Dreams of Black Wall Street

The racial tensions that led to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 did not begin in 1921. They began decades before the city of Tulsa and the state of Oklahoma were formed. Episode 1 will look back at the various ethnic groups that inhabited Indian Territory and later the state of Oklahoma in the 19th century, how they contributed to the foundation of the state, including Tulsa, and how the racial as well as socio-economic dynamics of the region at the time were related to the Tulsa Race Massacre. Guests include Dr. Bob Blackburn, who is the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, as well as Eugene Harrod, who currently works as Adjunct Professor at The College of the Muscogee Nation. Historical artifacts include an audio recording of an interview between Tulsa author and historian, Eddie Faye Gates, and a woman named Thelma DeEtta Perryman Gray, who is a descendant of some of Tulsa's founders. Her great grandfather was Lewis Perryman, who is considered one of the founding fathers of what became known as "Tulsey Town."

To understand the rise and eventual fall of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, it’s important to understand the racial and economic conditions that contributed to it. These dynamics really started to take shape during Oklahoma's oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which attracted people of various ethnicities and income levels to the region. The discovery of oil in Indian Territory and later in what became the state of Oklahoma also spurred business and development in many parts of Oklahoma, including Tulsa. However, the opportunities a person had available to them in what we call the state of Oklahoma today, and how well they did under the changing economic circumstances, depended on a number of circumstances: namely ones race. Guests of Episode 2 include Michelle Place, the Executive Director the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum, as well as Eugene Harrod, Adjunct Professor at The College of the Muscogee Nation. Historical artifacts include an audio recording of an interview between Tulsa historian and author, Eddie Faye Gates, and a man named Alfred Barnett, who lived and worked in Tulsa at the time of the oil boom.

Oil and the prospect of opportunity attracted people of various ethnicities, backgrounds, cultures and traditions to Oklahoma from across the country and beyond, One of the most culturally influential elements taking shape in the early 20th century in places across Oklahoma, particularly in dozens of all-black communities and towns, was Jazz. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society’s Encyclopedia on Jazz, “To understand the history of jazz in Oklahoma, one must first consider the settlement patterns of the state, because they reflect its cultural diversity." At the same time, the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma was a thriving, prosperous, predominantly African American business district. The amount of wealth contained within the community earned it the nickname Black Wall Street.

The Red Summer of 1919 refers to the summer and fall of that year between April and November, during which time about 25 or so race riots, massacres and instances of mob-inspired violence exploded throughout the country. The most brutal and vicious occurred in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Elaine Arkansas. Additionally,nearly 100 lynchings of African Americans were recorded in that year. With heightened racial tension across the nation, it was against this backdrop that the Tulsa Race Massacre occurred two years later.

The Red Summer of 1919 refers to the period between the spring and fall of that year (specifically, between April and November), during which time about 25 or so race riots, massacres and instances of mob-inspired violence exploded throughout the country. The most brutal and vicious occurred in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Elaine Arkansas. Additionally,nearly 100 lynchings of African Americans were recorded in that year. With heightened racial tension across the nation, it was against this backdrop that the Tulsa Race Massacre occurred two years later.

On Monday, May 30, 1921 an African American shoe shine boy named Dick Rowland boarded an elevator in the Drexel building in downtown Tulsa, OK and headed for the upper floor restroom as he had done in the past. On the elevator was a young Caucasian elevator operator named Sarah Page. According to Rowland, who was known around town as "Diamond Dick," the elevator lurched, causing him to fall against Page, who then screamed. A nearby white store clerk store ran to her aid. Fearing for his safety, Rowland Fled. The store clerk reported the incident as an attempted assault. After word of the alleged assault made its way around town, a mob formed outside of the jail Rowland was being kept in that in all likely hood would have lynched him if they could. Ultimately Page refused to testify against Rowland and declined to prosecute the case. The damage, however, had already been done.

Between May 31st and June 1st of 1921, what the Oklahoma Historical Society calls quote, "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history," claimed the lives of potentially hundreds of people and left an entire community in Tulsa, Oklahoma completely decimated. That community, known as Greenwood - an African American district in North Tulsa, suffered a brutal attack by a white mob, which resulted in a horrific scene of chaos, destruction and bloodshed. The area, with a population of about 10,000 at the time, according to the historical society, had been considered one of the most affluent African American communities in the United States for the early part of the 20th century. For that reason it earned the name Black Wall Street.

The episode is Part 2 of a deep dive into the Tulsa Race Massacre, which occurred between May 31st and June 1st of 1921. Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed. Thousands were left homeless. And the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma - also known as Black Wall Street - was completely destroyed. Some witnesses and survivors reported seeing and hearing bombs dropped on the community of Greenwood or Black Wall Street. Some experts believe they were turpentine bombs. One of the most prominent people to be killed during the massacre was Dr. A.C. Jackson - a black surgeon who lived in Greenwood. He was called the most able Negro surgeon in America by the Mayo brothers (who founded the world renowned Mayo Clinic), and transcended the color line, servicing both white and “Colored” patients.

According to A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, “Not all black Tulsans, however, countenanced surrender. In the final burst of fighting off of Standpipe Hill that morning, a deadly firefight erupted at the site of an old clay pit, where several African American defenders were said to have gone to their deaths fighting off the white invaders. Stories also have been passed down over the years regarding the exploits of Peg Leg Taylor, a legendary black defender who is said to have single-handedly fought off more than a dozen white rioters.” It goes on to say that rioters who were posted along the northern face of Sunset Hill are said to have found themselves under attack, at least for some time. Despite the efforts of some such as Taylor, Tulsa’s African American contingent was outgunned and outnumbered. Nevertheless, the story of Peg Leg Taylor has become the stuff of myth and legend. Various accounts about his efforts and what became of him have carried on through the years, including one account that posits that Taylor died defending Standpipe Hill. As it turns out, Peg Leg Taylor did not die in the Tulsa Race Massacre. He escaped and lived about 30 more years or so. He also had a daughter who escaped with him.

When the mayhem ceased, and the smoke cleared, Black Wall Street laid almost completely flattened. In less than 24 hours, according to a Red Cross estimate, more than 1,200 houses were burned; 215 others were looted but not torched. Two newspapers, a library, a school, stores, hotels, churches and many other black-owned businesses were among the buildings damaged or destroyed by fire. Historians now believe an estimated 300 people were killed, according to the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum - although the official number of fatalities is much lower. The vast majority of the city’s black residents were left homeless. In the days, weeks and months to come, Tulsa's African American population would endure more suffering and heartache in their attempts to recover and rebuild their lives.

Over the last nearly 100 years, there has been speculation about whether or not the Tulsa Race Massacre was a planned attempt to launch an attack on Tulsa's Greenwood district. While there is no direct evidence of this, experts point to why this claim may or may not have any validity. Additionally, following the Tulsa Race Massacre there were concerted efforts to push African American property owners off of the land that they owned, on which mostly ashes sat. On June 2, 1921 - a day after the attack on Greenwood ended, representatives from the local Real Estate Exchange in Tulsa (which later became today's Realtors' Association, made a proposal to the Public Welfare Board: relocate Greenwood's black residents and turn parts of the burned district of what some referred to as "Little Africa" into a "wholesale industrial site." On Tuesday June 7th, the Tulsa City Commission took steps to guarantee that Greenwood would not be rebuilt. At the directive of the Real Estate Exchange, the body voted 4-0 to extend the city's fire code to all of the burned district south of the Sunset Hill brick plant and Haskell Street, making it nearly rebuilding "The Negro Wall Street" impossibly expensive for blacks in Tulsa. These efforts ultimately failed due - in part - to a group of African American attorney B.C. Franklin who went to the Oklahoma Supreme Court to argue against a law that would allow African Americans in Greenwood to be stripped of their land.

Despite thousands of potential perpetrators of numerous crimes and potentially hundreds or thousands of witnesses to these crimes, law enforcement officials did not pursue any of them with any real vigor in search of the truth. As a result the victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre never got their justice. The life of one of the victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 is an example of the consequences of these actions - or lack thereof by law enforcement officials in Tulsa and Oklahoma. That man, born John the Baptist Stradford, was born a slave in Kentucky. Stradford was a graduate of Oberlin College and Indiana Law School. The J. B. Stradford family moved to Tulsa, OK, in 1899. J. B. became one of the richest African American's in Tulsa. Stradford became known as one of the pioneers of Tulsa. He owned the Stratford Hotel located at 301 North Greenwood. Following the Tulsa Race Massacre, Stradford was one of the few people charged in connection with the attack. He ultimately fled Tulsa and moved to Chicago where his son was living and working as an attorney. He lost just about everything he had in the Massacre. Although he owned several businesses in Chicago, he never amassed the amount of wealth he had in Tulsa. Additionally, the charge hung over him for the rest of his life. In 1996 Stradford was posthumously cleared of the charge of rioting thanks to years long efforts by his descendants.

While some African American survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre left Greenwood for good, surprisingly, many stayed even though most returned home to ashes. However, of the black Tulsans who decided to remain in their community and rebuild, most had virtually none of the advantages that they had when Black Wall Street was first developed. For example, after the Massacre, black Tulsans had very little to zero assets; little to no access to previously advantageous streams of income; their insular economy was ground to a halt because their community was destroyed, preventing them from immediately generating income. The larger economy of Tulsa in general was ground to a halt as well for several days following the massacre. Additionally, many black Tulsans had incurred more debt with fewer and less expeditious ways of paying it off. Many had also lost loved ones in the Massacre, which not only meant the loss of invaluable life but it also meant the loss of another contributor to household responsibilities or income. Finally, many black Tulsans had little to no ability to seek support from nearby relatives or friends as most of their neighbors were also experiencing similar hardships. Nevertheless, not only did black Tulsans reconstruct Black Wall Street, over time the second version became more prosperous than the first. This was a testament to the resilient, tenacious nature of the community.

Up until the later part of the 20th century, there were sustained and concerted efforts to suppress the full truth of the Tulsa Race Riot, which is now acknowledged as the Tulsa Race Massacre. In the decades that followed, the attack was treated as taboo by both whites and blacks, by residents of Tulsa and government officials, by survivors of the massacre and their descendants. If it was addressed, often times the facts and circumstances surrounding the massacre were misconstrued and in many cases fabricated. Some descendants of survivors have said it was a matter of protecting future generations from enduring a similar tragedy. Others have said it was considered a black mark of shame for Tulsa and few perpetrators wanted to actually accept responsibility for such an event. Dr. Scott Ellsworth - professor of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan and author of Death in a Promised Land, said quote, “The people who brought it up were threatened with their jobs; they were threatened with their lives.” The suppression of the Tulsa Race Massacre is emblematic of the frequency with which the erasure of black life and anything associated with it took place in the early part of the 20th century.

A significant number of African American residents of Tulsa’s predominantly black Greenwood District disappeared during and after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Some researchers and experts believe there could be hundreds of the missing residents. These were people who not only had never been heard from again but whose bodies could not be located after the Massacre. Many loved ones presumed missing black Tulsans had been killed during the attack on Greenwood. Though they never had a chance to lay the missing to rest. For decades, experts have tried to solve the mystery of the missing bodies. The answer could be in survivor accounts and family lore - that for nearly 100 years - told of large numbers of bodies being buried or dumped in mass graves in and around Tulsa following the Massacre. On the other hand, some witnesses reported seeing black corpses hauled to the banks of and dumped in the Arkansas River. Experts who were hired to unearth evidence of - if not the graves themselves more than 20 years ago - encountered road blocks that made their efforts unsuccessful. However, the current mayor of Tulsa, Mayor G.T. Bynum, has launched renewed efforts to discover possible mass graves stemming from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

In the nearly 100 In the years since the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Tulsa, particularly the Greenwood District, has undergone a considerable and slow transformation. Although Greenwood, experienced a regeneration between the 1920’s and 1950’s after the community was rebuilt following the Tulsa Race Massacre, that economic boom did not last. When legal segregation began to be dismantled in the 1950’s, blacks in Greenwood had more freedom to choose how and where they spent their money and many of them spent it outside of the community. Thus began Greenwood’s economic decline. This was exacerbated by several other factors, including redlining - practices that deny residents of certain areas services based on their race or ethnicity, as well as urban renewal - a set of federally financed policies aimed at rehabilitating cities of a city plagued by economic decline, which sometimes cause harm to residents in the targeted areas. Examples include the denial of mortgage loans, insurance and other financial services. This often occurs in minority communities. These factors along with others, have left many parts of present-day Greenwood in a state of economic despair. The city is still very much segregated. The lack of opportunities for upward mobility many black Tulsans currently face has resulted in many African Americans in Tulsa experiencing a far lower quality of life and fewer opportunities, including the opportunity to own a home. Additionally, many Tulsans of various backgrounds believe that race relations continue to be strained. As a result a number of Tulsans with expertise in various fields are working to improve these areas of their community.

For decades, a number of scholars and experts have been at the forefront of efforts to tell the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. During this time the tragedy remained largely unknown among most Americans. In recent years however, great strides have been made in the effort to bring more attention to the event and help those who would listen understand that the Massacre is emblematic of the Black experience in America at the time and is as much a part of American history as any other major national, historical event. Much of what is known about the Massacre is due in part to the testimonies and eye witness accounts of Tulsa Race Massacre survivors and their family members. Hundreds of interviews detailing these accounts exist in large part because of the efforts of educator, historian and author, Eddie Faye Gates who recorded their experiences in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Many of these accounts and recordings have been made available to feature on this podcast thanks to the generosity of experts on the subject matter who have been documenting this history for years, including those who have worked with Mrs. Gates. While this podcast tells the story of the events surrounding the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the story of the tragedy is still being written, in part by those who are invested in revitalizing the the district of Greenwood in the hopes that it might one day resemble some semblance of the thriving community once known as Black Wall Street.