As African Americans fled the city, new dangers sometimes appeared. Mary Parrish later reported that as the group of refugees she was with ‘had traveled many miles into the country and were turning to find our way to Claremore,’ they were warned to stay clear of a nearby town, where whites were ‘treating our people awfully mean as they passed through’. 175 Similar stories have persisted for decades. Whites detained fleeing African Americans as well as those that stayed near their homes and businesses (Courtesy Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa).
Not all white Tulsans, however, shared the racial views of the white rioters. Mary Korte, a white maid who worked for a wealthy Tulsa family, hid African American refugees at her family’s farm east of the city.
176 Along the road to Sand Springs, a white couple named Merrill and Ruth Phelps hid and fed black riot victims in the basement of their home for days. The Phelps home, which still stands, became something of a ‘safe house’ for black Tulsans who had managed not to be imprisoned by the white authorities. Traveling through the woods and along creek beds at night, dozens of African American refugees were apparently hidden by the Phelps es during the daylight hours. 177 Other white Tulsans also hid blacks, or directly confronted the white rioters.
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Mary Jo Erhardt, a young stenographer who roomed at the Y. W. C. A. Building at Fifth and Cheyenne, did both. After a sleepless night, punctuated by the sounds of gunfire, Erhardt arose early on the morning of June 1.
Heading downstairs, she then heard a voice she recognized as belonging to the African American porter who worked there. ‘Miss Mary! Oh, Miss Mary!’ he said, ‘Let me in quick.’ Armed whites, he told her, were chasing him. Quickly secreting the man inside the building’s walk-in refrigerator, Erhardt later recalled, Hardly had I hidden him behind the beef carcasses and returned to the hall door when a loud pounding at the service entrance drew me there. A large man was trying to open the door, fortunately securely locked, and there on the stoop stood three very rough-looking middle-aged white men, each pointing a revolver in my general direction!’ What do you want?’ I asked sharply. Strangely, those guns frightened me not at all. I was so angry I could have torn those ruffians apart-three armed white men chasing one lone, harmless Negro.
I cannot recall in all my life feeling hatred toward any person, until then. Apparently my feelings did not show, for one answered, ‘Where did he go?’ ‘Where did WHO go?’ , I responded.’ That nigger,’ one demanded, ‘did you let him in here?’ ‘Mister,’ I said, ‘I’m not letting ANYBODY in here! ,’ which was perfectly true. I had already let in all I intended.’ It was at least ten minutes before I felt secure enough to release Jack,’ Erhardt added, ‘He was nearly frozen, dressed thinly as he was for the hot summer night, but he was ALIVE!’ 178 The Zarrow Family. The parents of Jack and Henry Zarrow, founder of Sooner Pipeline, owned a grocery store in the riot-torn area.
It was spared be cause they were white. The Zarrow’s hid many of the fleeing blacks in their business (Courtesy Greenwood Cultural Center).
Some whites, in their efforts to protect black Tulsans from harm put themselves at risk. None, perhaps, more so than a young Hispanic woman named Maria Morales Gutierrez. A recent immigrant from Mexico, she and her husband were living, at the time of the riot, in a small house off Peoria Avenue, near Independence Street. Hearing a great deal of noise and commotion on the morning of June 1, Morales ventured outside, where she saw two small African American children, who had evidently been separated from their parents, walking along the street.
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Suddenly, an airplane appeared on the horizon, bearing down on the two frightened youngsters. Morales ran out into the street, and scooped the little ones into her arms, and out of danger. A group of armed whites later demanded that Morales hand the two terrified children over to them. ‘In her English, she told them ‘No’,’ her daughter Gloria Lough, later recalled. ‘Somehow or other,’ she added, ‘they didn’t shoot her.’ The youngsters were safe. 179 As the battle for black Tulsa continued to rage, it soon became evident, even in neighborhoods far removed from the fighting, that on June 1, 1921, there would be very little business as usual in the city of Tulsa.
When Guy Ashby, a young white employee at Cooper’s Grocery on Fourteenth Street, showed up for work that morning, his boss was on his way out the door. ‘The boss told me there would be no work that day as he was declaring it ‘Nigger Day’ and he was going hunting niggers,’ Ashby later remembered, ‘He took a rifle and told me to lock up the store and go home.’ 180 Any fleeing families were denied freedom by whites positioned on escape routes (Courtesy Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa).
Downtown, normal activities were even more in disarray, as business owners found themselves shorthanded, and crowds of onlookers took to the streets, or climbed up on rooftops, to stare at the great clouds of smoke billowing over the north end of town. At the all-white Central High School, several male students bolted from class when gunfire was heard nearby.
One of the students later recalled, ‘struck out for the riot area.’ Along the way, he added, they were met by a white man who handed them a new rifle and a box of shells. ‘You can have it,’ the man told them, ‘I’m going home and going to bed.’ 181 The riot was felt along the southern edge of the city as well, particularly in the well-to- o white neighborhoods off of 21 st Street, as carloads of armed white vigilantes went door to door, rounding up live-in African American cooks, maids, and butlers at gunpoint, and then hauling them off toward downtown. A number of white homeowners, however, fearing for the safety of their black employees, stood in the way of this forced evacuation. When Charles and Amy Arnold refused to hand over their housekeeper, cries of being ‘nigger lovers’ were followed by a brick being thrown through their front window. 182 Even out in the countryside, miles from town, people knew that something was happening in Tulsa. Since daybreak, huge columns of black smoke had been rising up, hundreds of feet into the air, over the north end of the city.
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The smoke was still there, some four hours later, when the State Troops finally arrived in town. The special train from Oklahoma City, carrying Adjutant General Charles F. Barrett and the approximately 109 soldiers and officers under his command, pulled into Tulsa’s bullet-scarred Frisco and Santa Fe passenger depot at approximately 9: 15 a. m. on the morning of June 1, 1921. The soldiers, who arrived armed and in uniform, were all-members of an Oklahoma City based National Guard unit.
In Tulsa, they soon became known, by both blacks and whites, as the ‘State Troops,’ a term which had the intrinsic benefit of helping to distinguish the out-of-towers from the local National Guard units. Like the local guardsmen, the State Troops were also all-white. 183 Shortly after the outbreak of violence, the Tulsa police presented the local National Guardsmen with a machine gun-only it proved to be defective. A second machine gun that was in the hands of white civilians, however, was used to considerable effect during the attack on Greenwood (Courtesy Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa).
By the time the State Troops arrived, Tulsa’s devastating racial conflagration was already ten and one-half hours old. Dozens of blacks and whites had been killed, while the wards of the city’s four remaining hospitals — the all-black Fris sell Memorial Hospital had already been burned to the ground by white rioters — were filled with the wounded. Most of the city’s African American district had already been torched, while looting continued in those black homes and businesses that were still standing. ‘One very bad thing was the way whites delved into the personal belongings of the Negroes, throwing their possessions from trunks and otherwise damaging them,’ reported M.
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J. White, a Denver dental supply dealer who was visiting Tulsa at the time of the riot. ‘This lawless looting continued from about 9 until 11 o’clock,’ he added, ‘when martial law prevented further spoil ation.’ 184 As more and more African Americans were detained the ‘protective custody’ alternate holding locations had to be used including McNulty baseball Park (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa).
There were ongoing horrors as well. ‘One Negro was dragged behind an automobile, with a rope around his neck, through the business district,’ reported the Tulsa World in its ‘Second Extra’ edition on the morning of June 1′. Decades later, both former Tulsa mayor L.
C. Clark, and E. W. ‘Gene’ Maxey of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Department, confirmed this report. ‘About 8 a. m.
on the morning of June 1, 1921,’ Maxey told riot chronicler Ruth Avery, I was downtown with a friend when they killed that good, old, colored man that was blind. He had amputated legs. His body was attached at the hips to a small wooden platform with wheels. One leg stub was longer than the other, and hung slightly over the edge of the platform, dragging along the street. He scooted his body around by shoving and pushing with his hands covered with baseball catcher mitts. He supported himself by selling pencils to passersby, or accepting their donations for his singing of songs.
The street car tracks ran north and south on Main Street, and the tracks were laid on pretty rough bricks. The fellow that was driving the car I knew — an outlaw and a bootlegger. But I won’t give his name because he has some folks here. There were two or three people with him. They got that old colored man that had been here for years. He was helpless.
He’d carry an old tin cup, sing, and mooched for money. One of them t huggy, white people had a new car, so he went to the depot, and came back up Main Street between First and Second Streets. We were on the east side of the street. These white thugs had roped this colored man on the longer stump of his one leg, and were dragging him behind the car up Main Street. He was hollering.
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His head was being bashed in, bouncing on the steel rails and bricks.’ They went on all the speed that the car could make,’ Maxey added, ‘… a new car, with the top down, and 3 or 4 of them in it, dragging him behind the car in broad daylight on June 1, right through the center of town on Main Street.’ 185 When the State Troops arrived in Tulsa, the majority of the city’s black citizenry had either fled to the countryside, or were being held — allegedly for their own protection — against their will in one of a handful of hastily set-up internment centers, including Convention Hall, the fairgrounds, and McNulty baseball park. There were still, however, some pockets of armed black resistance to the remnants of the white invasion, especially along the northern reaches of the African American district. In certain borderline areas such as the residential neighborhood that lay just to the east of the Santa Fe tracks where the Jim Crow line ran right down the center of the street, a number of African American homes had escaped destruction, sometimes through the efforts of sympathetic white neighbors. 186 Upon their arrival in Tulsa, the State Troops apparently did not proceed immediately to where the fighting was still in progress, although it is uncertain how long this delay lasted. The reasons for this seeming hold-up appear to be largely due to the fact that certain steps needed to be fulfilled — either through protocol or by law — in order for martial law to be declared in Tulsa.
Accordingly, after detraining at the Frisco and Santa Fe station, Adjutant General Barrett led a detachment of soldiers to the courthouse, where an unsuccessful attempt was made to contact Sheriff McCullough. Barrett then went to city hall, where, after conferring with city officials, he contacted Governor Robertson in Oklahoma City and asked to be granted the authority to proclaim martial law in Tulsa County. Other detachments of State Troops, meanwhile, appear to have begun taking charge of black Tulsans who were being held by armed white civilians. 187 However, another account of the riot, published a decade later, alleges that upon their arrival in Tulsa, the State Troops wasted valuable minutes by taking time to prepare and eat breakfast. 188 Remarkably, a handful of Tulsa’s finest African-American homes were still standing when the State Troops arrived in town. But about one-hour later, a small group of white men were seen entering the houses, and setting them on fire.
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By the time the State Troops marched up Standpipe Hill, it was too late, the homes were gone (Courtesy Tulsa Historical Society).
As it turned out, while the State Troops were occupied downtown, not far away, some of the finest African American homes in the city were still standing. Located along North Detroit Avenue, near Easton, they included the homes of some of Tulsa’s most prominent black citizens, among them the residences of Tulsa Star editor A. J. Smitherman, Booker T. Washington High School principal Ellis W.
Woods, and businessman Thomas R. Gently and his wife, Lottie. 189 For several hours that morning, John A. Oliphant a white attorney who lived nearby, had been telephoning police headquarters in an effort to save these homes, that had been looted but not burned.
Oliphant believed that a handful of officers, if sent over immediately, could see to it that the homes were spared. As he later recounted in sworn testimony: Q. Judge, when you phoned the police station what reply did you get? A. He said, somebody in there, I thought I knew the voice but I am not certain, he said, I will do the best I can for you.’ I told him who I was, I wanted some policemen, I says, ‘If you will send me ten policemen I will protect all this property and save a million dollars worth of stuff they were burning down and looting.’ I asked the fire department for the fire department to be sent over to help protect my property and they said they couldn’t come, they wouldn’t let them. 190 Oliphant’s hopes were raised, however, when he observed the arrival of the State Troops, figuring that they might be able to save the homes along North Detroit.
‘I sent for them,’ he testified, I sent for the militia to come, send over fifteen or twenty of them, that is all I wanted.’ But, instead, at around 10: 15 a. m. or 10: 30 a. m. , a party of three or four white men, probably so-called ‘Special Deputies,’ each wearing badges arrived, and then set fire to one of the very homes that Oliphant had been trying to protect. By the time the State Troops arrived in the neighborhood later that morning, it was too late.
Most of the homes were already on fire. 191 One of the few that was not belonged to Dr. Robert Bridgewater and his wife, Mattie, at 507 N. Detroit. Returning to his home — after being held at Convention Hall — in order to retrieve his medicine cases, Dr. Bridgewater later wrote, On reaching the house, I saw my piano and all of my elegant furniture piled in the street.
My safe had been broken open, all of the money stolen, also my silverware, cut glass, all of the family clothes, and everything of value had been removed, even my family Bible. My electric light fixtures were broken, all of the window lights and glass in the doors were broken, the dishes that were not stolen were broken, the floors were covered (literally speaking) with glass, even the phone was torn from the wall. 192 The Bridgewater, as they well knew, were among the fortunate few. Most black Tulsans no longer had homes anymore.
By the time that marital law was declared in Tulsa County at 11: 29 a. m. on June 1, the race riot had nearly run its course. Scattered bands of white rioters, some of whom had been awake for more than twenty-four hours straight, continued to loot and burn, but most had already gone home. Along the northern and eastern edges of black Tulsa, where homes were mixed in with stretches of farmland, it had become difficult for the rioters to distinguish the homes of African Americans from those of their white neighbors. The home that riot survivor Nell Hamilton shared with her mother out near the Section Line was, perhaps, spared for just that reason.
193 As the riot wore on, African-American families frequently be came separated, as black men were often the first to be led away at gunpoint. For many black Tulsans, it was hours-and, in some cases, much longer-before they learned the fate of their loved ones (Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa).
A final skirmish appears to have occurred a little after Noon, when the remaining members of the white mob exchanged fire with a group of African Americans not far from where the Santa Fe railroad tracks cut across the Section Line, just off of Peoria Avenue. The black defenders had apparently held off the whites who were gathered along the railroad embankment. When a second group of whites, armed with high-powered rifles, arrived on the scene, the African Americans were soon overrun. 194 From their positions along Standpipe and Sunset Hills, members of the Tulsa-based units of the Oklahoma National Guard also took black Tulsans into ‘protective custody.’ And as the local guardsmen began making forays into the African-American district, they actively took black prisoners (Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society).
Most of the city’s black population, meanwhile, was being held under armed guard. Many families had been sent, at first, to Convention Hall, but as it filled to capacity, black Tulsans were taken to the baseball park and to the fairgrounds. As the day wore on, hundreds would soon join them. As the men, women, and children who had fled to the countryside, or had taken refuge at Golden Gate Park, began to wander back toward town, they too, were taken into custody. While the white authorities would later argue, and not without some validity, that this was a protective measure designed to save black lives, other reasons including a lingering white fear of a ‘Negro uprising’ undoubtedly played a role in their rationale. In any event, following the destruction of their homes and businesses on May 31 and June 1, black Tulsa now found itself, for all practical purposes, under arrest.
1951 A number of general histories of Tulsa have been written over the years, the most recent being Danny Goble, Tulsa! : Biography of the American City (Tulsa: Council Oaks Books, 1997).
In addition, also see: William Butler, Tulsa 75: A History of Tulsa (Tulsa: Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, 1974); Angie Debt, Tulsa: From Creek Town to Oil Capital (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943); Clarence B. Douglas, The History of Tulsa, Oklahoma: A City With a Personality (3 vols. ; Chicago: S.
J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1921); Nina Dunn, Tulsa’s Magic Roots (Tulsa: Oklahoma Book Publishing Company, 1979); James Monroe Hall, The Beginning of Tulsa (Tulsa: Scott-Rice Company, 1928); and Courtney Ann Vaughn-Roberson and Glen Vaughn-Roberson, City in the Osage Hills: Tulsa, Oklahoma (Boulder: Pruett Publishing Company, 1984).
2 John D. Porter, comp. , Tulsa County Handbook, 1920 (Tulsa: Banknote Printing Company, 1920).
Dr.
Fred S. Clinton, ‘Interesting Tulsa History,’ a 1918 pamphlet, a copy of which is located in the Tulsa History vertical files in the library of the Oklahoma Historical Society. [Federal Writers’ Project], Tulsa: A Guide to the Oil Capital (Tulsa: Mid-West Printing Company, 1938), pp. 23-25, 32, 50, 54. Tulsa City Directory, 1921 (Tulsa: Polk-Hoff hine Directory Company, 1921).
Vaughn-Roberson and Vaughn-Roberson, City in the Osage Hills, p. 199. On the old Tulsa city cemetery, which was located near what is now the intersection of Second Street and Frisco Avenue, see: Jim Downing, ‘Bulldozers Disturb Pioneers’ Final Rest,’ Tulsa World, February 17, 1970, pp. 113, 613; Mrs. J.
O. Misc, ‘Last Resting Places Not Always Final’ and other undated clippings located in the Tulsa Cemeteries subject files at the Tulsa Historical Society; and, interview with S. R. Lewis, Indian Pioneer History Collection, Federal Writers’ Project, vol.
CVI, pp. 351-352, Oklahoma Historical Society. 3 Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Clinton, ‘Interesting Tulsa History’. Porter, Tulsa County Handbook, 1920. Goble, Tulsa! pp.
78-111. 4 While a complete architectural history of Tulsa as not yet been written, the homes of the oil barons have been the subject of careful study. See: Marilyn Inhofe, Kathleen Reeves, and Sandy Jones, Footsteps Through Tulsa (Tulsa: Liberty Press, 1984); and, especially, John Brooks Walton, One Hundred Historic Tulsa Homes (Tulsa: HE Publications, 2000).
5 On the history of Greenwood, see: Eddie Faye Gates, They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the Promised Land in Tulsa (Austin: Eakin Press, 1997); Hannibal B. Johnson, Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Greenwood’s Historic Greenwood District (Austin: Eakin Press, 1997); Henry C. Whitlow, Jr.
, ‘A History of the Greenwood Era in Tulsa’, a paper presented to the Tulsa Historical Society, March 29, 1973; Francis Dominic Burke, ‘A Survey of the Negro Community of Tulsa, Oklahoma’ (M. A. thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1936); and, [National Urban League], A Study of the Social and Economic Condition of the Negro Population of Tulsa, Oklahoma (Washington, D. C. : National Urban League, 1945).
6 The standard work on the history of African Americans in Oklahoma is Jimmie Lewis Franklin, Journey Toward Hope: A History of Blacks in Oklahoma (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982).
7 On B. C. Franklin, see: John Hope Franklin and John Whittington Franklin, eds. , My Life and An Era: The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997).
The John Hope Franklin quote is from his Foreword to Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), p.
xv. 8 On the transfer of entrepreneurial experience from the all black towns to Greenwood, credit is due to Professor D. F. G. Williams, an urbanist at Washington University in St. Louis.
Professor Williams is currently preparing a scholarly article about Tulsa’s African American community at the time of the riot, and was kind enough to share an early version of this work, titled ‘Economic Dualism, Institutional Failure, and Racial Violence in a Resource Boom Town: A Reexamination of the Tulsa Riot of 1921.’ 9 Mary E. Jones Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster (rpt; Tulsa: Out on a Limb Publishing, 1998), pp. 11, 17. Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Sanborn Fire insurance Maps, Tulsa Historical Society. ‘Tulsa’s Industrial and Commercial District,’ 1921 map published by the Dean-Brum field Company, Tulsa.
Daily Oklahoman, June 2, 1921. Oral history interview with Nell Hamilton Hampton, Tulsa, September 16, 1998. Oral history interview with Edward L. Goodwin, Sr.
, Tulsa, November 21, 1976, by Ruth Sigler Avery in Fear: The Fifth Horseman — A Documentary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, unpublished manuscript. 10 Mabel B. Little, ‘A History of the Blacks of North Tulsa and My Life’, typescript, dated May 24, 1971. Tulsa Star, April 11, 1914. Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921.
Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, pp. 115-126. Franklin and Franklin, My Life and An Era, p. 193.
Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Oral history interviews with: Robert Fairchild, Tulsa, June 8, 1978; V. H. Hodge, Tulsa, June 12, 1978; W.
D. Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 197 8; B. E. Carruthers, Tulsa, July 21, 1978; Elwood Lett, Tulsa, May 28, 1998; and Otis Clark, Tulsa, June 4, 1999.
11[State Arts Council of Oklahoma], ‘A Century of African-American Experience — Greenwood: From Ruins to Renaissance’, exhibition brochure. Oral history interviews with W. D. Williams, Tulsa, by: Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman; and Scott Ellsworth, June 7, 1978. Tulsa City Directory, 1921.
Tulsa Star, January 4, 1919. New York Evening Post, June 11, 1921. William Red fearn vs. American Central Insurance Company, Case 15851, Oklahoma Supreme Court.
12 Tulsa Star: May 30, 1913; June 13, 1913; February 7, 1914; March 7, 1914; April 4, 1914; April 11, 1914; September 12, 1914; February 16, 1918; May 4, 1918; and January 4, 1919. Tulsa World, June 6, 1921. Daily Oklahoman, June 2, 1921. Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, pp. 83, 89-90.
Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Kav in Ross, ‘Booker T. Washington High School — Ellis Walker Woods Historical Marker/Memorial Proposal’, c 1999. James M.
Mitchell, ‘Politics in a Boom Town: Tulsa from 1906 to 1930’ (M. A. thesis, University of Tulsa, 1950).
On the African Blood Brotherhood, see: the July and November 1921 issues of The Crusader, the official journal of the organization; ‘Negroes Brand Story Race Initiated Riot as Fake’, New York Call, June 5, 1921; and, interviews with Binkley Wright, Los Angeles, California, February and August 25, 2000, by Eddie Faye Gates; and Tulsa World, March 26, 2000. On the intellectual and political life of Greenwood prior to the riot, additional credit is due to the most helpful insights of Mr. Paul Lee, a journalist and filmmaker who is currently working on a documentary on early black migration to Oklahoma.
13 Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, pp. 41, 78-80. Gates, They Came Searching, pp.
165-167. Tulsa Star, March 6, 1915. On the education of the new Mount Zion Baptist Church building, see the Tulsa World, April 10, 1921, p. B-8. 14 Tulsa Star: May 30, 1913: May 29, 1915; June 26, 1915; July 10, 1915; and February 13, 1919. Parish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, p.
115. Walter F. White, ‘The Eruption of Tulsa’, The Nation, June 29, 1921, pp. 909-910. [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], ‘Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, June 13, 1921’, 1, A, l, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.
C. Oral history interview with Seymour Williams, Tulsa, June 2, 1978. J. B.
Stradford, who was forced to flee Tulsa after the riot, was cleared of any wrongdoing in the affair at a 1996 ceremony. See: ‘Black Man Cleared of 1921 Tulsa Riot’, Arizona Republic, October 27, 1996, p. A 14; Mary Wisniewski Holden, -75 Years Later: Vindication in Tulsa’, Chicago Lawyer, December 1996; and Jonathan Z. Larsen, ‘Tulsa Burning’, Civilization, IV, I (February/March 1997), pp. 46-55.
Significantly, Stradford wrote a memoir — a few pages of which have turned up in Tulsa — which, if published, promises to be a most important historical document. 15 Williams, ‘Economic Dualism, Institutional Failure, and Racial Violence in a Resource Boom Town’. Whitlow, ‘A History of the Greenwood Era in Tulsa’. Tulsa City Directory, 1921.
Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, pp. 82-83. Gates, They Came Searching, pp. 102-103.
Tulsa Star: March 7, 1914; and January 4, 1919. Oral history interview with Mabel B. Little, Tulsa, May 24, 1971, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. African Americans who tried to shop downtown were often the targets of discriminatory and derogatory behavior by white merchants and customers.
See, for example, ‘Colored Woman Insulted’, in the Tulsa Star, July 11, 1913. At least one white merchant in an otherwise all-white block of stores did, however, actively seek black customers. See the advertisements for the North Main Department Store in the Tulsa Star, March 27 and April 17, 1920. 16[National Urban League], A Study of the Social and Economic Condition of the Negro Population of Tulsa, Oklahoma, pp. 37-39, 87-89.
[Oklahoma Writers’ Project], ‘Racial Elements’, typescript, dated January 17, 1938, in the Federal Writers’ Project topical files, 81. 05, Archives and Manuscript Division, Oklahoma Historical Society. Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Gates, They Came Searching, pp. 62-64, 83-86. Oral history interviews with Kinney Booker, Tulsa, May 30, 1998; and, Elwood Lett, Tulsa, May 28, 1998.
For a longer term perspective, see also the comments of Marian Ramsey Jones, Bertha Black McIntyre, and Walter ‘Pete’ Williams following Hannibal Johnson’s article, ‘Greenwood: Birth and Rebirth’, Tulsa People Magazine, July 2000, pp. 12-18. 17 Tulsa City Directory, 1921. On the lives of the African American men and women who lived in the ‘Professor’s Row’ off of Standpipe Hill, see the forthcoming article by Paul Lee in Essence magazine. While a complete copy of the study conducted by the American Association of Social Workers has not been located, this report — and its findings — was cited in subsequent publications. The quote is from The Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 56 th Annual Session, June 26 to July 3, 1929 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, c 1929), pp.
393-394. The study is also cited in Jesse O. Thomas, ‘American Cities — Tulsa’, an unidentified 1924 article, a copy of which is located in the Oklahoma subject file of the Schomburg Center Clipping File 1925-1974, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York, NY. 18 Kathy Callahan, ‘Moselle May Recalls Early Tulsa History’, Tulsa World, April 29, 1974.
Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Gates, They Came Searching, pp. 62-65, 139-140. Walton, One Hundred Historic Tulsa Homes. Oral history interviews with: Henry C. Whitlow, Jr.
, Tulsa, June 6, 1978; and Kinney Booker, Tulsa, May 30, 1998. Telephone interviews with Jewel Smitherman Rogers, Perris, California, 1998-2000. 19 John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr. , From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 7 th edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), pp.
346-354. Arthur I. Was kow, From Race Riot to Sit-In: 1919 and the 1960 s (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1966).
John High arn, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955).
Richard Maxwell Brown, Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975).
20 The classic study of the Chicago riot is William M.
Tuttle, Jr.’s Race Riot. Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York: Atheneum, 1970).
Following the riot, the Chicago Commission on Race Relations conducted an extensive investigation of what had occurred. Its report, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922), is still quite useful. 22 Tuttle, Race Riot, pp. 29-30.
22 Ibid. , pp. 244-245. Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, p. 351.
A number of other World War I era riots have also been the subject of extensive study. See, for example: Elliott M. Rudnick, Race Riot at East St. Louis, July 2, 1917 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964); U. S.
House of Representatives, Sixty-Fifth Congress, 2 nd Session, ‘Report of the Special Committee Authorized by Congress to Investigate the East St. Louis Riots’ (Washington, D. C. : Government Printing Office, 1918): and, Robert V. Haynes, A Night of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1976).
23 The literature on interracial sexual relations in America — including historical, sociological, and psychological analyses, as well as the work of some of the country’s finest novelist — is voluminous.
For a historical perspective, two places to begin are: Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations in the American South Since Emancipation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974); and Dan T. Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1969).
24 Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, pp. 348-349. Classic studies of lynching include: Arthur F. Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933); James R.
McGovern, Anatomy of a Lynching: The Killing of Claude Neal (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1982); and James Allen, Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (Santa Fe: Twin Palms Publishers, 2000).
25 Robert T. Kerlin, The Voice of the Negro, 1919 (New York: E. P.
Dutton, 1920).
Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, pp. 323-360. Emmett J. Scott, History of the American Negro, in the World War (Chicago: Homewood Press, 1919).
26 LA. Newby, Jim Crow’s Defense: Anti Negro Thought in America, 1900-1930 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965).
Mary Frances Berry, Black Resistance/White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971).
C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957).
27 David A Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965).
Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan in the City (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967).
28 Tulsa Star, November 11, 1916; February 16, 1918; May 4, 1918; and November 23, 1918. Interview with Seymour Williams, Tulsa, June 2, 1978. Goble, Tulsa! , pp.
120-121. 29 Richard Kluge r, Simple Justice (New York: Random House, 1977), pp. 102-104. Ardell M. Gibson, Oklahoma: A History of Five Centuries (Norman: Harlow Publishing Corporation, 1965), p. 353.
Kay M. Tell, ed. , Black History in Oklahoma: A Resource Book (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma City Public Schools, 1971), pp. 172, 202-204, 225.
30 Mary Elizabeth Estes, ‘An Historical Survey of Lynchings in Oklahoma and Texas!’ (M. A. thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1942), pp. 130-134. 31 Carter Blue Clark, ‘A History of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma 7’ (Ph. D.
dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1976), pp. vii-xi, 36-80, 169-219. Charles C. Alexander, The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965).
W. C.
Witches, The Reign of Terror in Oklahoma (Ft. Worth, n. p. , c 1923).
Marion Monte val, The Klan Inside Out (Claremore: Monarch Publishing Company, 1924).
Howard A. Tucker, History of Governor Walton’s War on the Klan (Oklahoma City: Southwest Publishing Company, 1923).
32 Charles O quin Meyers, Jr. , ‘The Ku Klux Klan in Tulsa County During the Early 1920 s’ (Honor’s paper, Department of History, University of Tulsa, 1974), pp.
6, 12-19. Laurie Jane (Barr) Croft, ‘The Women of the Ku. Klux Klan in Oklahoma’ (M. A.
thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1984), p. 51. Clark, ‘A History of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma’, pp. 36, 47, 52, 65, 71, 89.
33 Tulsa World, July 30, 1922. Meyers, ‘The Ku Klux Klan in Tulsa Country’, pp. 9-12. Ku Klux Klan Papers, Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa. 34 Alexander, The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest, pp.
66, 142-58, 228. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, pp. 52-55. Meyers, ‘The Ku Klux Klan in Tulsa Country’, pp.
20-22, 26-35. Bruce B liven, ‘From the Oklahoma Front’, New Republic, October 17, 1923, p. 202. Jewel Smitherman Rogers, ‘John Henry Smitherman: A Profile of The Father, The Man, and The Officer of the Law’, typescript, November 1999.
Interview with Willa Catherine Smitherman, Tulsa, February 14, 1978, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. Oral history interviews with: William M. O’Brien, Tulsa, March 2, 1998; and Richard Gary, Tulsa, March 16, 1999. 35 Meyers, ‘The Ku Klux Klan in Tulsa County’, pp. 33-38. Tulsa Man membership register / ledger , 1928-1929, Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.
Oral history interview with Ed Wheeler, Tulsa, February 27, 1998. 36 Clark, ‘A History of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma’, pp. 42-45. 37 Ibid. , pp. 36-3838 TuIsa World, June 6, 1921.
Ruth Sigler Avery, Fear: The Fifth Horseman. 39 The Tribune, in particular, paid close attention to Klan activities in Dallas. See the Tulsa Tribune: January 29, 1921, p. 8; February 4, 1921, p. 1; April 2, 1921, p. 1; April 3, 1921, p.
5; May 22, 1921, p. 1; and May 24, 1921, p. 1. 40 Tulsa Tribune, May 22, 1921, p.
2. On the May brothers, see also the March 27, 1921 issue, p. 2. 41 Meyers, ‘The Ku Klux Klan in Tulsa County’, pp. 3-7. Clark, ‘A History of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma’, pp.
46-47. 42 Tulsa Tribune, April 17, 1921, p. 5. Tulsa World: April 10, 1921, p. 4; April 14, 1921, , p. 4; April 18, 1921, p.
4: April 20, 1921, p. 4; and April 23, 1921, p. 4. [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], ‘Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, June 13, 1921,’ NAACP Papers, Library of Congress. Exchange Bureau Bulletin, I, 26 (July 7[? ], 1921).
On economic conditions in Tulsa prior to the riot, see: Harlow’s Weekly, December 17, 1920 and September 16, 1921; Tulsa Tribune, April 14, 1921, p.
6; Tulsa World, May 19, 1921, p. 4; Tulsa City Commission, Record of Commission Proceedings, August 26, 1921; Ralph Cassidy, Jr. , Price Making and Price Behavior in the Petroleum Industry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), p. 136; and, U. S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to the Present (Washington, D.
C. : Government Printing Office, 1975), Volume 2, p. 208. 43’Federal Report on Vice Conditions in Tulsa,’ April 21-26, 192, by Agent T. G. F.
, a copy of which is located in the Attorney General Civil Case Files, Record Group 1-2, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 44 Abundant evidence on the illegal consumption of alcohol in Tulsa County can be found in the Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Record Group 1-2, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. See, in particular: the testimony of E. S.
McQueen, L. Medley, and Mrs. W. H. Clark; ‘Statement of John Burnett’; ‘Memo to Major Daily’; and, ‘Special Report on Vice Conditions in and Around the City of Tulsa, by H. H.
Townsend’, Tulsa, May 18, 1921. Oral history interview with Elwood Lett, Tulsa, May 28, 1998. Tulsa Tribune: February 7, 1921, p. 1; February 11, 1921, p. 5; February 12, 1921, p. 1; February 13, 1921, p.
3; and April 15, 1921, p. 13. 45 The quote from Charles C. Post is from the Tulsa Tribune, May 8, 1921, p. 1. See also: Tulsa World, April 22, 1921, p.
1; Tulsa Tribune, May 18, 1921, p. 2; and, ‘Statement of Barney Cleaver,’ Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Record Group 1-2, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 46 White, ‘The Eruption of Tulsa’, p. 909.
Tulsa World: April 23, 1921, pp. 1, 3; and May 13, 1921, p. 1. Tulsa Tribune: January 13, 1921, p. 12; February 12, 1921, p.
1; March 5, 1921, p. 1; March 9, 1921, p. 10; March 13, 1921, p. 7; March 14, 192 1, p. 1; March 21, 1921, p. 1; April 5, 1921, p.
1; April 13, 1921, p. 1; May 1, 1921, p. B-14; May 2, 1921, p. 1; May 11, 1921, p.
1; May 18, 1921, p. 1; May 20, 1921, p. 1; and May 28, 1921, p. 1. 47 Tu 1 sa World. April 4, 1921, p.
4; April 15, 1921, p. 4; May 13, 1921, p. 4; May 18, 1921, pp. 1, 13; May 19, 1921, pp.
1, 4; May 20, 1921, pp. 1, 2; May 21, 1921, pp. 1, 4, 17; and May 22, 1921, pp. 1, 17.
Tulsa Tribune, May 1, 1921, p. B-14. 4. Tulsa Tribune: April 17, 1921, p. 1; April 19, 1921, p.
16; and May 25, 1921, p. 16. 49 Estes, ‘Historical Survey of Lynchings in Oklahoma and Texas,’ p. 131. Interview with George B. Smith, Red Fork, Oklahoma, August 24, 1937, by W.
T. Holland, Volume LXIX, pp. 470-475, Indian Pioneer History Collection, Federal Writers’ Project, Oklahoma Historical Society. 50 William T. Lampe, Tulsa County and the World War (Tulsa: Tulsa Historical Society, 1918).
[National Civil Liberties Bureau], ‘The ‘Knights of Liberty’ Mob and the I.
W. W. Prisoners at Tulsa, Okla. , November 9, 1917′, pamphlet, 1918. Goble, Tulsa! , pp. 118-122.
53 Tulsa Times: November 10, 1917, p. 6; and November 12, 1917, p. 7. Tulsa Democrat: November 10, 1917, p. 8; and November 11, 1917, pp.
1, 3. Tulsa World. November 10, 1917, p. 1; November 11, 1917, p.
1; November 12, 1917, p. 4; and November 13, 1917, p. 4. 52 Tulsa World. August 22, 1920, p. 1; and August 24, 1920, p.
1. Tulsa Tribune: August 22, 1920, p. 1; August 24, 1920, pp. 1, 4; August 25, 1920, p. 1; and August 28, 1920, p. 1.
53 Tulsa Tribune: August 23, 1920, p. 1; and August 27, 1920, p. 1. Tulsa World.
August 25, 1920, pp. 1, 12; August 28, 1920, pp. 1, 9; August 29, 1920, p. 9; August 30, 1920, p. 1; September 1, 1920, p.
12; and September 2, 1920, pp. 1, 9. 54 Tulsa World, August 25, 1920, p. 12; and August 31, 1920, p. 4. Tulsa Tribune, August 28, 1920, p.
1. 55 Tu 1 sa Tribune, August 28, 1920, p. 1. 56 Ibid. , August 29, 1920, pp. 1-2.
Tulsa World. August 29, 1920, p. 1; and August 30, 1920, p. 3. 57 Tulsa Star, September 4, 1920, p.
1. Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, pp. 1, 2. Tulsa World: August 29, 1920, p. 1; and August 30, 1920, pp. 1-3.
See also: White, ‘The Eruption of Tulsa’, p. 909. 58 Tulsa World, August 30, 1920, pp. 1-3. 59 Both the lynching of Roy Belton, and how Tulsans responded to the event, was covered extensively in both of Tulsa’s daily newspapers. See: Tulsa Tribune: August 31, 1920, p.
12; September 6, 1920, p. 1; September 9, 1920, p. 1; September 10, 1920, p. 1; September 21, 1920, p. 2; September 24, 1920, p. 1; and September 29, 1920, p.
4. Tulsa World: August 30, 1920, p. 4; August 31, 1920, pp. 1, 4; September 1, 1920, pp, 1, 4, 12; September 2, 1920, pp. 1, 4; September 3, 1920, pp. 1, 18; September 5, 1920, p.
A- 1; September 6, 1920, p. 1; and September 10, 1920 pp. 1, 13. 60 Tulsa Star, September 4, 1920, pp. 1, 4. 61 Ibid.
, March 6, 1920, p. 8. 62 Clark, ‘History of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma’, p. 17. 63 Tulsa Star, March 6, 1920, p.
8. 64 Ibid. , September 4, 1920, pp. 1, 4.
65 TuIsa Democrat, March 18, 1919, p. 1. Tulsa World, March 18, 1919, p. 1. Tulsa Times, March 18, 1919, p. 1.
66 TuIsa Times: March 20, 1919, p. 1; March 21, 1919, p. 1; and March 22, 1919, p. 3.
Tulsa World, March 21, 1919, p. 1; Tulsa Democrat: March 19, 1919, p. 11; March 20, 1919, p. 9; and March 21, 1919, pp. 10, 16. 67 Tulsa Tribune, June 12, 192 1, p.
1. 68 Tulsa Star, September 4, 1920, pp. 1, 4. 69 Biographical sketch of Richard Lloyd Jones by Hazel S.
Hone, May 10, 1939; ‘Richard Lloyd Jones’ from Who’s Mo in Tulsa, 1950, by Clarence Allen; and, miscellaneous newspaper clippings on Jones, all located in the ‘Tulsa’ vertical subject files, Oklahoma Historical Society. 70 Tulsa Tribune: January 13, 1921, p. 12; February 12, 1921, p. , 8; March 5, 1921, p.
10; April 5, 1921, p. 16; April 7, 1921, p. 16; May 1, 1921, p. B-14; May 3, 1921, p.
18; and May 13, 1921, p. 24. 71 Ibid. : January 3, 1921, p. 12; March 2, 1921, p. 1; March 4, 1921, p.
1; March 5, 1921, p. 1; March 28, 1921, p. 1; March 29, 1921, p. 1; March 31, 1921, p. 1; April 4, 1921, p. 1; April 5, 1921, p.
1; April 13, 1921, p. 1; May 8, 1921, p. 1; May 16, 1921, p. 12; May 17, 1921, p. 1; May 19, 1921, pp. 1, 2; May 20, 1921, pp.
1, 2, 22; May 21, 1921, pp. 1, 2; May 22, 1921, p. B-14; May 24, 1921, pp. 1, 18; and May 25, 1921, pp. 1, 3. 16.
The Tulsa World painted a somewhat rosier portrait of crime conditions in Tulsa. See, for example: April 15, 1921, p. 4; April 17, 1921, p. 16; May 19, 1921, pp.
1, 3; May 19, 1921, pp. 1, 4; May 20, 1921, pp. 1, 2; May 21, 1921, pp. 1, 4, 17; and May 22, 1921, pp.
1, 17. On political issues which may have influenced the Tribune’s campaign, as well as the subsequent investigations of the Tulsa Police Department, see: Ronald L. Trek ell, History of the Tulsa Police Department, 1882 – 1990 (N. p, n.
p. , n. d. ); Mitchell, ‘Politics in a Boom Town’; Randy Krehbiel, ‘Root of the Riot’, Tulsa World, January 30, 2000, pp. A- 1, A-2; and, John R.
Woodard, In Re Tulsa (N. p. , n. p. , 1935).
72 Tulsa Tribune: May 14, 1921, p.
10; May 16, 1921, p. 12; and May 25, 1921, p. 16. 71 Ibid.
: March 3, 1921, p. 1; April 17, 192 1, p. 1; May 24, 1921, p. 1; May 26, 1921, p. 14; and May 27, 1921, p. 1.
74 Ibid, June 4, 1921, p. 8. 75 Tulsa Tribune, May 21, 1921, pp. 1, 2. Typescript reports by members of Cooke’s party can be found in the Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Record Group 1-2, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 76 Tulsa Tribune: May 26, 1921, p.
1; and May 27, 1921, p. 1. Tulsa World: May 26, 1921, p. 1; and May 27, 1921, p. 8.
77 Tulsa Tribune, May 30, 1921, p. 1. 71 Oral history interview with Damie Rowland Ford, Tulsa, July 22, 1972, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. Franklin and Franklin, My Life and An Era, p. 199. Tulsa City Directory, 1921.
Oral history interviews with: W. D. Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978; and Robert Fairchild, Tulsa, June 8, 1978. Booker T. Washington High School Alumni Roster, 1916-1929. Loren L.
Gill, ‘The Tulsa Race Riof’ (M. A. thesis, University of Tulsa, 1946), p. 22. ‘Mob Fury and Race Hatred as a National Danger’, Literary Digest, LXIX (June 18, 1921).
Interview with Alice Andrews in Gates, They Came Searching, pp. 41-42. Dick Rowland’s last name is sometimes spelled ‘Roland’. Similarly, Sarah Page’s surname is sometimes given as ‘Paige’. 79 Oral history interviews with: Robert Fairchild, Tulsa, June 8, 1978; and W. D.
Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978. Tulsa City Directory, 1921. Tulsa Tribune, May 22, 1921, p. 4.
80 Tulsa Tribune: April 17, 1921, p. 5; May 31, 1921, p. 1; and June 1, 192 1, p. 4.
White, ‘Eruption of Tulsa, pp. 909-910. 81 Oral history interviews with: Damie Rowland Ford, Tulsa, July 22, 1972; S. M. Jackson and Eunice Cloman Jackson, Tulsa, June 26, 1971; and Robert L. Fairchild, Tulsa, April 18, 1971; all by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman.
Oral history interview with Robert Fairchild, Tulsa, June 8, 1978. 82 Tulsa World, May 29, 1921, p. A-1. Tulsa Tribune: May 29, 1921, pp.
2, 8, B-1, B-10, B-12; and May 30, 1921, p. l. Oral history interview with Damie Rowland Ford, Tulsa, July 22, 1972, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, Tulsa, Tulsa Historical Society. 83 New York Evening Post, June 11, 1921. White, ‘Eruption of Tulsa’, p.
910. ‘Mob Fury and Race Hatred’, Literary Digest, op cit. Tulsa World, June 2, 1921, p. 2.
Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, p. 18. Oral history interviews with: D arnie Rowland Ford, Tulsa, July 22, 1972; Robert Fairchild, Tulsa, April 18, 1976; Mabel B. Little, Tulsa, May 24, 197 1; S. M. Jackson and Eunice Clornan Jackson, Tulsa, June 26, 197 1; all by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman.
84 Tulsa Tribune, May 31, 192 1, p. 1. Tulsa World, June 2, 192 1, pp. 1-5.
White, ‘Eruption of Tulsa’, p. 909. Oral history interviews with: W. D. Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978; and Robert Fairchild, Tulsa, June 8, 1978. 85 Oral history interview with Damie Rowland Ford, Tulsa, July 22, 1972, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman.
On lynching, see also, ‘The Ideology of Lynching’, in Stephen J. Whitfield, A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (New York: The Free Press, 1988), pp. 1-14. 86 Tulsa Tribune, May 31, 1921, p.
1. Oral history interview with Damie Rowland Ford, Tulsa, July 22, 1972, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. In early May 1921, the Tulsa Tribune reported that the Tulsa Police Department had eighty-eight officers; Tulsa Tribune, May 2, 1921, p. 1. The Tulsa City Directory, 1921, however, lists only fifty-seven officers, four of whom are identified as African American. 87 Franklin and Franklin, My Life and An Era, pp.
195-196. 88 Tulsa World, May 31, 1921. 89 Gill, ‘Me Tulsa Race Riot’, pp. 21-22. 90 Red Cross Collection, Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Tulsa Historical Society. The State Edition copy of ‘Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator’ was uncovered by Bruce Hartnett, a Tulsa-based researcher, in the collections of the Oklahoma Historical Society sometime prior to 1996.
91 Oral history interview with W. D. Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978. 92 Oral history interview with Robert L. Fairchild, Tulsa, April 18, 1971, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman.
Statement of ‘A. H.’ in Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, p. 62. Charles F. Barrett, Oklahoma After Fifty Years: A History of the Sooner State and Its People, 1889-1939 (Hopkinsville, Kentucky: Historical Record Association, 1941), p. 206.
93 Franklin and Franklin, My Life and Era, p. 196. 94 Ross. T. Warner, Oklahoma Boy (N. p.
, n. d. , n. d. ), p. 136.
Petition No, 23325, B. A. Waynes and M. E.
Waynes vs. T. D. Evans et al.
, Tulsa County District Court. New York Evening Post, June 11, 1921. Testimony of John A. Gustafson, State of Oklahoma vs. John A. Gustafson, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries.
95 Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Final Edition’, pp. 1, 8. Major James A. Bell to Lieutenant Colonel L. J. F.
Rooney, ‘Report on Activities of the National Guard on the Night of May 31 and June 1, 1921’, Testimony of John A. Gustafson; and Laurel Buck testimony; all in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. A. J. Smitherman, ‘A Descriptive Poem of the Tulsa Riot and Massacre’, undated pamphlet, Oklahoma Historical Society.
96 Tulsa Tribune: June 3, 1921, p. 1; and June 6, 1921, P. 3. Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Final Edition’, p. 8.
Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 3, 1921, p. 1. New York Evening Post, June 11, 1921. Typescript notes on the testimony of A. B. Nesbitt; and miscellaneous handwritten notes; both in the Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries.
Oral history interview with Dave Faulkner, Tulsa, May 7, 1971, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. 97 Oral history interview with W. D. Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978. Franklin and Franklin, My Life and An Era, pp. 96-97.
Oral history interview with Robert Fairchild, Tulsa, by Eddie Faye Gates, in They Came Searching, p. 7 1. Tulsa World, June 2, 192 1, p. 1. White, ‘Eruption of Tulsa’, pp. 909-910.
Smitherman, ‘Me Tulsa Riot and Massacre’. Handwritten notes on the testimony of O. W. Gurley; and typescript notes on the testimony of Henry Jacobs; both in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 98 Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 3, 1921, p. 1.
Tulsa World. June 2, 1921, p. 7; June 3, 1921, p. 1; June 6, 192 1, P. 3; June 9, 1921, p.
4; and June 10, 1921, p. 8. Major James A. Bell to Lieutenant Colonel L.
J. F. Rooney, ‘Report on the Activities of the National Guard’, typescript notes on the testimony of John Henry Potts; and miscellaneous handwritten notes; all in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. White, ‘Eruption of Tulsa: , pp. 909-910. Oral history interviews with: W.
D. Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978; and Seymour Williams, Tulsa, June 1, 1978. 99 Barrett, Oklahoma After Fifty Years, p. 207. Laurel Buck testimony, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 100 Bell, ‘Report on the Activities of the National Guard’, op cit.
Tulsa Tribune: January 16, 1921, p. 5; and March 20, 1921, Magazine Section, p. 2. 101 Bell, ‘Report on Activities of the National Guard.’ See also: Major Paul R.
Brown to the Adjutant General of Oklahoma, ‘Work of the Sanitary Detachment During the Riot in Tulsa’, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries; and, Robert D. Norris, Jr. , ‘The Oklahoma National Guard in the Tulsa Race Riot: Tentative Summary of Finding’, typescript, 1999. 102 John A. Gustafson testimony; and handwritten notes to the testimony of W. M.
Ellis; both in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. Stephen P. Kerr, ‘Tulsa Race War, 31, May 1921: An Oral History,’ unpublished manuscript, 1999. St. Louis Argus, June 101-1921. 103 John A.
Gustafson testimony; and miscellaneous handwritten notes; both in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries 104 Oral history interviews with Ernestine Gibbs, Augusta Mann, Rosa Davis Skinner, Robert Fairchild, and Alice Andrews, all by Eddie Faye Gates, in They Came Searching, pp. 42-43, 71, 85-86, 151, 165-166. Handwritten notes to the testimony of O. W. Gurley; typescript notes to the testimony of W. C.
Kelley; and John A. Gustafson testimony; all in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 105 Following the riot, some claimed that Sheriff McCullough had actually requested that this second contingent of African American men come down to the Courthouse, a highly unlikely possibility. It is, however, possible to envision a scenario whereby a telephone call by McCullough to Deputy Sheriff Barney Cleaver – perhaps made to the offices of the Tulsa Star – might have been misinterpreted, in the heat of the moment, as a request for assistance. Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, pp. 1, 3.
Tulsa World, June 10, 1921, p. 8. New York Evening Post, June 11, 192 1. White, ‘Eruption of Tulsa’, pp. 909-9 10. John A.
Gustafson testimony; Laurel Buck testimony; and, handwritten notes to W. N. Ellis testimony; all in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. Oral history interview with I. S. Pittman, Tulsa, July 28, 1978.
106 Oral history interview with Robert Fairchild, Tulsa, June 8, 1978. Handwritten notes to the testimony of W. E. Dudley, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. Tulsa World, July 7, 1921, p. 3.
Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, pp. 1, 3. 107 Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Final Edition’, p. 1. White, ‘Eruption of Tulsa,’ pp. 909-910.
William Cleburne ‘Choc’ Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets,’ unpublished memoir of the 1921 Tulsa race riot, pp. 32-34, 47. Handwritten notes to the testimony of ‘Witnesses in Order’, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 108 Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, p. 3. Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Final Edition’, p.
8. Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 3, 192 1, p. 1. New York Times, June 2, 1921.
109 Oral history interview with Dr. George H. Miller, M. D. , Tulsa, August 1, 1971, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. Tulsa City Directory, 1921.
110 Okmulgee Daily Democrat, June 1, 1921. Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 3, 1921, p. 1. Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Final Edition’, p. 8. Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, p.
3. New York Times, June 2, 1921. 111 Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets’, p. 46.
112 Laurel Buck testimony; handwritten notes to ‘Witnesses in Order’ testimony; and miscellaneous handwritten notes; all in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. Tulsa World, June 10, 1921, p. 8. Gill, ‘Tulsa Race Riot’, p. 28. Who actually performed the swearing-in of the ‘Special Deputies’ is unclear, as is what may have been the ‘official policy’ — if any — of both the Police Department and the city government in response to the violence during the early hours of the riot.
The latter was often prominently featured in a number of lawsuits filed after the riot. See, in particular: ‘Brief of Plaintiff in Error’ and ‘Answer Brief of Defendant in Error’, William Redfern vs. American Central Insurance Company (1925), Oklahoma State Supreme Court; and documents involving various cases filed by individuals who suffered property losses during the riot, including C. L.
Netherland vs. City of Tulsa, Lou la T. Williams vs. Fire Association of Philadelphia, Osborne Monroe vs. Mechanics and Traders Insurance Company of New Orleans, and H. J.
Caver vs. T. D. Evans, et at…
113 Letter from A. J. Perrine, Tulsa, July 2, 1921, to the Attorney General, Oklahoma City; Laurel Buck Testimony; Statement of [J. W.
] Me Gee; Major Byron Kirkpatrick to Lieutenant Colonel L. J. F. Rooney, ‘Activities on Night of May 31, 1921 at Tulsa, Okla.’ ; all in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. Tulsa World: June 1, 1921, ‘Final Edition’, p. 1; and June 2, 192 1.
Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 3, 1921, p. 1. Oral history interview with L. C. Clark, Tulsa, June 25, 1975, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. 114 Oral history interview with W.
R. Holway, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. 115 Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets,’ p. 38. Tulsa World, May 31, 1921, p. 5.
116 Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, p. 5. Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Final Edition’, p. 1.
New York Times, June 1, 1921. Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets’, pp. 37-41. Oral history interviews with: Mrs.
C. A. (Helen) Donohue Ingraham, Tulsa, May 4, 1980; and W. R.
Holway; both by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. 117 Major C. W. Daley to Lieutenant Colonel L. J. F.
Rooney, ‘Information on Activities During Negro Uprising, May 31, 1921’, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. New York Evening Post, June 11, 1921. 118 Denver Post, June 4, 1921. Kansas City Post, June 2, 1921. New York Tribune, June 2, 1921. New York Times, June 2, 1921.
Tulsa World, June 2, 1921, p. 2. Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, p. 5.
Daley, ‘Information on Activities During Negro Uprising’. Handwritten notes to ‘Witnesses in Order’ testimony, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. Oral history interview with W. D.
Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978. 119 Ed Wheeler, ‘Profile of a Race Riot,’ Impact Magazine, IV (June-July 197 1), p. 21. Oral history interview with W. D. Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978.
Tulsa World, June 2, 1921, p. 2. Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, p. 1. 120 White, ‘Eruption of Tulsa,’ p. 910.
121 Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, p. 19. Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Second Extra Edition’, p. 1; and June 2, 1921, p. 2.
Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, p. 1. New York Times, June 2, 1921. New York Post, June 1, 1921. Captain Frank Van Voorhis to Lieutenant Colonel L. J.
F. Rooney, ‘Detailed Report of Negro Uprising for Service Company, Third Infantry, Oklahoma National Guard’, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 123 Bell, ‘Report on Activities of the National Guard’. See also: Kirkpatrick, ‘Activities on Night of May 31, 1921 ‘; and, Barrett, Oklahoma After Fifty Years, pp.
207-210. 124 Bell, ‘Report on Activities of the National Guard.’ Brown, ‘Work of the Sanitary Detachment’. Kirkpatrick, ‘Activities on Night of May 31, 1921.’ Barrett, Oklahoma After Fifty Years, pp. 207-212. 125 Captain John W. McCuen to Lieutenant Colonel L.
J. F. Rooney, ‘Duty Performed by [‘B’] Company, Third Infantry, Oklahoma National Guard, at Negro Uprising, May 31, 1921′; Lieutenant Roy R. Dunlap to Lieutenant Colonel L. J. F.
Rooney, ‘Report on Negro Uprising, May 31, 1921’; Van Voorhis, ‘Detailed Report of Negro Uprising’; Daley, ‘Information on Activities During Negro Uprising and, Letter from Lieutenant Colonel L. J. F. Rooney and Charles W. Daley to the Adjutant General, June 3, 1921; all in Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 126 Letter from Lieutenant Colonel L.
J. F. Rooney and Charles W. Daley to the Adjutant General, June 3, 1921. Kirkpatrick, ‘Activities on the Night of May 31, 1921.’ Bell, ‘Report on Activities of the National Guard.’ McCuen, ‘Duty Performed by [‘B’] Company.’ Van Voorhis, ‘Detailed Report of Negro Uprising.’ Daley, ‘Information on Activities During Negro Uprising.’ Muskogee Daily Phoenix, June 4, 1921, P. 1.
Gill, ‘Tulsa Race Riot’, pp. 30-31, 40-41. 127 Interview with Major Frank Van Voorhis, Tulsa, October 25, 1937, by Effie S. Jackson, Indian Pioneer History Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society. Letter from Lieutenant Colonel L. J.
F. Rooney and Charles W. Daley to the Adjutant General, June 3, 1921. Kirkpatrick, ‘Activities on Night of May 31, 1921.’ McCuen, ‘Duty Performed by [‘B’] Company’.
128 Oral history interview with Seymour Williams, Tulsa, June 2, 1978. 129 Oral history interview with W. D. Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978.
Smitherman, ‘The Tulsa Riot and Massacre.’ 130 Oral history interviews with: Elwood Lett, Tulsa, May 29, 1998; and Nell Hamilton Hampton, Tulsa, September 16, 1998. Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921, p. 8. Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Third Extra,’ p.
1. 131 Smitherman, ‘The Tulsa Race Riot and Massacre’. 132 Letter from Lieutenant Colonel L. J. F. Rooney and Charles W.
Daley to the Adjutant General, June 3, 1921. 133 Ibid. 134 Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Final Edition,’ p. 1. Oral history interview with Harold Madison Parker, Tulsa, January 3, 1973, by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. Gill, ‘Tulsa Race Riot,’ p.
28. Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets, ‘ pp. 47-51. McCuen, ‘Duty Performed by [‘B’] Company.’ Dunlap, ‘Report on Negro Uprising’. Van Voorhis, ‘Detailed Report of Negro Uprising’. Daley, ‘Information on Activities During Negro Uprising’.
135 Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets.’ Jno. A. Gustafson, Chief of Police Wm. McCullough, Sheriff V. W. Biddison, District Judge.
139 J. B. A. Robertson, June 1, 1921, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 139 Copy of telegram from John A. Gustafson, Wm McCullough, and V.
W. Biddison to Governor J. B. A. Robertson, Attorney Generals Civil Case Files, Case 1062, State Archives Division, Oklahoma Department of Libraries. 142 Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster,’ pp.
19-21. Tulsa City Directory, 1921. 143 Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets,’ pp. 68-73.
144 Oklaborna City Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921. Patrolmen Henry C. Pack and Robert Lewis were two of the approximately four African Americans who served on the Tulsa Police force at the time of the riot. 145 Chicago Defender, June 11, 1921. 146 Testimonials of James T. West, Dr.
R. T. Bridgewater, and J. C. Latimer in Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, pp.
20-21, 38, 45-47, 60-61. Tulsa World, June 1, 1921, ‘Extra,’ p. 1. Chicago Defender, June 11, 1921. New York Mail, June 1, 1921.
Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets,’ pp. 70-73. Oral history interviews with: W. D. Williams, Tulsa, November 29, 1970; and S. M.
Jackson and Eunice Cloman Jackson, Tulsa, June 26, 197; by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman. 147 Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets’, p. 70. 148 Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, p. 65.
Phillips, ‘Murder in the Streets’, pp. 70-71. New York World, June 2, 1921. 149 Oral history interview with W. D. Williams, Tulsa, June 7, 1978.
150 Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, pp. 18-21. Tulsa City Directory, 1921. 151 Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921. 152 Testimonial of Dr.
R. T. Bridgewater in Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, p. 45. 153 Barney Cleaver vs. The City of Tulsa, et al.
, 1921. Testimonials of James T. West and ‘A. H.’ in Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, pp. 37, 62. Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921.
New York Times, June 2, 1921. Oral history interviews with: W. D. Williams, Tulsa, November 29, 1970; and S. M. Jackson and Eunice Cloman Jackson, Tulsa, June 26, 1971; by Ruth Sigler Avery, in Fear: The Fifth Horseman.
Chicago Defender, October 25, 1921. Franklin and Franklin, My Life and An Era, p. 197. Oral history interview with Allen Yo well, Tulsa, June 5, 1999. Black Tulsa was not destroyed — as some have alleged — from the air, but by fires set by whites on the ground.
And similar, latter-day claims that Mount Zion Baptist Church was specifically targeted and bombed must also be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism, given the rather primitive aerial bombing capabilities that existed, worldwide, in 1921. That said, however, the evidence does indicate that some form of aerial bombardment took place in Tulsa on the morning of June 1, 1921 — thus making Tulsa, in all probability, the first U. S. city bombed from the air.
154 Letter from Lieutenant Colonel L. J. F. Rooney and Charles Daley to the Adjutant General, June 3, 1921.
Van Voorhis, ‘Detailed Report of Negro Uprising.’ Testimonial.
