Can We Please Talk About Tulsa?

The African-American community has always struggled with prospering in business. From slavery to police brutality, blacks have never succeeded in that field. However, it is a shame for blacks to have found power and even freedom.

Nevertheless, history has whitewashed it from PBS tapes a substitute teacher plays to the ten-pound textbooks we read night after night. The African-American community deserves the right to be independent and benefit from the same prosperous businesses as whites.

Tulsa is the stomping grounds for black independence and wealth freedom; welcome to Black Wall Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Oklahoma became a state in 1907. It promises a better life for African Americans looking for a chance to start over and get away from the Southern states.

In Tulsa, the Frisco railroad tracks divided the Greenwood District into two separate parts: black and white (Johnson). In addition, laws made by the state stopped people from living in neighborhoods that were 75 percent of the other race, which created segregation.

However, black people soon occupied theatres, nightclubs, churches, grocery stores, and many other buildings along Greenwood Avenue (Johnson). The schools were superior to white areas, and many houses had indoor plumbing before those in the white neighborhoods did. Furthermore, because African Americans could not shop in the predominately white regions, the money spent in Greenwood went right back into the community.

By the time of the attacks on the citizens of Black Wall Street, more than 10,000 African Americans lived in the area (Johnson). The community even supported two of its newspaper, the Tulsa Star and the Oklahoma Sun-”… the second covering state and national news and politics as well,” according to the Progressive.

On May 30th, the community would change forever.

Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old shoe shiner at a Main Street parlor, took the elevator at the nearby building to use the restroom. Sarah Page, the white elevator operator on duty, was 17 years old.

It remains unclear whether the two were in the elevator. However, one thing was sure: Page accused Rowland of sexual assault. Although she never pressed charges, the news of the incident spread like wildfire.

The story made the front page of the Tulsa Tribune with the headline, “Nad Negor for attacking girl in an elevator.” At the same time, rumors began circulating that a white lynch mob was searching for Rowland (Ellsworth).

The incident further divided the town. One side believed Rowland raped Page, and the other held on to the belief that he tripped as he got onto the elevator and grabbed Page’s arm as he tried to catch his balance.

According to an official report, “… in front of the courthouse where Dick Rowland stayed, a group of white men approached the black men from Greenwood. “N — — -, what are you going to do with that pistol?” one said.

“I’m going to use it if I need to,” the black man replied.

The white man attempted to wrest the pistol from his hands, and a gunshot rang out. It is unclear whether it was accidental, a warning shot, or an attempt to injure or kill.

In any case, all hell broke loose.

The groups of white and black men had a running gunfight at Greenwood. When they got there, the group of whites-which had grown in number-began, fired indiscriminately on black bystanders (Hirsch). Black people were shot in the streets and dragged behind cars, tied around their necks with nooses. Their houses and businesses were looted and burned down.

Greenwood residents fired back, and there were white casualties as well. Ultimately, the white mob was more prominent and better armed. Many eyewitnesses account mention planes flying overhead.

One, written by Buck Colbert Franklin, a lawyer at the time, stated, “Smoke ascended the sky in thick, black volumes and amid it all, the planes-now a dozen or more in number-still hummed and darted here and there with the agility of natural birds of the air…The sidewalks were literally covered with burning turpentine balls.”

An official report published by the city in 2001 confirmed that The National Guard flew some planes by police conducting reconnaissance. The others concluded that the white civilians, who fired ammunition and dropped gasoline bottles on the building below, controlled the aircraft.

In the middle of the night, the Tulsa police formally requested that the National Guard assist them in quelling a “Negro uprising.” As they awaited the National Guard, they let Greenwood burn. When the soldiers arrived, they detained 6,000 black residents, many of them for more than a week. Upon release, these residents were homeless.

In 2016, Tulsa sustained more than $30 million of property damage. “Tulsa civic leaders clung to conversation estimates,” wrote historian Tim Madigan, but “the number of the dead no doubt climbed well into hundreds, making the burning in Tulsa the deadliest domestic American outbreak since the Civil War.”

The riot grew worse for black Tulsans. Countless families began to flee after being trapped between rampant flames and gunfire (Franklin). By the end of the attack, there were close to 300 murdered blacks, and many others were left injured, homeless, and held in internment camps by law enforcement. Nevertheless, by 1942, remaining black Tulsans rebuilt Greenwood without assistance from the state and saw a resurgence of over 240 businesses.

By the 1940s, Kansas rebuilt the Greenwood District but regained less prominence due to integration during the Civil Rights era.

Tim Madigan reported, “The fate of Black Wall Street that as long as power remains in the hands of mainly white families, America’s socioeconomic system can be marshaled to support and advance the tenets of white supremacy. Regardless of the progress made by prominent African-Americans, American capitalism is structured to keep a white segment of society ahead of them remained.”

One of the most significant accomplishments yet biggest tragedies ever: The Black Holocaust.

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Hirsh. James. Riot and Remembrance: American’s Worst Race Riot and Its Legacy. Print. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. September 18th, 2017. January 30th, 2002.

Madigan. Tim. The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Print. St. Martin’s Griffin. September 18th, 2017. August 1st, 2007.

Ellsworth S. Franklin J. Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Print. LSU Press. September 18th, 2017. 1998.