15. Henry Whitlow, “The History of the Greenwood Era in Tulsa,” a paper presented to the Tulsa County Historical Society, March 29, 1973, p. 5. Greenwood Avenue most likely was named after Greenwood, Mississippi. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa.
16. Tulsa City Directories for 1919 and 1921 (Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1919 and 1921); United States Bureau of the Census, Negroes in the United States, 1920–1932 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 797; “The Lesson of Tulsa,” Outlook, CXXVIII (June 15, 1921), 281; Walter F. White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” Nation, CXII (June 29, 1921), 909–910.
17. “Take Me Back to Tulsa,” melody by Bob Wills, words by Tommy Duncan, copyright 1941 by Peer International; copyright renewed 1968 by Mrs. Tommy [Ardith Marie] Duncan. Charles R. Townsend, San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), 207–208.
18. Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa; and V. H. Hodge, June 12, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa City Directory, 1921 (Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1921); Mary E. Jones Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster (n.p., n.p., n.d.), 7; Norman L. Crockett, The Black Towns (Lawrence, Kansas: Regents Press of Kansas, 1979), 35.
19. Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa; and B. E. Caruthers, July 21,1978, Tulsa County. It may be of interest to note that whites were sometimes found in “choc” joints in black Tulsa when such places were raided by the police. Miscellaneous “Statement of Barney Cleaver” [TS], Civil Case 1062, Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma City.
The scientific name for Choctaw root is Apocynum cannabium. Mitford M. Mathews (ed.), A Dictionary of Americanisms: On Historical Principles (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 319. I am indebted to Dr. James R. Estes, curator of the Robert Bebb Herbarium at the University of Oklahoma, for explaining the distinction between Apocynum cannabium and Cannibus sativa (marijuana).
20. Interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2,1978, Tulsa, and W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa City Directory, 1921; Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 98–106; White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” 910.
21. Tulsa City Directory, 1921; Interviews with Henry Whitlow, June 6, 1978, Tulsa; W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; and Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa.
22. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa City Directory, 1921.
Chapter 2: Race Relations and Local Violence
1. John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (4th ed.; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974], 357; Richard Maxwell Brown, Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 324–25.
2. Of the sixty-four persons lynched in 1921, at least four were burned alive, seventeen were shot, and two were drowned. Monroe N. Work to Walter F. White, July 18, 1921, and, “Lynching Record for 1921,” Administrative Files, Box C-338, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Monroe N. Work (ed.), Negro Year Book: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1925–1926 (Tuskegee Institute, Alabama: Negro Year Book Publishing Company, 1925), 52–53.
3. Quoted in Theodore G. Vincent (ed.), Voices of a Black Nation: Political Journalism of the Harlem Renaissance (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1973), 52–53.
4. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), 100–101; Marc Karson and Ronald Radosh, “The American Federation of Labor and the Negro Worker,” in Julius Jacobson (ed.), The Negro and the American Labor Movement (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1968], 159–60; August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto (Rev. ed.; New York: Hill and Wang, 1970), 218.
5. Sigmund Sameth, “Creek Indians: A Study of Race Relations” (M.A. thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1940), 56; Kay M. Teall (ed.), Black History in Oklahoma: A Resource Book (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma City Public Schools, 1971), 167–73; Edwin S. Redkey, Black Exodus: Black Nationalist and Back-to-Africa Movements, 1890–1910 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 99–100; Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), 153, 259.
6. Teall, Black History in Oklahoma, 172, 202–204; William Bittle and Gilbert L. Geis, “Racial Self-Fulfillment and the Rise of an All-Negro Community in Oklahoma,” in August Meier and Elliott Rudwick (eds.), The Making of Black America (New York: Atheneum, 1969), II, 109; interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa.
7. New York Age, October 24,1907, p.8; Arrell M. Gibson, Oklahoma: A History of Five Centuries (Norman, Oklahoma: Harlow Publishing Corporation, 1965), 353; Teall, Black History in Oklahoma, 172, 202–204, 225; Tulsa Star, March 30, 1918, p. 4; interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa.
8. Work, Negro Year Book, 1925–1926, 309–403; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1918 (New York: NAACP, 1919), 86–87, plus supplements 1–3 (1919–1921).
Philip S. Foner, “The I.W.W. and the Black Worker,” Journal of Negro History, LV (1970), 45–64; James Weinstein, The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912–1925 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967), 68; “State Platform, Socialist Party of Oklahoma—1912,” and “Negroes Favor Socialist Party” [Handbill], Oklahoma State File, Socialist Party of America (SPA] Papers, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
The largest vote for the Socialist party in Tulsa was in the city election of 1912, when a Socialist candidate received 7.7 percent of the vote. There was, however, a Socialist party office in Tulsa until at least the early 1930s. James M. Mitchell, “Politics in a Boom Town: Tulsa From 1906–1930” (M.A. thesis, University of Tulsa, 1950), 56, 62, 65–66, 82, 87–93, 97, 103; W. L. Garver [Secretary, Socialist Party of Tulsa] to the American Guardian, January 30, 1933, Oklahoma State File, SPA Papers, Duke.
9. I. A. Newby, Jim Crow’s Defense: Anti-Negro Thought in America, 1900–1930 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965], xi-xii; John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New York: Atheneum, 1963), 271; Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race, or the Racial Basis of European History (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918), 77; Charles W. Gould, America, A Family Matter (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922), 125.
10. It has been estimated that between 1915 and 1944, there were some 6,000 members of the Klan in Tulsa. Charles C. Alexander, The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965), 43 -45; Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 239. See also Marion Monteval, The Klan Inside Out (Claremore, Oklahoma: Monarch Publishing Company, 1924), 69.
11. Alexander, The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest, 43–45, 48, 135.
12. Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922), 481, quoted in Tuttle, Race Riot, 209.
13. Herbert Aptheker, Afro-American History: The Modern Era (New York: Citadel Press, 1971), 166; Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 353; Robert T. Kerlin, The Voice of the Negro, 1919 (1920; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968), 20.
14. Amy Jacques-Garvey (comp.), Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, or Africa for the Africans (1925; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), II, 20.
15. Kerlin, Voice of the Negro, 9; Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, 222; Peter Gilbert (ed.), The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce: Militant Black Journalist (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1971), 158.
16. Kerlin, Voice of the Negro, 19.
17. Arthur I. Waskow, From Race Riot to Sit-in, 1919 and the 1960’s: A Study in the Connections Between Conflict and Violence (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), p. 178.
18. Interview with
W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Loren L. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot” (M.A. thesis, University of Tulsa, 1946), 4; NAACP Secretary to Professor Hughes, January 24,1917, in Series I, Tulsa Branch File, Box G-175, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress; Theodore G. Vincent, Black Power and the Garvey Movement (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972), 74–75; Vincent, Voices of a Black Nation, 123.
One such veteran was Seymour Williams, who later became one of Oklahoma’s most renowned high school football coaches at Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa. On the night of the race riot, Williams—who had been wounded in action in France—went out with his 45-calibre Army revolver in an attempt to stem the invasion of whites into Greenwood. He held his position throughout the night, and when morning broke, returned to his home. There, he claimed, his life was saved by his wife, who took his gun away from him when a group of whites came to their door. He had planned to meet them armed. Interview with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa.
19. Tulsa Star, September 4, 1920, p. 4.
20. Tulsa Times, October 30, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa Democrat, October 29, 1917, pp. 1, 8; Tulsa World, October 30, 1917, pp. 1, 6.
21. Tulsa Times, October 30, 1917, p. 1.
22. Tulsa World, October 30, 1917, p. 1.
23. Tulsa Times, November 2, 1917, p. 1.
24. Tulsa World, October 31, 1917, p. 4.
25. H. C. Peterson and Gilbert C. Fite, Opponents of War, 1917–1918 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1957), 40–41; David A. Shannon, The Socialist Party of America: A History (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1955), 106–109; Federal Writers’ Project of Oklahoma, Labor History of Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: A. M. Van Horn, 1939), 40–42; James R. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895–1943 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), 360–66.
26. Tulsa Democrat, November 11,1917, p. 3; Tulsa World, October 31,1917, p. 4, and November 7, 1917, p. 12.
27. Tulsa Democrat, November 5, p. 1, November 6, p. 5, and November 11, 1917, p. C4; Tulsa Times, November 6, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa World, October 30, p. 1, November 2, p. 1, November 3, p. 1, November 5, p. 1, and November 6,1917, p. I; Tulsa City Directory, 1917 (Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1917); National Civil Liberties Bureau, The “Knights of Liberty” Mob and the I.W.W. Prisoners at Tulsa, Okla., November 9,1917 (New York: National Civil Liberties Bureau, 1918), 4–5; Joyce L. Kornbluh (ed.), Rebel Voices: An I.W.W. Anthology (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964), 332–34.
28. Tulsa World, October 30, p. 1, November 2, p. 1, November 3, p. 1, November 5, p. 1, and November 6, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa Democrat, November 6, p. 5, and November 11, 1917, p. C4; Tulsa Times, November 6, 1917, p. 1.
29. Tulsa World, November 6, 1917, p. 1.
30. As for the overall political climate of Tulsa during this period, two incidents which occurred as the trial of the union men began seem relevant. On Wednesday, November 7, 1917, W. Tate Brady, “former Democratic national committeeman from Oklahoma, heavy property owner here and Oklahoma commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans,” assaulted E. L. Fox, owner of the building where the IWW hall was located, “following an argument over the I.W.W. situation in Tulsa.” And later that same day, one Tulsan shot and killed another in the streets over a violent argument which their wives had had over the European war. Tulsa World, November 7, pp. 8, 12, and November 9, 1917, p. 16; Tulsa Times, November 8, 1917, pp. 1, 2, 6; Tulsa Democrat, November 7, 1917, p. 1.
31. Tulsa World, November 6, p. 1, and November 7, 1917, p. 8; Tulsa Democrat, November 7, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa Times, November 8, 1917, p. 1.
32. Tulsa World, November 9, 1917, p. 3; Tulsa Times, November 9, 1917, p. 5.
33. Elsewhere in the same editorial, the World stated that anyone trying to decrease the supply of oil “for one-hundreth of a second is a traitor and ought to be shot!” Tulsa World, November 9, 1917, pp. 3, 4.
The authorship of this unsigned editorial is unclear. Eugene Lorton was at the time the “senior” editor of the World, and Glenn H. Condon was the newspaper’s managing editor. In its pamphlet on the incident, the National Civil Liberties Bureau [NCLB] made the following assertion in regards to the editorial: “It may be interesting to note that the editor of the Tulsa World, Glenn Conlin [sic], who personally wrote this, attended all the trials, and that he and his wife were witnesses to the whipping, tarring and feathering, having gone along in the automobile as spectators,” NCLB, The “Knights of Liberty” Mob, 10. Yet, regardless of the question of the authorship of the editorial, it would appear that the World’s pro-vigilante, pro-terrorism stance against Tulsans who opposed the war was approved, if not actually fostered, by Lorton.
Although “Get Out the Hemp” was undoubtedly the acme of the World’s rabid, wartime sensationalism, it should not be assumed that the newspaper directed its venom only against political radicals and union men during this period. For example, Tulsa was at this time involved in a Liberty Bond campaign, and two days after the Pew bombing the World published a front-page story about a local launderer who would not purchase any bonds, entitled “Say Laundry Man Is Unpatriotic.” The story listed the man’s name and place of employment, predicting that he “may be in serious trouble before nightfall.” Tulsa World, October 31, 1917, p. 1.
34. Tulsa World, November 10, 1917, pp. 1, 2; Blanche Riehn [?] to “Dear Comrade”— with note on back signed by Frank Ryan—October 10,1914, Oklahoma State File, SPA Papers, Duke.
35. Tulsa Democrat, November 10, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa World, November 10,1917, pp. 1, 2; Tulsa Times, November 10, 1917, p. 1.
36. Tulsa Democrat, November 10, 1917, pp. 1, 8; Tulsa World, November 10, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa Times, November 9, p. 1, and November 10, 1917, p. 1; NCLB, The “Knights of Liberty” Mob, 6–7.
37. A Times reporter stated that the “Knights of Liberty,” garbed as Ku Klux Klansmen, “presented a picturesque scene.” Tulsa Times, November 10, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa World, November 10, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa Democrat, November 10, 1917, p. 1; NCLB, The “Knights of Liberty” Mob, 7.
38. Tulsa Democrat, November 10, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa Times, November 10, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa World, November 10,1917, p. 1; NCLB, The “Knights of Liberty” Mob, 7–8, 13.
39. In the version of this statement reprinted in Kornbluh, Rebel Voices, 334, the detective is “named Blaine.” Tulsa Democrat, November 10,1917, p. 1; Tulsa Times, November 9, p. 1, and November 10, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa World, November 10, 1917, p. 1; NCLB, The “Knights of Liberty” Mob, 8–9.
40. NCLB, The “Knights of Liberty” Mob, 13–14.
41. Tulsa World, November 10, p. 1, and November 11, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa Democrat, November 10, p. 8, and November 11, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa Times, November 10, p. 6, and November 12, 1917, p. 7; NCLB, The “Knights of Liberty” Mob, 15–16.
42. Tulsa World, November 12, p. 4, and November 13, 1917, p. 4; Oklahoma World, November 22, 1917, p. 1; Tulsa Democrat, November 11, 1917, p. 3; NCLB, The “Knights of Liberty” Mob, 15–16.
In December, 1917, Charles Krieger, a Tulsan, was arrested for bombing the Pew home. He was acquitted, owing to flimsy evidence and what appears to have been a fair-minded judge, but not until May, 1920—nearly two and one-half years after the bombing. Historians H. C. Peterson and Gilbert Fite wrote about Krieger: “It seems that he was luckier than many other I.W.W.’s because of the fairmindedness and impartiality of Judge R. S. Cole. Some judges refused to bow to the popular hysteria. In Oklahoma and elsewhere, however, there was a general state of mind reminiscent of the attitude of King James I, who said about the Puritans, ‘I will make them conform or I will harry them out of the land,’” Opponents of War, 176. On this incident see also William T. Lampe (comp.), Tulsa County in the World War (Tulsa: Tulsa County Historical Society, 1919), 221–22.
43. That all of the defendants were white is based on two sources of evidence. First, city directories for Tulsa during this period listed a person’s race, in addition to his name, home address, and occupation. Of those defendan
ts whose names were included in the Tulsa City Directory, 1917, all were designated as white. Secondly, owing to the nature of their reporting during this period, it is simply inconceivable that either the World, the Times, or the Democrat would have failed to mention it if any of the defendants had been black, if any were. [None of the extant copies of Tulsa’s various black newspapers carried any material about this incident.]
44. Tulsa World, March 18,1919, p. 1; Tulsa Times, March 18,1919, p. 1; Tulsa Democrat, March 18, 1919, p. 1.
45. Tulsa Democrat, March 18, 1919, p. 1; Tulsa World, March 18, 1919, p. 1; Tulsa Times, March 18, 1919, p. 1. Unfortunately, no copies of the Tulsa Star, the city’s black newspaper, for March or April of 1919 could be located.
46. Tulsa Democrat, March 19, p. 11, March 20, p. 9, and March 21, 1919, pp. 10, 16; Tulsa Times, March 20, p. 1, March 21, p. 1, and March 22,1919, p. 3; Tulsa World, March 21, 1919, p. 1. There is some evidence that blacks visited the courthouse twice. See Tulsa Times, March 22, 1919, p. 3.
47. Tulsa Democrat, March 21, 1919, p. 16.
48. Tulsa World, March 23, p. 1, March 24, p. 11, March 25, p. 15, and March 26,1919, p. 3.
49. Tulsa Times, March 22, 1919, p. 3. The author located no evidence to support or contradict Abernathy’s “class analysis” of the group of blacks that went down to the city jail on the night of March 13, 1919. Two years later, however, when a similar situation developed in the case of Dick Rowland, “wealthy” blacks were included in the group that went down to the county courthouse after rumors of a possible lynching attempt were heard on the city’s streets. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa.
50. Tulsa World, August 22, p. 1, and August 24,1920, p. 1; Tulsa Tribune, August 22, p. 1, August 25, p. 1, August 27, p. 1, and August 28, 1920, p. 1.
Death in a Promised Land Page 12