the 1990s, when the state’s 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission was established and the topic began to gain momentum.

“I started researching and learning and reading everything I could,” Williams said.

What spurred her to activism, she added, was when massacre survivors lost their case for reparations in 2003.

In the years since, she’s continued to advocate for reparations while taking on other is-

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

Kristi Williams takes flowers to a soil collection ceremony at Vernon AME Church in November 2019 for Henry Walker, a victim of the Tulsa Race Massacre. sues related to Tulsa’s troubled racial past.

That included helping lead the effort to change the name of Brady Street after it became better known that early-day prominent Tulsan Tate Brady had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Currently, Williams chairs the Greater Tulsa African American Affairs Commission

and is a member of the committee overseeing the city’s search for mass graves.

Williams hopes African Americans everywhere will come to feel a connection to the Greenwood story.

“I tell people Greenwood knew me before I knew Greenwood,” she said. “I think that Greenwood belongs to every Black person in the world. It

was made up of people who came from everywhere.

“Oklahoma was a promised land — we came here because we wanted to be free of lynchings, to just have the safety, to build our families and communities.

“Every Black person should come here and put their feet on this soil and feel that spirit of community.”

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100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

TULSA WORLD

TULSA WORLD FILE

A Tulsa native and 1953 graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, Julius Pegues learned about the race massacre as a child from the adults in his life, including some who experienced it directly.

JULIUS PEGUES

J

ulius Pegues could’ve said goodbye to Tulsa for good.

Within four years of enrolling at the University of Pittsburgh, where he was the first Black player on the basketball team, the Tulsa native had earned a degree in mechanical engineering. From there, joining the Air Force, he trained as a meteorologist.

But with options that could’ve taken him anywhere, Pegues still chose Tulsa.

“I came back to my hometown because I loved it,” said Pegues, 85.

Loved it, he added, in spite of what he knew about it.

A Tulsa native and 1953 graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, Pegues learned about the 1921 massacre as a child from the adults in his life, including some who experienced it directly.

Two of Pegues’ uncles had built Mount Zion Baptist Church, which was destroyed by the fire. His coach Seymour Williams was also an eyewitness.

The massacre was even discussed at home, said

“We have a long way to go, but we have made significant progress in improving race relations and opportunities.”

Pegues, one of nine siblings: “While other people didn’t talk about it, in my family we talked about it.”

But “we had to be on our P’s and Q’s wherever we were in Tulsa and not say anything around the wrong people.”

Pegues is thankful that he’s lived to see a day when the events of 1921 can be discussed openly. Today, he does that as chairman of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation and Reconciliation Park, which serves in part as a memorial to massacre victims.

Pegues said he’s looking ahead to the centennial after a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer. He received good news in early April: His latest scans showed no cancer.

“God is good all the time,” he said. “All my friends kept me buoyed up. Love transcends everything.”

Pegues is confident that that’s true even of racism.

“Tulsa has made significant progress,” he said.

“Now, we have a long way to go, but we have made significant progress in improving race relations and opportunities.”

Julius Pegues, Tulsa native and 1953 graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, on his perception of racism in Tulsa

MICHAEL NOBLE JR., TULSA WORLD STEPHEN PINGRY, TULSA WORLD

State Sen. Kevin Matthews, shown at the Greenwood Rising construction site, sees the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre as “the beginning of the things that we want to start happening.”

KEVIN MATTHEWS

A

s a career firefighter, state Sen. Kevin Matthews knows well the kind of destruction flames can wreak.

But a fire that consumes 35 square blocks, reducing to ashes the heart of whole community? That’s hard for even him to picture.

Harder still, he said, is accepting what sparked and then fanned it: prejudice and hate.

Matthews, who retired as Tulsa Fire Department administrative chief before running for state office, said one of the things that he takes personally about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is how government agencies that were supposed to be there for Black Tulsans were not.

“We weren’t protected by the police,” he said. “The Fire Department was held back by the local officials at that time.

It disappoints me that the government would support this kind of tragedy.”

Matthews, chairman of the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, was well into adulthood before he even heard about the massacre.

A Tulsa native who’s always lived on the city’s predominantly Black north side, he was in his 30s, he said, when he first learned about it from a documentary.

“It was 1994, and an uncle of mine gave me this VHS tape.

It had Tulsa Race Riot written on it. And he said, ‘You need to look at this.’”

As the images of smoke filled his television screen, “I couldn’t believe it,” Matthews said. “I thought, ‘How could I not know about this?’”

One of Matthews’ goals today is to make sure no one will ever ask that question again.

As chairman of the centennial commission, he’s excited about progress on the Greenwood Rising history center, which will be dedicated during the centennial, then open to the public in June.

“I can get emotional about these things, but we need to be intentional,” he said. “So I’m focusing on those things that we can do, and there’s a lot more that needs to happen.

Telling the story is just the foundation.”

Author and graphic designer of “The Victory of Greenwood,” Carlos Moreno is shown in his home office in Tulsa earlier this month. He first heard about Greenwood and the Tulsa Race Massacre in the late 1990s when he moved from Silicon Valley to Tulsa.

CARLOS MORENO

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efore writing his book “The Victory of Greenwood,” Carlos Moreno wasn’t sure he was the right person for the task.

“I didn’t grow up in Tulsa.

I’m not Black — I’m Mexican on both sides of my family,” said Moreno, who hails from Santa Clara, California.

“So I really struggled with whether I was anyone who had anything to say about Greenwood.”

A graphic designer by trade, he first heard about Greenwood and the Tulsa Race Massacre in the late 1990s when he moved from Silicon Valley to Tulsa.

Looking for work, he took on some projects for Greenwood clients. It was through relationships that he made, including community elders, that he began to learn about the history in “bits and pieces,” he said.

“The story just stuck with me,” Moreno said, adding that what turned his growing interest into a passion was when he designed an Oklahoma Eagle

special issue about the 2001 Tulsa Race Riot Commission report.

He began collecting “books, articles, documentaries, anything and everything I could get my hands on about Greenwood.”

But it wasn’t until more recently — inspired by the interracial mission of his church, All Souls Unitarian — that “the idea started gelling more about how I could contribute to this conversation.”

The result was the book, which is being published through All Souls and will be available online and in local bookstores in time for the centennial.

The work is Moreno’s attempt to help readers go beyond the massacre, focusing on the pivotal figures who rebuilt the community.

“Often we look at Greenwood as a subject of pity, and that’s all it ever was or is or will be,” he said. “This horrible thing happened, but it’s not the only thing that defines Greenwood.”

TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

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IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD

Centennial Commission Project Manager Phil Armstrong speaks during a tour in March of Greenwood Rising, a new museum that will tell the story of Greenwood from its origins in the early 1900s to the present day.

PHIL ARMSTRONG

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ttending a historically Black institution — especially one with ties to the oldest African American-run college in the nation — helped enlarge Phil Armstrong’s perspective.

“They passed on things that we did not get in our general history books in public school,” said the Ohio native, who went to Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio.

It even included some Oklahoma history.

As a sophomore in 1991, in fact, Armstrong spent an entire semester studying the unique story of African Americans in Oklahoma, which once boasted the most all-Black towns in the country.

“I got fully immersed,” said Armstrong, who also learned about Greenwood and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Later on, in 1997, Armstrong moved to Tulsa for work. He was in for a surprise.

“Most Tulsans had never heard of this history,” said Armstrong, who now serves as project director of the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission.

“I was literally shocked that somebody in Ohio could come here and know more about (Greenwood and the massacre) than most Blacks or whites who were raised here,” he said.

As one of his duties with the commission, Armstrong is supervising a project that promises not only to teach that history better but to reach more people, Tulsans and non-Tulsans included.

Set to open in June, the new Greenwood Rising history center will tell the full story of historic Greenwood, from its origins in the early 1900s to the present day.

When he speaks to groups, Armstrong emphasizes that achieving true racial healing in America will take not just laws and

policies but a change of hearts and minds.

The museum, he believes, can be a catalyst for that.

“When people leave here, I believe they will be changed and that Tulsa and the Greenwood story will become a model,” he said. “People will go back to their communities and say, ‘Look what they are doing in Tulsa. What if we take some of that and bring that here for our community?’”

Armstrong, who just completed a final review of the center’s exhibit wing, said that as familiar as he is with the project, “it still moves me emotionally just how powerful this history is — not just the horrific nature of the massacre but how incredible this community was to survive and prosper.”

“It is incredible,” he said of the center.

“I can’t wait. It’s going to be a powerful, powerful experience.”

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD

Kavin Ross watches a test excavation at Oaklawn Cemetery in July 2020 in the search for possible mass graves from the race massacre.

KAVIN ROSS

I

t wasn’t long after Kavin Ross’ family moved in that one of their new neighbors sent them a message.

“We found it the next morning — somebody had set our car on fire,” said Ross, who was 6 when his family became one of the first Black households in their predominantly white Tulsa neighborhood.

“I wondered why someone would do that while we slept,” he said. “That was my first taste of racism.”

Making a more profound impression on him, however, was how his father responded later.

Managing editor of Impact Magazine, which in 1971 published a 50th anniversary article about the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, Don Ross sent Kavin and his siblings into their neighborhood bearing copies of the issue.

“He had us go door to door selling copies,” Ross laughed. “It was pretty, pretty bold.”

That landmark article by Tulsan Ed Wheeler — the first time in 50 years anyone

had written about the massacre — made an impression on Ross, too.

“I think I was probably one of the only children to know about the massacre,” said the longtime Greenwood advocate. “And it was because of that magazine. I remember it vividly. I don’t think I fully grasped that it was about Tulsa.”

It would be several more years before that fully sank in.

Ross was living in Houston, he said, when he saw the 1993 massacre-related documentary “Goin’ Back to T-Town” and was “mesmerized by the images. And the people — I knew many of them.

“I realized that it was my heritage, too.”

Inspired to move back to Tulsa, Ross has been committed pretty much ever since to helping tell that story.

Currently chairman of the committee overseeing the city’s search for mass graves, Ross is fully invested in preserving and promoting Greenwood history. One of his proudest moments, he said, was having a

historical marker erected in Greenwood honoring the legacy of Booker T. Washington High School.

He was also involved with the efforts of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission — cofounded in 1996 by his father, who had gone on to become a state representative.

He worked alongside historian Eddie Faye Gates, videoing her interviews with massacre survivors.

Along with Gates, Ross also claimed as an influential friend the late historian John Hope Franklin.

“He gave me a mission. He said to make all Tulsans historians,” Ross said.

Ross hopes the centennial can help take Tulsa a step closer to fully confronting its past.

“I think we can be a jewel for the rest of the world in how we deal with it,” he said.

“The world is at our front door, and they are looking at us and asking questions.” tim.stanley@tulsaworld.com

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TULSA WORLD

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

‘Don’t do that story’ Fifty years ago, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre was a taboo subject when Tulsan Ed Wheeler set out to write an article ‘to find out what happened.’ He had no idea the threats and resistance he would face just for trying.

MICHAEL NOBLE JR., TULSA WORLD

Ed Wheeler, a retired Oklahoma National Guard brigadier general and former Tulsa Community College history instructor, is shown earlier this month before discussing an article he wrote about the Tulsa Race Massacre 50 years ago. Both he and his family received threats while he researched the article.

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TIM STANLEY | Tulsa World

captain at the time with a National Guard infantry battalion, Ed Wheeler wasn’t overly worried about his own safety.

He had a rifle and he knew how to use it.

But there was his wife and their little boy to think about.

“I ended up moving them in with my motherin-law,” Wheeler said. “I didn’t want to take a chance on them being caught in any crossfire.

“Whoever was tracking me knew where I lived.”

Looking back today, it’s hard to say whether or not the precaution was warranted.

But at the time in 1970, in light of all the threats, it certainly felt like it, Wheeler said.

“I received notes on my windshield — at my home, threatening me,” he recalled. “My wife received phone calls late at night.”

So, just what was it about Wheeler that would make someone want to scare him off like this?

As unlikely as it might sound, it was an article he was researching.

An article on a subject that, clearly, some people did not want to revisit.

The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Wheeler, today a retired Oklahoma National Guard brigadier general and former Tulsa Community College history instructor, reflected recently on the experience behind that writing project.

Published in Impact Magazine in 1971, his “Profile of a Race Riot” is considered the first serious contemporary look at the events of May 31-June 1, 1921.

At the time, Scott Ellsworth’s book “Death in a Promised Land” was still more than 10 years away.

When Wheeler undertook the project, which took him almost a year to complete, he didn’t grasp just how sensitive the subject was. But he would learn quickly.

Not only were there threats and a general lack of cooperation, in the end, the local magazine that had solicited the story turned it down.

So would several other Tulsa media outlets that Wheeler approached.

Today — 50 years later and on the eve of the massacre centennial — Wheeler, 83, doesn’t harbor any ill will, he said, toward any of them.

It was a sensitive subject, and at a tumultuous time for the country.

“We were a racially divided community, just like many others,” he said.

Wheeler considers Tulsa his hometown. But he’s originally from New York City. His father was a police officer, who, after being seriously wounded in the line of duty, went into oil contracting.

After moving around a lot, the family settled in Tulsa to stay. It’s been Wheeler’s home since ninth grade.

The job that would lead to him tackling the massacre started in 1963 while working his way through the University of Tulsa.

Wheeler, always interested in history, began doing a radio show on KVOO. Called “The Gilcrease Story,” it focused on historical events tied to pieces in the Gilcrease Museum collections.

Wheeler wrote and performed his own scripts, and it quickly grew to five shows a week, a routine he would keep up for 10 years.

His main goal with the popular shows, which brought Civil War battles and other events to life with realistic sound effects, was simple, he said: “I wanted my listeners to feel like they were there.”

‘Don’t do that story’

One day in 1970, over lunch at the Tulsa Press Club, Larry Silvey, editor of Tulsa Magazine, put a question to Wheeler.

“Is there any subject in American history you would not cover on your program?”

Wheeler didn’t have to think about it.

He first became aware of the Tulsa Race Riot, as it was then called, in the 1950s after moving to Tulsa. It wasn’t taught in school, but most people knew about it, he said.

“Maybe they didn’t know the details — but it

has been an undercurrent in Tulsa all of my life,” he said.

Answering Silvey, Wheeler said that the riot was a subject he would not cover. It was a tense era for race relations nationally; he feared his sound effects-laden productions would confuse listeners.

They might think an actual riot was in progress, he said, and “I didn’t want to be responsible for that.”

So Silvey made Wheeler a proposal: Write about the riot for Tulsa Magazine.

Wheeler jumped on it. It was the chance to finally satisfy his curiosity about the event.

“Nobody had ever been able to tell me exactly what happened,” he said.

He would approach the article as a historian, he decided, focusing only on what he could prove. “A good historian,” he added, “will never print anything that he can’t prove.”

It didn’t take long to realize, though, it wasn’t going to be easy.

For starters, the institutions he approached for help with records, when they learned what it was for, weren’t very helpful.

Not many people, it turned out, were fans of the idea.

And as word quickly spread about what Wheeler was up to, “I was told by at least a half a dozen men of various positions to drop the subject,” he said.

One admonition was issued via an encounter on the streets of downtown Tulsa.

“A guy came up to me, slapped me on the back and said, ‘Don’t do that story.’ Then he turned around and walked off,” he said. “I still don’t know who the hell he was.”

Most unsettling were the threats — the notes and phone calls that led him to eventually relocate his wife and son.

What was everyone afraid of?

Wheeler eventually figured it out, he thinks.

“I think they were afraid I was going to ‘name names.’ And it was going to be very embarrassing for some people,” he said. “In 1970, there were people in positions of influence in Tulsa that 50 years earlier had been in their 20s and were involved in some way in the riot.”

Exposing and shaming people wasn’t Wheeler’s goal, though.

“My only objective was trying to find out what happened,” he said. “That was the story I was writing.”

In the end, the people who tried to scare or dissuade Wheeler could have saved themselves the trouble.

“The more I ran into that kind of opposition, the more it aggravated me,” he said. “And I’m not the kind of person that can be put off easily when I have a mission.

“That’s not how I became a general.”

Fear

Employed in corporate communications by day, Wheeler worked on the article in the evenings.

It took him 10 months to finish. But after everything he’d been through, suddenly it looked like it might all have been for nothing.

Tulsa Magazine, a publication of the Metro Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, was known under the late Silvey for taking on tougher, newsier topics. But for Silvey’s bosses, the Race Massacre apparently was too hot a subject.

They refused to publish Wheeler’s story.

“Larry told me they were afraid it would start a riot. Those were the exact words,” he said.

From there, Wheeler tried other media outlets, including Tulsa’s two daily newspapers, the World and Tribune. They turned the story down as well.

“I’m not condemning all these people,” he said, adding that again, he understands the era.

Finally, on the verge of giving up, Wheeler found a taker. Impact Magazine, a Black-owned publication targeting Tulsa’s African American community, welcomed the article, publishing it the last week of May 1971 in time for the 50th anniversary of the riot.

For the first time, people could read an almost hour-by-hour breakdown of how the massacre unfolded, along with context about the era and the events leading up to it.

Wheeler relied on newspaper accounts and records he could access.

What readers wouldn’t find in it were excerpts from his interviews with eyewitnesses. Wheeler interviewed around 90, both white and Black, but ultimately didn’t use their recollections, because as a historian he couldn’t corroborate them.

“Keep in mind what my mission was: What happened. I didn’t want people’s opinions,” he said. “(The interviewees) were all in the riot, and/ or saw it, but of the 90 nobody could verify anybody else.”

Still, the personal interviews made an impression on Wheeler. Clearly, 50 years had made no difference in people’s emotions.

Fear was the most prevalent one. All those interviewed, both Black and white, were afraid, Wheeler said — although for different reasons.

With the whites, he believes, it was out of embarrassment over the massacre. For African Americans, it was more a fear of possible repercussions for talking.

“Black folks were anxious to tell the story, but every interview was at their church with a minister present,” he said. “And they refused to allow me to use their names.”

Wheeler even interviewed members of the Ku Klux Klan, one whose words of hate he remembers to this day.

“He was an unreconstructed Klansman who actually came from someplace in Creek County but he happened to be in Tulsa when the riot occurred.

“He told me to my face — ‘the only mistake we made was we didn’t kill them all.’”

The casualness with which the man made the observation was shocking, Wheeler said. “It burned into my skull. I’ve never forgotten it.”

‘It’s history. It happened.’

The 1971 story would be Wheeler’s one and only time to write about the Race Massacre. But he feels a strong connection to the subject, and has paid close attention over the years to other writings.

He disagrees with more recent trends of how the story is presented.

Currently lying on his desk is a new article about the massacre in a national magazine. He’s pored over it, marking with an orange highlighter all the “wild, unfounded stuff” contained within.

“A historian is interested in only what he can prove,” Wheeler said. “That’s what my role has been throughout my life.”

Among the points on which he hasn’t wavered is the event’s death toll. While an unofficial total in the hundreds is now commonly cited, Wheeler stands by the official estimate of less than 40, which he believes is roughly accurate.

Also, the now commonly used word “massacre” is not a good fit, he said, given his understanding of how the event unfolded.

But Wheeler also understands that it’s an emotionally charged subject.

“I’m not passing judgment on anybody,” he said.

Wheeler has devoted much of his life to the past. Along with a bachelor’s and master’s in history, he taught the subject at TCC for 11 years, and lectured at many other universities.

He continues to believe that history, no matter how dark and unflattering, needs to be brought into the light.

To the people in 1970 who opposed his efforts to do that, Wheeler, if he could, would say: “It’s history. It happened. Do you deny your own history?”

As for the article, he achieved what he set out to do, he said, using the limited resources that were available.

“I recorded what happened to the best of my ability,” Wheeler said. “Fifty years have opened not only many minds and eyes, but access to papers, documents and a variety of other sources that were closed to me.”

One thing that was clear in 1921, 1971 and also in 2021: “This was a horrible, horrible event for Tulsa,” Wheeler said.

“And it underscores the driving point that we should all remember whenever we’re dealing with anybody: Love one another as you love yourself.” tim.stanley@tulsaworld.com

TULSA WORLD

SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 |

100 YEARS LATER: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

63

OSU RUTH SIGLER AVERY COLLECTION

Smoke fills the sky as homes burn in the Greenwood neighborhood during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

‘There were a lot of questions left unresolved in 1921 and for decades afterwards’

W

ith the centennial anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre approaching, Tulsa World Assistant Editor Kendrick Marshall and Staff Writer Randy Krehbiel discussed aspects of the event and what it still means to the city today.

Kendrick Marshall: We’re coming up on the race massacre centennial, and it’s going to get a lot of attention over these next couple of weeks. Why do you think this story is still so intriguing to people?

Randy Krehbiel: Well there’s a lot of mystery to it and there’s a lot of people that, especially in the broader culture — in the country and in the world — who are unfamiliar with it. And, of course, it is a centennial. And so it seems like whenever you reach these somewhat arbitrary anniversary dates, it gets a little bit more attention. That happened actually at the 75th. It picked up, but, of course, a centennial is kind of a bigger milestone if you want to put it that way. A time for reflection and looking back and trying to figure out what it means today.

or comprehended fully was just that the role that race and racism played. And not only in Tulsa but in the entire country in those days. It was really ingrained into every aspect of life, and really controlled a large share the population. Not only Black Americans but really any kind of minority, and, for that matter, women.

Kendrick Marshall: So, from all your research and documentation you’ve been doing about this particularly event over the last 20 years, anything surprising stand out to you in all your work?

Randy Krehbiel: Well, yeah, there were several things, I think. I think one of the things, some of it is not so much surprising as it is revealing, I would say. One thing that surprised me a little bit — I had been told that it had just been ignored at the time and hadn’t been covered. There was nothing in the newspapers. Of course we didn’t have television or radio in those days, not much radio.

And then when I started looking through the old newspapers, I discovered that, in fact, it was, it was an international story.

Not only was it covered by the local newspapers, but it was covered by the national newspapers and even some European newspapers were covering or carrying stories on it. So, it was actually a pretty heavily covered event at the time. I think for somebody, my background, it was one of the things that was really revealing to me. It was something that I knew, but I don’t think I really understood

Kendrick Marshall: You mentioned how race played a big role in the massacre and its after effects. One hundred years later, people are still grappling with the issue of race. With you being in Tulsa and around Oklahoma for as long as you’ve been, do you think times have improved a lot or there’s a lot of work to be done in terms of the reconciliation that people want from this event?

Randy Krehbiel: You know I’m not entirely sure that I’m in a position to say whether things have improved or not improved.

Just because I’ve never really been on the receiving end that much. But I can say that things have changed, and there’s still a lot of work to be done. I mean, you know, I grew up in Tulsa and my kids are grown now, but when they were in school, they both went to high school named for a Black man. My son went to middle school named for a Black man and they were coached and taught by Black people. And that was something that would have never happened in 1921. You never would have had children of different colors together in a classroom or anything else, you and I wouldn’t be sitting here talking

JOHN CLANTON, TULSA WORLD

Tulsa World Staff Writer Randy Krehbiel (right) and Assistant Editor Kendrick Marshall pose in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District on May 13. like this. So it’s being discussed.

I mean, in 1921 when all of this stuff happened, specifically the white folks pointedly avoided talking about race and “it was just the way things are and we want them to stay that way.” I think that’s part of the reason why 100 years later we’re still talking about it in the way that we are not — that we wouldn’t still be talking about it but I think it would be in a different context. And there were a lot of questions left unresolved in 1921 and for decades afterwards. And so now we’re having to try and deal with them, often with imperfect information and understanding about what happened at that time.

Kendrick Marshall: I know a lot of people in the community want something to come of all of this. And one of those things is reparations. From your research of what happened in 1921 and the effects of it, is there a case to be made for that?

Randy Krehbiel: Well, of course, there’s always a case to be made for that. And I think one of the things that has to be determined are some definitions. And so what are we hoping to address. Is it a single event, or is it a continuum of society of policies? Are we trying to correct what the inequities are today? Are we trying to address those or are we trying to do both? How are we going to do that? I think that there is the potential for something to happen. What that is, I’m not exactly sure. So I think it has to be talked about. In some way, some kind of an agreement has to be

reached about, first of all, what it is we’re trying to address and then how we address it?

Kendrick Marshall: How would Tulsa be better, and particularly Greenwood when June 2 comes around and everybody from the media leaves and the story is no longer international news at least for this particular time?

Randy Krehbiel: Well I hope that the people who live here will have given some thought to not only what happened 100 years ago but where we are today. And what they would like to see happen in the city. Going further, I think also, if we get through this time and we’re still, you know friends with everybody — I think that is a victory of sorts, because this is the sort of thing that can put a lot of strain on a community. You’ve got a lot of attention from the outside. You have people with these different ideas about how they should be addressed and how it should be portrayed and that sort of thing. So on the one hand, I think there are a lot of people who feel good — if I can put it that way — about observing this event, about finally giving it some recognition, but I also think, you know, it’s like any big event. It’s like having a big family wedding and everybody comes in. And, yes, it’s a big thing and I don’t want to say it’s a celebration because this is the anniversary of a time when a lot of people died. But it’s also a very stressful time for the community. And so I suspect that there’ll be kind of a collective sigh in the middle of June.

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| SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021

Property losses in the Greenwood District were estimated at around $2 million, but that figure is probably low; those doing the estimating were also trying to buy out the owners.

TULSA WORLD