LESSON 7.2.8 I READ I Who Killed Black Wall Street?

PURPOSE The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 serves as Americans of Tulsa in 1921. The fact that today

a major example of the ways in which white it's rarely discussed and remembered outside

communities resented and prevented of Tulsa's black community is a tragedy for the

prosperity in African American communities. rest of us to consider.

Professor Henry Louis Gates. Jr. provides

you with an in depth look at the race riot, ATTACHMENT-------its causes, and its effects. The complete • Who Killed Black Wall Street?

story is one of great tragedy for the African

PROCESS Find the attached article on the Tulsa Riot of 1921

by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. As always,

you should read actively, underlining important

names, places, events, and/or passages as you

go. After finishing the reading, write a brief one

page reflection on what you found to be the most

essential parts of the piece. Your short write up

should include a reflection on how this helps

you answer the first of the essential questions of

this lesson.

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READ ING I Who Killed Black Wallstreet? , - Henry Louis Gates Jr.

'Nab Negro' In a city of 100,000 people, high on oil. "The Drexel

Building was the only place downtown where we

were allowed to use the restroom," Robert Fairchild

Sr. recal led, according to the Tulsa Reparations

Coalition. That was why 19-year-old Dick Rowland

was there. His boss at the white shoeshine parlor

on Main Street had arranged for black employees

like Dick Rowland to use the "colored restroom"

on the top floor of the Drexel. "I shined shoes with

Dick Rowland," Fairchild said. "He was an orphan

and had quit school to take care of himself."

he wondered why it had never "occurred to the

citizens of Tu lsa that any sane person attempting

criminally to assault a woman would have picked

any place in the world rather than an open elevator

in a publ ic building with scores of people within

ca lling distance." But it was too late for cooler heads.

or even facts, to prevail. "The story of the alleged

assault was published Tuesday afternoon [a day

after the incident] by the Tulsa Tribune, one of

the two local newspapers," White added, and its

headline and text were vicious.

"Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator," the page-

On Monday, May 30, 1921, Rowland entered the one story ran. In it, the Tribune claimed Rowland

Drexel Building and took a chance violating one of had gone by the nickname "Diamond Dick" and that

the unwritten rules of Jim Crow: He rode an elevator he'd "attacked [Page], scratching her hands and

with a white girl - alone. Really, what choice did face and tearing her clothes." More menacing, the

he have? Seventeen-year-old Sarah Page was the paper let the people of Tulsa know exactly

Drexel Building's elevator operator. No one knows

how the two greeted each other, or if they'd met

before. except that minutes later, someone did hear

a scream - a woman's scream. Rowland ran .

Perhaps he should've waited for a crowd to get

onto the lift with him, because in the aftermath

Page claimed Rowland had assaulted her. Not true,

Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP,

was quick to clarify in a piece he wrote for The

Nation magazine June 29, 1921: "It was found

afterwards that the boy had stepped by accident

on her foot." To White, it was obvious - and so

where Dick Rowland was after being "charged with

attempting to assault the 17-year-old white

elevator girl ... He will be tried in municipal court

this afternoon on a state charge."

No wonder one black T ulsan remembered the

headline differently: "To Lynch a Negro Tonight,"

as an op-ed in the Tulsa Tribune was titled.

Accusations about black men raping white women

had long been used to justify lynching, an idea

called the "old thread-bare lie" by activist Ida B.

Well -Barnett in her 1892 book, Southern Horror:

Lynch Law in all Its Phases. The same lie received ►

llttp//wv,,rw t/Jeroor. com/who-killed-black-wall-street -7 790897586

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a higher profile in 1915 with the release of D.W.

Griffith 's silent film The Birth of a Nation, which

featured white actors in blackface attacking white

women. On Memorial Day 1921, Dick Rowland had

stepped into more than just an elevator, and more

than one scream would follow.

The First Shot Blacks made up 12 percent of Tulsa's population.

Most resided north of the city in Greenwood,

sometimes called the "Negro Wall Street of

America" because of the number of prominent

citizens (including at least three millionaires,

according to Walter White) who had seen their

fortunes rise as a result of the oil boom. Unwelcome

downtown, except when working, Greenwood

blacks had established their own newspapers,

theaters, cafes, stores and professional offices.

Those in Tulsa who paid attention to the news were

well-aware that a white man had been lynched

out of the county jail a year earlier, the same year

that in Oklahoma City, young African-American

male Claude Chandler had been hanged from a tree

after being dragged out of jail on charges of killing

a police officer. Greenwood blacks feared Rowland

would be next, and so they gathered at the black­

owned Tulsa Star to figure out what to do.

Twenty-five or so black men, including veterans

of World War I (which had just ended three

years before), took the ride to Tulsa's downtown,

where, encountering a growing white mob, they

formed a line and marched, with arms, up the

courthouse steps to offer the white police force

help in protecting Rowland. The police refused their

offer, just as they had whites' demands to release

Rowland to the ir brand of ask-no-questions justice.

On the roof, police riflemen stood at the ready.

Below, "cries of let us have the nigger' cou ld be

heard echoing off the walls" (quoted from Scott

Ellsworth 's, "The Tulsa Race Riot," included in Tulsa

Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission

to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 ).

Even though the black visitors returned to their cars,

whites in the mob were enraged by their audacity

and rushed home to get their guns. Others made an

unsuccessful attempt to supply themselves with

ammunition from the National Guard Armory. By

9:30 p.m., there were 2,000 whites crowding the

courthouse, from "curiosity seekers" to "would-be

lynchers," according to Ellsworth.

Back in Greenwood, black Tulsans canceled regular

activities, while another round of men, this time

about 75, decided it was time to head down to the

courthouse. With their guns at the ready, they

wanted to make one thing clear: There was not

going to be any lynching in Tulsa that night.

"Then it happened," Scott Ellsworth writes. "As the

black men were leaving the courthouse for the

second time, a white man approached a tall African­

American World War I veteran who was carrying

an army-issue revolver. 'Nigger,' the white man said,

'What are you doing with that pistol?' Tm going to

use it if I need to,' replied the black veteran. 'No, you

give it to me.' like hell I will.' The white man tried

to take the gun away from the veteran, and a shot ►

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rang out. America's worst race riot had begun ." in the projector's glow, he was shot in the head.

Dick Rowland was now almost incidental - in fact, Sti ll another was shot on West Four th and knifed

he was abou t to be in one of the safest places to the po int where a whi te doctor, seeing him

in the city: jail. "writhing," rea lized "it was an impossible situation

to control, that I could be of no help," reports

The Riot Ellsworth. In the Nation, Walter White tried to

It would be impossible, in this limited space, convey the terror that swept north to Greenwood

to recount every horror inflicted on black Tulsans into the next morning, June 1:

through the long night - their businesses,

their properties. their civic and cu ltural centers,

their lives. For those seeking to know more,

I strongly encourage you to read the findings

of the government-sponsored 1921 Tulsa Race

Riot Commission. released in a 188 page-report

in February 2001 . Other indispensable books

include Scott Ellsworth 's Death in a Promised Land:

The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 and Alfred Brophy's

Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of

1921: Race, Reparations, and Reconcil iation.

There would be no reconciliation the night of May

31 in Tulsa. After the courthouse gunfight, a dozen

black and white men were dead or wounded.

Outnumbered (it wasn 't even close). the blacks

who'd driven down from Greenwood retreated

through the streets while scores of whites were

mt1e /white} mob, now numbering more than 10,000,

made a mass attack on Little Africa. Machine-guns

were brought into use; eight aeroplanes were

employed to spy on the movements of the Negroes

and according to some were used in bombing the

colored section. All that was lacking to make the

scene a replica of modem 'Christian' warfare was

poison gas. The colored men and women fought

gamely in defense of their homes, but the odds

were too great. According to the statements of

onlookers, men in uniform, either home guards or

ex-service men or both, carried cans of oil into Little

Africa, and, after looting the homes, set fire to them.

One incident White recounted involved a black

doctor, A.C. Jackson:

deputized on the spot by the Tulsa Police Department, Dr. Jackson was worth $100,000; had been described

which now perceived the event as "a Negro uprising." by the Mayo brothers 'the most able Negro surgeon

Even one white who was turned away, a bricklayer in America;· was respected by white and colored

named Laurel Buck, was told, "Get a gun, and get people alike, and was in every sense a good citizen.

busy and try to get a nigger," according to Ellsworth. A mob attacked Dr. Jackson's home. He fought in

A black Tulsan was gunned down running out of

an alley near Younkman's drugstore. Another was

chased into a white movie theater, where, spotted

defense of it, his wife and children and himself An

officer of the home guards who knew Dr. Jackson

came up at that time and assured him that if he

would surrender he would be protected. Th is Dr. ►

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Jackson did. The officer sent him under guard to

Convention Hall, where colored people were being

placed for protection. En route to the hall, disarmed,

Dr. Jackson was shot and killed in cold blood. The

officer who had assured Dr. Jackson of protection

stated to me, 'Dr. Jackson was an able, clean-cut

man. He did only what any red-blooded man would

have done under similar circumstances in

defending his home. Dr. Jackson was murdered

by white ruffians.'

First, the armed whites broke into the black homes

and businesses, forcing the occupants out into

the street, where they were led away at gunpoint

to one of a growing number of internment centers.

Anyone who resisted was shot. Moreover, African­

American men in homes where firearms were

discovered met the same fate. Next, the whites

looted the homes and businesses, pocketing small

items, and hauling away larger items either on

foot or by car or truck. Finally, the white rioters

then set the homes and other buildings on fire,

Reading these passages, it's impossible not to recall using torches and oil-soaked rags. House by house,

President Obama's remarks about Trayvon Martin: block by block, the wall of flame crept northward,

It "could've been me" - it could have been us. Really, engulfing the city's black neighborhood.

it could've been anyone during the Tulsa Race Riot,

because at one point, according to Ellsworth, "[a]t

least one white man in an automobile was killed

by a group of whites, who had mistaken him to be

black." In the fog of a riot, as in war, no one is safe

from being profiled.

It continued when the Tulsa police and National

Guard troops arrived in Greenwood on the morning

of June 1 and imposed martial law. Still convinced

blacks were to blame for the riot, the troops focused

their efforts on detaining Greenwood's residents

instead of shielding them from the terror. Estimates

are that close to 4,000 to 6,000 Greenwood

residents (almost half the population) were arrested

and relocated to holding centers throughout the

city, leaving their homes and businesses even more

vulnerable to attack.

The "deadly pattern" was set, Scott Ellsworth

writes:

The Aftermath The last shots in the Tulsa Race Riot were fired

sometime after noon on Tuesday, June 1. In the

aftermath, there were 26 African Americans and 10

whites reported dead, but many who'd lived through

it found the official count dubiously low. Eighty

years later, the Tulsa Race Riot Commission report

determined that some 1,256 homes were burned

in Greenwood, and while an exact count of those

killed could not be established, even the best

evidence pointed to between 75 and 300 killed, with

a ratio of three or four blacks to every one white,

but really it's hard to be precise when so many of

the black victims were buried without dignity -

or even in a pine box. Then there are the families

that fled . Aaron Myers, in his entry on Tulsa in

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and

African American Experience (a reference book

I co-edited with Kwame Anthony Appiah). puts that

number at more than 700 - 700 families displaced

by what followed from an elevator ride gone bad. ►

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So many more questions remained - most of all ,

why?

Visiting Tulsa in the immediate aftermath, Walter

White pointed to three general causes: poor

and working-class whites' resentment of blacks

prospering in Tulsa's oil economy; blacks'

determination to "emancipat[e] themselves from

the old system"; and "rotten political conditions,"

where "in a county of approximately 100,000

population, six out of every one hundred citizens

were under indictment for some sort of crime, with

little likelihood of trial in any of them."

Whites in Tulsa had their own narrative. At least

one, Amy Comstock, in her piece for Survey in

July 1921, agreed that general lawlessness was

a problem in Tulsa, but she located it in Greenwood:

"It was in the sordid and neglected 'Niggertown'

that the crooks found their best hiding place .. .

There, for months past, the bad 'niggers,' the silk­

shirted parasites of society, had been collecting

guns and munitions. Tulsa was living on a Vesuvius

that was ready to vomit fire at any time."

The truth was the United States during and after

World War I was suffering an epidemic, not

of influenza, but of race riots. Among the most

notorious were the East St. Louis Riot of 1917

and the Red Summer Riots of 1919 in Chicago,

which, over four days, claimed the lives of two

dozen blacks with hundreds more injured. Scholars,

including Cameron McWhirter, author of Red

Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening

of Black America, have offered many theories about

the causes of these race riots : conflicts over jobs,

whites' fury at the number of black families moving

into their cities, blacks' willingness to push back

against the excesses of Jim Crow and the visible

public presence of black World War I veterans

in uniform.

Justice Shortly after the Tulsa Riot, a grand jury was

convened to examine the incident. Its findings were

summed up in a headline published in the Tulsa

World: "Grand Jury Blames Negroes for Inciting

Race Rioting; Whites Clearly Exonerated," according

to Brophy. Outside the courthouse, blacks knew

different. One, B.F. Johnson, later had this to say,

according to the Tulsa Reparations Coalition: "There

seemed [to] be on the part [of] many white people a

sort of joy in having unrestrained priveleges [sic] in

shooting the negroes ... [W]hat these boys and men

did was because they had hell in their harts [sic]."

Whatever was lurking in Sarah Page's heart, in

September 1921, the most consequential elevator

operator in Tulsa history was a no-show against Dick

Rowland in court - and so his case was tossed. In

an amazing turn of events, Rowland had survived the

riot in jail and now was a free man once again. To

this day, his life - and death - remain a mystery,

so, too, his face, as illustrated by an ongoing debate

about whether "that's him" in the 1921 Booker T.

Washington school yearbook. From what I can tell,

Dick Rowland was last known to have relocated

to Kansas City, where, in my fantasy, he was among

the first to see the young Charlie Parker play the

saxophone.

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The Rebuilding Despite initial promises from Tulsa officials to

rebuild Greenwood, blacks who had lost everything

found no redress from the city or the courts. Of

the more than 100 suits filed in the yea,·s after the

riot, only two went to trial , Brophy reports, and

both plaintiffs lost. Those who sought to rebuild

found their progress slowed by a lack of funds

and new zoning ordinances, while even those home­

and business-owners who had insurance learned

their policies contained "riot exclusion" clauses.

Because of the slow pace of progress, a thousand

survivors spent the winter of 1921-1922 living

in tents. The hurricane that had displaced them

was hate.

The Long Memory of Tulsa In 1997, the Oklahoma Commission to Study

the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 was formed by

a resolution in the Oklahoma State Legislature.

It was tasked with researching the facts

and making recommendations about possible

reparations. Based on the commission's

findings, the legislature did apologize for the

Tulsa Race Riot but stopped short of providing

more than limited funds for the community. As

As compelling as their case was, however,

a U.S. district court judge granted the defendants'

motion to dismiss because the underlying facts

fell outside the statute of limitations.

Ogletree's team pressed on to the 10th Circuit U.S.

Court of Appeals. "The lawyers in Brown v. Board

of Education had to fight a lot of battles and

suffer a lot of losses before they could win," he

told the Harvard Crimson in March 2004. "We're

prepared to fight equally long." Unfortunately, a few

months later, justice in Alexander v. Oklahoma

was denied again, despite the plaintiffs' argument

that the clock should have started with the Tulsa

Race Riot Commission's findings in 2001, not with

the whitewashing that had occurred in the 1920s.

The court disagreed, stating that even if vital

information to the case had been concealed in the

riot's immediate aftermath, those seeking redress

could have pursued it after federal civil rights

legislation had been passed in the 1960s or when

Scott Ellison wrote his history of the riot in 1982.

As a result, those like Otis Clark who remembered

living through the riot would not live to see their

day in court.

a result, in 2003, several hundred victims Thankfully, the story doesn't end there.

and descendants of the Tulsa Riot (including 100

year-old Otis Clark) filed a lawsuit against the The Vigil state, the city and the police department. Charles One tangible result of the commission's findings was

Ogletree, my friend and colleague at the Harvard the creation of John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park,

Law School, led the reparations team with what dedicated in 2010 in honor of the greatest African-

contributor Alfred Brophy described as "immense American historian of his generation, a Tulsa native,

humanity," a "rigorous legal mind" and a fierce

determination to pursue "justice on behalf of

those who cannot fight for themselves" (pdf).

a member of the commission and my dear late friend,

whose father, Buck Colbert Franklin, had performed

heroic service as a lawyer in the immediate ►

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aftermath of the riot. Designed to continue "the

American tradition of erecting memorials based

on tragic events by giving voice to the untold story

of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and the important role

African Ameri cans played in building Oklahoma,"

Reconciliation Park served as an important

gathering place for the community on the evening

of July 16, 2013, after it was announced that

a Florida jury had found Trayvon Martin's killer,

George Zimmerman, not guilty.

President Obama had yet to deliver his remarks

from the White House pressroom on the "set of

experiences and a history that doesn't go away," but

already Tulsans were there at Reconciliation Park

to remember the souls of the long - and recently

- departed. In the words of one attendee, Geoff

Woodson, "This is something we should do, anyway.

We still have [Interstate] 244 that divides us. We

still have people that don't want to talk about the

1921 [Tulsa] Race Riot. We need to come together.

It's the only way healing can take place."

My intention, in presenting the Colfax Massacre

and the Tulsa Riot the past two weeks, has been

to aid that healing from a place of truth. None of

us but God will ever know what Trayvon Martin

was thinking in his final moments of struggle, or

what those who were marched out of Colfax to

their slaughter said to their butchers or how Dick

Rowland felt when Sarah Page screamed and he

was alone, but we do have a "set of experiences

and a history" of facts with which to contend, and

while the work ahead will be hard, it is necessary

if we are going to change the way people feel when

someone who "fits a profile" steps on an elevator

and isn't accompanied by the Secret Service.

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