Michael E. Flippo

03-05-04

HIST 3090

The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 was one of the worst incidences of violence on American soil since the Civil War and perhaps the worst racial struggle in American history since slavery. The riot occurred in a time where racial violence was frequent and tensions were high. The events of May 31 and June1, 1921 left much of north Tulsa in ashes and hundreds of people dead. The riot, however, does not remain in our national memory due to a deliberate cover-up by Tulsa’s business and political elites who found the incident embarrassing to the city and potentially costly to the city’s power structure.

To understand the riot and what happened, one must understand the history of Tulsa and the nature of the race relations in Tulsa and indeed the nation in 1921. Although justice and reimbursement may never come to the victims of the riot, it is important for people to learn about what happened there in 1921. It is perhaps the greatest of the many tragic outcomes of the Tulsa Race Riot that most people are completely ignorant of the event and the total destruction of a whole segment of Tulsa’s population and livelihood.

Tulsa was dubbed the Magic City because it seemed to have appeared overnight. The city had a population of only a few thousand people in 1905 (two years before statehood). By 1910, thanks to improved travel routes around the city, Tulsa became a boomtown with rich oil fields nearby. By then, Tulsa was on the map and known as a place where fortunes could be had. Tulsa attracted people from all over the region, especially southerners. By 1920, the population numbered over 100,000 people.[1]

Tulsa was not an average boomtown, however, it stood a cosmopolitan gem surrounded by general emptiness. It had all the amenities of any other major city. Modern high rises, the most beautiful churches in Oklahoma, clean paved streets with electric trolleys, a connection to four rail lines, and a commercial airport all by 1919.[2] By 1921 the city had seven different banks downtown, over 200 practicing attorneys, and over 200 medical doctors.[3]

Tulsa had become the hub of the oil industry by 1921. Even though the city did not actually have any oil, it positioned itself as the transportation hub of the area. Tulsa became the home to the offices of over four hundred oil companies, refineries, and other industries that supported the oil business.

The Greenwood District of Tulsa became a mecca for African Americans in the region. By 1921, Tulsa was home of ten thousand African Americans. Tulsa’s Greenwood District was the commercial center of the city’s African American population. Due to the strong segregation laws in Tulsa, Greenwood was the only place for African Americans to shop and seek entertainment. This concentration of the African American market produced a unique situation. The “black” part of town was a very impressive place that boasted more amenities than almost any other African American neighborhood.[4]

Greenwood served as a symbol of pride for Tulsa’s African American population. The commercial center of Greenwood, nicknamed “Deep Greenwood,” was filled with multi-storied brick buildings, all black housing developments, and many black-owned and operated businesses. Greenwood was one of the leading black communities in America and was dubbed the nickname “The Black Wall Street.”[5]

Race relations in Tulsa, as with any other Southern city, had been strained in the years after World War I. These years were harshest in terms of racial strife across the country. In 1919 alone, over two-dozen race riots broke out in America’s cities including the Chicago Race Riot, which left many dead and wounded. Race Riots in the early part of the century were generally very violent with a great amount of property damage suffered by the black community. Lynching was another common occurrence across America, with 75 African Americans lynched in 1919 alone.[6]

Although African Americans resisted racial attacks and defended themselves the best they could, blacks were falling victim to this kind of violence all too often. The problem usually was the fact that the authorities were unable and/or unwilling to stop and disperse white mobs. The racial strife was not limited to the South as a number of northern cities began to segregate public establishments, and many other discriminatory laws were being passed.

The Ku Klux Klan was a growing power in American politics and was strong in Tulsa as well. Oklahoma’s Ku Klux Klan membership was quite large, believed to have reached more than 100,000 by the mid 1920s. Tulsa’s Ku Klux Klan membership in 1921 was believed to have been over three thousand men. Tulsa also had thriving chapters of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan and the Junior Ku Klux Klan.[7] The Klan did not only have the average middle class white membership, some of the wealthiest and most influential men in the city held memberships. The Tulsa Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was very influential in Oklahoma politics and posted lists of “Klan-approved” candidate in Tulsa’s newspapers.[8]

The racial climate in Tulsa was brewing for disaster as the city celebrated Memorial Day. On that day, Dick Rowland and Sarah Page were both working in downtown Tulsa at their respective jobs. Dick Rowland was a shoe-shiner in an all white shine parlor on Main Street. There were no bathrooms for him to use at his place of work so his employer arranged for the black employees to use the “Colored” restroom in the Drexel building, which was located nearby. It was there in the Drexel Building that Rowland would come across Sarah Page, who was an elevator operator in the building.[9]

Nobody knows exactly what happened in the elevator that day between Sarah Page and Dick Rowland. The most common story about the incident was that Dick Rowland tripped as he entered the elevator and grabbed Sarah Page in order to break his fall, causing Page to scream. A clerk on the first floor of the building, who heard the scream and saw Dick Rowland run out of the building, decided that the man had tried to assault Sarah Page and called for the police. Rowland was arrested the next morning and held on the top floor of the Tulsa County Courthouse.

Although the police tried to handle the incident in a low-key manner, news traveled quickly. On the May 31, 1921 issue of the Tulsa Tribune, which was an evening newspaper, printed an article titled “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator.” The article was an inflammatory one that gave questionable information about the incident and even claimed that Dick Rowland referred to himself as “Diamond Dick.” Another newspaper article that likely appeared in the editorials section of the same edition was titled “To Lynch Negro Tonight.” There is no known copy of this article remaining since the articles relating to this incident in the May 31, 1921 issue have been removed from the copies. Many witnesses, both black and white, remember seeing the article “To Lynch a Negro Tonight” and generally agree upon the headline. There is no doubt, that the Tulsa Tribune printed inflammatory stories about the incident, which incited uproar among Tulsa’s white community.[10]

By Sunset that night a crowd estimated to number in the hundreds gathered outside the courthouse and were heard screaming, “Let us have the nigger.” The Sheriff of Tulsa County, Willard McCullough, assured the safety of Dick Rowland by keeping him in the courthouse, which was believed to be easily defendable. Mob justice had a history in Tulsa, with the lynching of Roy Belton, a white man, just a few years earlier. Belton was taken from the same courthouse and hanged in a nearby suburb. Even though he and his men were greatly outnumbered, Sheriff McCullough was determined to keep the mob from lynching another man in Tulsa.[11]

The Belton lynching a few years earlier was fresh on the mind of Greenwood. African American men all over the area gathered in order to find a way to prevent Dick Rowland from being lynched. The situation that Rowland was in had to have seemed eerily similar to that of Roy Belton. The black leaders of the community could not trust that Rowland would be protected. By 8:00 P.M., a group of about twenty-five to thirty armed African Americans showed up at the courthouse to offer their assistance in protecting Rowland. The men were turned back by the sheriff, who thought that their presence could escalate the situation into violence.[12]

Although the lawmen at the courthouse urged the mob to disperse, the grounds outside the courthouse continued to attract people. By 9:30 P.M., the mob numbered anywhere from one to two thousand people. Greenwood was full of nervous tension and people waited outside the office of the Tulsa Star, one of Tulsa’s black newspapers, to find out the latest developments at the courthouse.[13]

With false reports of the mob storming the courthouse, a group of about seventy-five armed men made a second trip to the courthouse. They intended to send a message to the mob that Tulsa’s black community was willing to stand up and defend Rowland with violence if necessary. Once again they offered to aide in the protection of Dick Rowland and were refused.

Many white witnesses thought that they were on the verge of a black onslaught on the white community. Members of the black community had shown up in their section of the city with guns, an idea that troubled many of the witnesses. Some white men decided that they needed to arm themselves. Many went home to get guns, while some mob members turned their attention to the armory around the corner.

The black men were leaving the courthouse after being turned away for a second time when a white man tried to disarm on of the black men when a shot rang out. The initial shot was followed by several shots at the black men. Soon both sides were shooting at each other. Within seconds as many as 12 casualties occurred.[14]

The fighting moved towards the Greenwood District as the outnumbered black force retreated. At the police headquarters nearby the courthouse, a large number of white men, many of whom were part of the mob, became officers of the law as “Special Deputies.” Laurel G. Buck, a white man who was sworn in as a “Special Deputy”, claimed that a police officer told him to “Get a gun and kill a nigger.”[15]

The violence escalated shortly after with whites indiscriminately shooting any black person they saw downtown. The train tracks that divided the black and white sections of town became the heart of the battle. Fighting occurred over the Frisco railroad tracks for most of the night. At about 1:00 A.M., white mobs began driving in carloads through Greenwood and firing shots at the houses and buildings. Groups of men stormed the houses of the African American and killed or injured those who were inside. By 4:00 A.M., most of Tulsa’s black owned businesses had been burned to the ground.

The white mob had not totally taken Greenwood by dawn, as some blacks were able to maintain battle lines. The white mob was growing, however, and the sheer numbers of the mob was growing to overwhelming proportions. Thousands of armed whites were grouping in three areas just north of downtown.[16] These large crowds were mainly men who had gathered after the violence started and were planning to rush into Greenwood at daybreak. Eyewitness Cleburn Phillips recalled a man standing on top of a car directing the men saying “nothing can stop us,” and added, “for there will be thousands of others going in at the same time.”[17]

While some African Americans were preparing to fight to defend their neighborhood and property, many were leaving town. At about 5:00 A.M., a mass assault by the white mob gathering to the north of downtown began. Whites stormed along the railroad tracks headed toward Greenwood. They covered Greenwood’s remaining buildings and houses with gunfire causing the remaining victims to flea Greenwood. As they fled, the situation grew even more dangerous when they saw airplanes flying overhead shooting at African Americans as they fled the city. Some witnesses, both black and white, remember the airplanes dropping liquid fire and other explosives upon groups of refugees as they left the city.[18]

Gunfights continued in Greenwood in the early morning. The white mob was now reinforced by the Oklahoma National Guard who had just arrived in the city. Armed with rifles and a machine gun, they were able to poor a deadly fire upon African American defensive positions.[19]


A fabricated newspaper story triggered the violent riots that may have left hundreds, if not thousands, dead

As the white mob poured into Greenwood, blacks were forced out of their homes and businesses and taken at gunpoint to one of several internment centers around the city. Any resistance was met with deadly force. The mob then set fire to African American neighborhoods. Tulsa’s black neighborhoods were burned to the ground after the houses were looted. Those black Tulsans who tried to defend their homes were stopped by the police and National Guard units. The African Americans who were arrested by the officers and guardsmen were searched and had their possessions, including money, taken from them; if they resisted, they were shot.[20]

The riot finally began to calm down when at 11:29 A.M. on June 1; martial law was declared in Tulsa County. There was still some sporadic violence and looting but many of the rioters had gone home. Most of Tulsa’s black population was being held under armed guard. They were held at Tulsa’s Convention Hall, baseball park, and fairgrounds. Those blacks who fled the city were also taken into custody as they made their way back toward town. State Troops occupied the Greenwood District and disarmed the remaining rioters.

The task of cleaning up the city proved to be a daunting one. One of the problems was burying the dead riot victims. Even though the official death toll numbered in the thirties, there is overwhelming proof that the death toll was much higher. The Salvation Army fed fifty-seven black men who were employed as grave diggers. The men dug 120 graves in which black victims were placed. Other black victims were buried in Oaklawn Cemetery, Booker T. Washington Cemetery, Newblock Park, and alongside Sand Springs Road in unmarked graves. There is evidence to suggest that blacks were buried in mass graves in other parts of the city but the grave sites have not been found.[21]

In the week after the riot many blacks were released from the internment centers and sent back to the Greenwood District where most of them discovered that they were now homeless. All of Greenwood, once called “the Black Wall Street”, was burned to the ground. Greenwood became a tent city where many Tulsans would be forced to spend the coming winter. A local fire ordinance passed a week after the riot, that was later declared unconstitutional by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, prevented many Tulsans from rebuilding their residential and commercial districts immediately.[22]

There would also be no justice for the African Americans in Tulsa. The legal actions taken by African Americans after the riot were being lost in the courts as African Americans were blamed for the riot. A final report by a grand jury put the blame squarely on Tulsa’s black community: “there was no mob spirit among the whites, no talk of lynching and no arms,,” and added “the assembly was quiet until the arrival of armed Negroes, which precipitated and was the direct cause of the entire affair.”[23] Some of the legal actions, largely involving insurance claims, lingered in courts for a number of years. In the end, a few African Americans were charged with offenses while there were no whites ever brought to justice for their actions during the riot.

The riot that was and still is one of the worst incidences of violence to occur on American soil since the Civil War has largely been lost to history. It was not until the seventy-fifth anniversary of the riot that interest in the riot grew. Some call the cover up of the events of the Tulsa Race Riot a “conspiracy of silence” that lasted seventy five years until the city of Tulsa first publicly acknowledged the event.

Many have called for reparations for the remaining living victims of the riot. State Representative Don Scott (D-Tulsa) introduced legislation into the Oklahoma House of Representatives to create a Tulsa Race Riot Commission in order to figure out how the city should deal with the issue. The Commission report suggests that there was an intentional governmental and media effort to cover up the shameful events of the riot. One of the most obvious examples of this effort is the official death toll, which numbers the dead at thirty six. Historians now estimate that around three hundred or more people died during the riot.[24]

Whether or not the victims ever get reparations for their losses, there is some good that has come from the Tulsa Riot Commission. For many years after the riot, black Tulsans were blamed for the violence. History had written them off as criminals. The commission has brought most of the truth out about the riot. Truth commissions can have an amazing affect on a community in the healing they bring. For those who have visited Tulsa, they can see that the city is very racially polarized. Many would say that the city never healed from the violence and tension that the riot brought.

That is one of the aims of this paper and the countless other works that have surfaced since the state created a riot commission. Bringing their story into the minds of my pears is important to me as a Tulsan. Most of my friends outside of Oklahoma have never heard of the riot and many are shocked when they do. It seems to most people that an incident that was a violent and destructive as the Tulsa Race Riot would be more well-known. It is the responsibility of Tulsa to make sure that people all over the country know about the event and what was lost because of it. People need to know what the African Americans in Tulsa fought and died for in defending themselves and their livelihoods.

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