I have decided to make a third part. Check back tomorrow.
Last week in Tulsa, I stood counting the black businesses destroyed in the Tulsa race riot of 1921. This memorial stands to account for the destruction. I counted 600 businesses (mostly along the one mile stretch). Among them were dozens and dozens of doctors and lawyer offices, two movie theatres, two newspapers, barber shops, hairdressers, churches, real estate establishments. The list is long.
And I was sad. We were rich. Not just on paper. Tulsa created many multi-millionaires (some in todays money accounting for inflation and cost of living would have been making hundreds of millions of dollars A YEAR). But aside from the money, we were also rich in spirit. When I google “Black Wall Street”, at the top of the search results appears a hip hop record company label, started by ‘The Game’. It does pay homage and reference Tulsa’s pillage in the “about” section. And maybe rap is our generation’s “Texas Tea” (oil, the thing that bought many a black to the midwest) but there has to be more. Why is hip hop our only saving grace ?
I itched to get to Greenwood ave. after my vendor meetings last week. I, usually the only African American, in my meetings mentioned I couldn’t “wait to get downtown, there’s so much history there”. My white cohorts looked at me blankly and asked: “history…you don’t mean Tulsa. You must mean Oklahoma City”. I replied, “No, I mean Tulsa, downtown Tulsa. There was a riot there in 1921. A race riot, that destroyed city blocks upon city blocks of flourishing businesses, black businesses”.
The event that would unfold was perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back. There was already much white tension about a wealthy black town full of “rich niggers”.
Tulsa 1921 Mob Scene
The events hours prior to the riot play out like a soap opera. A black man, Dick Rowland enters an elevator in The Drexel Building in downtown Tulsa. A white elevator operator, Sarah Page would accuse Rowland of rape on that elevator. There are conflicting reports of exactly what happened, but some report he tripped getting onto the elevator and grabbed the arm of Sarah Page to break his fall and she screamed. Other accounts however suggest it was a lovers quarrel. Whatever happened, Rowland would be charged with attempted assault of the 17 year old young woman at the Tulsa County Courthouse.
Rowland’s adoptive mother hires a prominent white attorney to defend her son. Newspapers lead with inflaming reports and headlines including “Nab Negro For Attacking Girl In Elevator”. In the meantime a lynch mob was forming on the courthouse steps full of angry white people. Later on in the evening a group of 25 black men armed with shotguns and rifles drive down to the courthouse to offer their services to defend the parameter of the jail and prevent a lynching. The Sheriff turned down the offer and informed the black men that Rowland was safe. The black men turn around to go home. At this time and well into late evening the white crowed had swelled to more than 1000 people on the courthouse steps.
to be continued tomorrow…
5 Comments
Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 10:21 am
I am 60 plus years old and today is the first time I read something about the 1921 race riots in Tulsa Ok. Today I read a brief history of the horrible incident in a local (Beaumont, TX)black magazine (www.cushine.com) I was quite surprise and disappointed when I googled black wall street to only get site about hip hop etc. I am eager to learn more, more, and more about the worst one time disaster in America history.
Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 1:05 pm
WOW…Cleve. There are alot of places like Tulsa. But I never heard of anything in Beaumont.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 8:32 pm
i heard about this but did not know all of the story but what a shame dang! they allways take whats ours even in todays time they do this to us how can we stop this?
Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Great to read this.. I’d keep on doing this in a more formalized way. I think 20/20 did something on the Tulsa Race Riot a few years back and there’s so much more to be un-earthed..if you get my drift!
My father, who is now deceased, told me when he was living near Tulsa, i.e. an oil lease run by my grandparents in 1921 (he would have been 7-8 years old), how many blacks fled Tulsa into the Osage Hills near Sperry and my grandparents gave food, clothing and refuge to many who literally ran away from Tulsa for fear of their lives. Dad said they fed upwards of 25-30 folks for several days who hid out on their oil lease property.
It’s such a sad, sad tragedy for me to read even today. I was born and grew up in Tulsa and proud of being a Tulsan at birth and heart, but this story saddens me greatly to see how the media, namely the Tulsa World and Tribune portrayed this actions so unfairly and almost in a K-K-K-like manner.
Memorials to those whose lives and property and fortunes were destroyed is good, but sadly, like so many other things, missed the mark! – Charlie Tooley
Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 6:38 pm
“Memorials to those whose lives and property and fortunes were destroyed is good, but sadly, like so many other things, missed the mark! ”
i agree but luckily, current generations of black folk can really show our reverence and gratitude for taking bold moves to reallly typify what it means to be black and self-sustaining. Thats the thank you we can all give. Thats the living memorial.