13. See especially the excellent photographs in Ed Wheeler, “Profile of a Race Riot,” Oklahoma Impact Magazine, IV (June-July, 1971), 16–27. Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 23; Tulsa City Directory, 1921 (Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Co., 1921); Tulsa World, June 2, 1921, pp. 1–2. A copy of what was later reported as the official dead and wounded list is located in the Office of the Chief, Tulsa Police Department, Tulsa.
14. Connie Cronley, “That Ugly Day in May,” Oklahoma Monthly, II (August, 1976), 33. The word generous is at issue here. As was shown in Chapter 4, white Tulsans did make some donations for relief work after the riot, perhaps totaling upward of $25,000. But as losses incurred due to the riot ran into the millions of dollars, the adjective “generous” is fallacious, especially considering the fabulous wealth that was present in some parts of the white community at that time.
15. Ralph Ellison, “The Golden Age/Time Past,” Esquire, LI (January, 1959), 107.
16. “Impact Raps with W. D. Williams,” Oklahoma Impact, IV (June-July, 1971), 36; Curlee Hackman, “Peg Leg Taylor and the Tulsa Race Riot,” in J. M. Brewer (ed.), American Negro Folklore (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968), 34–36; interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa.
17. Tulsa Tribune, June 2, 1971, p. A7.
18. David Fritze, “The Fight Without a Finish,” Oklahoma Monthly, IV (March, 1978), 32–60.
19. Ralph Ellison, “Remembering Jimmy,” in Shadow and Act (New York: Random House, 1964), 242.
EPILOGUE Notes on the Subsequent History of “Deep Greenwood”
1. Whitlow, “The History of the Greenwood Era in Tulsa,” a paper presented to the Tulsa County Historical Society, March 29, 1973, p. 3.
2. Ibid., 5–6.
3. Ibid., 6.
4. Pat Cremin, “Greenwood is Fading,” Oklahoma Impact, IV (June-July, 1971), 4–5.
ESSAY ON
SOURCES
Researching the history of the Tulsa race riot over a period of five years proved to be an experience that was both exhilarating and frustrating. More time than I care to think about was spent trying to track down sources which proved to be nonexistent. Other sources, particularly human ones, simply awaited someone to take an interest. In my quest for oral and written information, doors were both opened and closed, depending on mixtures of trust and mistrust or curiosity and apathy—yet another aspect of the vibrant legacy of the riot in Tulsa.
The following is intended to serve as a guide to the most important sources utilized in the book, and to direct interested readers to sources that were found to be particularly illuminating. Scholars in search of complete citations are directed to the notes and to the author’s “The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921” (B.A. thesis, Reed College, 1976).
KEY SOURCES
Three types of source material were critical to this book, and were heavily relied upon for information. The first of these were Tulsa newspapers. They proved to be essential in reconstructing the history of the IWW, Leonard, and Belton incidents, the race riot, and its aftermath. Eight of the period were used: the Oklahoma Sun (1921); the Tulsa Democrat (1917, 1919); the Tulsa Guide (1906); the Tulsa Star (1914–1921); the Tulsa Times (1917–1919); the Tulsa Tribune (1920–1921); the Tulsa Weekly Planet (1912); and the Tulsa World (1917, 1919–1921). Of the white newspapers—the Democrat, the Times, the Tribune, and the World—the latter two proved to be the most useful. The city’s black newspapers—the Sun, the Guide, the Star, and the Weekly Planet—were all helpful, but unfortunately, the extant issues of them are very few, and very far between. By far the most treasured issues were those of the Star. The Oklahoma Eagle, which has served as Tulsa’s black newspaper for several decades, also contained useful information, particularly a series of articles on early Tulsa that ran in 1968.
My oral sources were absolutely essential. They provided balance for the often biased written materials and filled in the gaps where no materials existed. They were particularly useful in reconstructing the early history of black Tulsa (as many of the written materials pertaining to that history were consumed in the fires of the riot), and in describing the events of the riot and its aftermath. Nine of these remarkable individuals, all Tulsans, consented to taped interviews: B. E. Caruthers; V. H. Hodge; Robert Fairchild; Mrs. Mozella Jones; I. S. Pittman; Henry Whitlow; N. C. Williams; Seymour Williams; and W. D. Williams (the latter three are not related). Six of these individuals are black; three are white. At the time of the riot, their “occupations” included that of high school student, teacher, policeman, and laborer. The tapes of these interviews (two complete sets) have been deposited in two locations: the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa; and the Manuscript Division of the Perkins Library at Duke University.
The third critical type of source materials was certain collections of public and private records. Although the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers at the Library of Congress and the Socialist Party of America Papers at Duke University proved to be helpful, by far the most important collections were those in Oklahoma. The Governor James B. A. Robertson Papers and the Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, both located in the Oklahoma State Archives in Oklahoma City, contained valuable information on the riot and its aftermath, as did, to a lesser extent, the Redmond S. Cole Papers in the Western Historical Collection at the University of Oklahoma. More important, however, were: the Record of Commission Proceedings (1921–1922) of the City of Tulsa, located at the Office of the Commission Secretary, City Hall, Tulsa; the Court Records in the Office of the Court Clerk, Tulsa County Courthouse, Tulsa; and, the Minutes of the Directors’ Meetings of the Chamber of Commerce, located in the offices of the Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, Tulsa.
TULSA HISTORY
We do not possess a good, scholarly history of Tulsa, nor has the city been the subject of many articles in historical journals—a sad neglect of the richness of the city’s past. Angie Debo, Tulsa: From Creek Town to Oil Capital (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943), is a brief history which attempts to place the city’s development into a broad perspective. A better, though “nonscholarly” work is William Butler, Tulsa 75: A History of Tulsa (Tulsa: Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, 1974), which is filled with a large amount of useful information. James Monroe Hall, The Beginning of Tulsa (Tulsa: Scott-Rice Company, 1928), and Clarence B. Douglas, The History of Tulsa, Oklahoma: A City with a Personality, (3 vols.; Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1921), are primarily useful as source material.
Unfortunately, none of these authors—with the possible exception of Butler—was particularly interested in charting the history of black Tulsa. Fortunately, a number of my interviewees were, and they were heavily relied upon. One of them, Henry Whitlow, also provided me with a copy of his excellent “A History of the Greenwood Era in Tulsa,” a paper presented to the Tulsa County Historical Society, March 29, 1973. This is a succinct social history of the Greenwood business district. Extant copies of black Tulsa newspapers also proved useful.
A wealth of information on vice conditions in Tulsa is located in the Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection and the Governor James B. A. Robertson Papers, both located in the Oklahoma State Archives. Unfortunately, no records of the Tulsa police department prior to the 1940s exist.
A good source on the early political life of Tulsa is James M. Mitchell, “Politics in a Boom Town: Tulsa From 1906 to 1930” (M.A. thesis, University of Tulsa, 1950). Articles from Harlow’s Weekly, an Oklahoma news magazine, and the Tulsa Spirit, the journal of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, and material from Tulsa City Directories proved to be helpful in charting the economic history of the city.
WORLD WAR I ERA RACE RELATIONS
A wealth of material has been published in the past two decades on the history of race riots and racial violence in America. A good place to start is Chapter 7 (“Living Together Violently: Blacks and Whites in America from the Colonial Period to 1970”) in Richard Maxwell Brown, Strain of Vio
lence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). Of the several studies of World War I era race riots, by far the most helpful was William M. Tuttle, Jr., Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York: Atheneum, 1972). On lynching, the most useful sources were: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Papers, Library of Congress; NAACP, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1918, plus supplements (New York: NAACP, 1919–1921); and, Monroe N. Work (ed.), Negro Year Book: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1925–1926 (Tuskegee Institute, Alabama: Negro Year Book Publishing Company, 1925).
I. A. Newby, Jim Crow’s Defense: Anti-Negro Thought in America, 1900–1930 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965), and John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New York: Atheneum, 1963), proved to be the most helpful general works on the particularly violent manifestations of white racism during the period. On the Ku Klux Klan, by far the most useful book for this study was Charles C. Alexander, The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965). Other useful items on the Klan, both nationally and in Oklahoma, include: David M. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965); Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967); and, Marion Monteval, The Klan Inside Out (Claremore, Oklahoma: Monarch Publishing Company, 1924).
On trends of black thought in the United States during this period, a good place to start is John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (4th ed.; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974). There are a number of other extremely useful books. One illuminating, but apparently little used, volume is Robert T. Kerlin, The Voice of the Negro, 1919 (1920; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968). One should also consult two excellent books by Theodore G. Vincent: Black Power and the Garvey Movement (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972); and Voices of a Black Nation: Political Journalism of the Harlem Renaissance (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1973). Each contain information on the African Blood Brotherhood.
Black history and the history of race relations in Oklahoma have not received the attention they warrant. By far the most useful general work is Kay M. Teall (ed.), Black History in Oklahoma: A Resource Book (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma City Public Schools, 1971). Teall’s volume is an enticing compilation of source material on black Oklahoma history from the 1500s to the 1970s. Other items which proved to be of assistance were: Arthur Tolson, The Black Oklahomans: A History, 1541–1972 (New Orleans: Edwards Printing Company, 1972), a general survey; Edwin S. Redkey Black Exodus: Black Nationalism and Back-to-Africa Movements, 1890–1910 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), which discusses Chief Alfred Sam; and, Norman L. Crockett, The Black Towns (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1979), and 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, II (New York: Atheneum, 1969).
OKLAHOMA RADICALISM AND THE IWW INCIDENT
The history of political radicalism in the Sooner State has fared better. Two recent works are: James M. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1885–1943 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978); and, Garin Burbank, When Farmers Voted Red: The Gospel of Socialism in the Oklahoma Countryside, 1910–1914 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976). Green’s book is by far the stronger of the two, and is filled with a tremendous amount of valuable information. David A. Shannon, The Socialist Party of America: A History (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1955), and James A. Weinstein, The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912–1921 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967), were helpful in fathoming the history of the socialist movement in Oklahoma, as were the Oklahoma state files of the Socialist Party of America Papers at Duke University. The most useful general history of the IWW was Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969).
The primary sources for the IWW incident in Tulsa were three (white) Tulsa newspapers—the Times, the World, and the Democrat—plus, 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), a pamphlet containing the results of their investigation. Information about the incident is also to be found in: William T. Lampe, Tulsa County and the World War (Tulsa: Tulsa County Historical Society, 1918), which eulogizes the Knights of Liberty; H. C. Peterson and Gilbert Fite, Opponents of War, 1917–1918 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1957), an excellent history of both the antiwar movement and radical suppression in America; and Joyce L. Kornbluh (ed.), Rebel Voices: An I.W.W. Anthology (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964). Kornbluh’s excellent volume also contains some information on the Oil Field Workers Union, as does Federal Writers’ Project of Oklahoma, Labor History of Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: A. M. Van Horn, 1939). No extant issues of black Tulsa newspapers contained any information relating to this incident.
LEONARD AND BELTON INCIDENTS
My information on the events surrounding the fatal shooting of O. W. Leonard is based almost entirely on accounts in three white Tulsa newspapers: the Times, the World, and the Democrat. Unfortunately, once again, no copies of what was then the city’s black newspaper, the Star, seemed to have survived with information on the incident. With the exception of W. D. Williams, who provided some inferential information, none of my oral informants could provide me with any information on the incident.
The account of the lynching of Roy Belton was derived from a similar data base. Although the event is mentioned in Walter White, “The Eruption of Tulsa” Nation, CXII (June, 1921), my primary sources were the accounts of the World and the Tribune. A small amount of information, mainly important for its editorial content, was found in a rare issue of the Star. A collection of brief newspaper clippings about the incident is located in the NAACP Papers at the Library of Congress.
THE RACE RIOT
Although this book has differed significantly in both its sources of information and its interpretation, it has nonetheless benefited from prior studies of the riot. Additionally, the two earliest studies proved to be particularly helpful as the sources of material no longer in existence.
It is truly unfortunate that so little could be discovered about Mary E. Jones Parrish, for her Events of the Tulsa Disaster (N.p., n.p., n.d.), the first book about the riot, is in many ways a truly remarkable document. My oral informants felt that she had come to Tulsa, where she worked as a teacher, only shortly before the riot, and departed soon afterwards. Events of the Tulsa Disaster is a difficult book to classify. It is both a finely detailed personal memoir of her experiences during the riot as well as compilation of statements of other riot victims about the event. She also included some statistical information regarding riot losses. Yet, regardless how one types this work, it is an important source for the history of the riot.
Loren L. Gill’s “The Tulsa Race Riot” (M.A. thesis, University of Tulsa, 1946) was the first “historical” study of the riot. It not only charts the events of the violence and its aftermath, but attempts to place the riot within the broader contexts of both Tulsa and American history. Gill was a dogged researcher, and his thesis remains as a crucial source on the contents of the May 31,1921, issue of the Tulsa Tribune. Gill also performed oral interviews with a number of since-deceased Tulsans about the riot and its aftermath and, since the notes to these interviews have been lost, his thesis remains the only source of their contents. While well-researched, “The Tulsa Race Riot” suffers in its interpretive abilities due in no small part to a patronizing attitude toward blacks. (It bears notation, however, that shortly before his untimely death in the early 1970s, Gill informed his thesis adviser that his feelings about the riot had changed considerably over the years.) His interpretat
ion of the aftermath of the riot suffers from portraying the actions of the city’s white elite in a better light than they deserve (which may have been due, in part, to lack of access to certain materials), and, like the other studies, he did not recognize the importance of the IWW and Leonard incidents in the creation of a local atmosphere which would allow the riot to occur.
Subsequent studies of the riot have been less energetically researched than Loren Gill’s thesis. Lee E. Williams and Lee E. Williams II, Anatomy of Four Race Riots: Racial Conflict in Knoxville, Elaine (Arkansas), Tulsa and Chicago, 1919–1921 (Hattiesburg: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1972), contains a balanced chapter on the riot based primarily on national magazine articles. R. Halliburton, Jr., The Tulsa Race War of 1921 (San Francisco: R and E Research Associates, 1975), is primarily a collection of documents about the riot. Halliburton’s narrative text, which closely follows his “The Tulsa Race War of 1921,” Journal of Black Studies, XX (March, 1972), suffers primarily from its brevity. Halliburton is to be credited, however, for being the first to utilize certain previously ignored sources of information about the riot. Of the popular magazine articles about the riot, the most helpful was Ed Wheeler, “Profile of a Race Riot,” Oklahoma Impact Magazine, IV (June-July, 1971).
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