Death in a Promised Land (12 page)

At first, some blacks were taken downtown.

Courtesy of the McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa

Pride and defiance in the midst of catastrophe.

Courtesy of the McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa

Even the children were guarded.

Courtesy of the McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa

The internment process at Convention Hall. At least one black was killed here by whites.

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce

IV

The total number of people who died in the Tulsa race riot of 1921 is very much in question; estimates range from 27 to over 250. The estimates themselves fall into three major groups: the first counts around thirty deaths; the second, which is probably the most accurate, sets the figure at around seventy-five; the last places the number at one hundred and seventy-five and above.

Newspaper estimates were at first generally rather high, but took a plunge during the first week after the riot. The Tulsa
Tribune
of June 1,1921, gave two sets of figures. In a story on the riot, it reported that 9 whites and 68 blacks had died. But a bulletin in that same issue stated that some 175 people were known dead. The next day, the
Tribune
reported that it knew for sure of only 31 deaths: 9 whites and 22 blacks. The New York
Times
of June 2, 1921, reported that 9 whites and 68 blacks were known to have died in the riot. Six days later, the newspaper reported that only 33 people had been killed.
³⁶

Judging from the large number of people who were reported wounded and the steps which the authorities took in regard to them, it seems that the death toll was most likely toward the higher estimates. On the morning of June 1 the National Guard turned the armory into a makeshift hospital for wounded blacks. On that same day, Major Paul R. Brown was placed in charge of the medical and surgical situation in the city. Under his guidance, guardsmen took over a rooming house which had once been the Cinnabar Hospital, and reconverted it—with the aid of the Red Cross—into a hospital for seriously wounded black Tulsans. A house in North Tulsa was taken over for the walking wounded. The National Guard also took charge of six beds in the Oklahoma Hospital, and another six in the Tulsa Hospital, for black women.
³⁷

Red Cross records reflect a sizeable amount of physical suffering. Its records included the names of 48 whites who passed through hospitals after the riot. The director of Red Cross operations, Maurice Willows, however, believed the number to be higher. It has been suggested that many whites would not give their names when they were treated for wounds for fear of later being subjected to legal actions against them. Red Cross materials also revealed that 183 blacks were given surgical treatment within twenty-four hours after the riot, with over 70 percent of these people being hospitalized. The organization gave first aid treatment to some 531 persons, and during the first week after the riot, about twenty doctors (eleven of whom were black) performed some 163 operations, 82 of them classified as “major” operations.
³⁸

The black sick and wounded—those who were attended to—were initially taken to six private hospitals in addition to the newly reconverted Cinnabar Hospital. Shortly after the violence, four large hospital wards were constructed in the Booker T. Washington School— which had escaped destruction by the white rioters—and many black patients had been transferred there within two weeks.
³⁹

The Red Cross cared for some black patients until the end of September, 1921. Exactly how much service was rendered by the city’s private hospitals is somewhat unclear. On July 26, 1921, Dr. Fred S. Clinton of the Oklahoma Hospital filed a claim against the Tulsa Police Department in the sum of $3,900 for hospital, medical, and surgical service rendered to it ($3,381.10 was eventually paid). On September 23, 1921, the Tulsa County Commissioners communicated to the City Commission that it was prepared to turn over any hospital equipment which it had any interest in to the Frissel Hospital, apparently in response to riot services.
⁴⁰

Another complication in estimating the number of riot fatalities is a consequence of the action taken by Adjutant General Barrett on June 2,1921. Barrett banned all funerals from taking place in the city, citing as his reasons military policy, the emotional stress which still prevailed, and the fact that many churches, he claimed, were being used to shelter the homeless.
⁴¹
If funerals were against the expressed policy of the military authorities, then what happened to the riot dead? How were they buried? There is some evidence regarding these issues, some of which is contradictory. In his magazine article on the riot, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” Walter White stated:

Victim.

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce

Metal bedsteads: ghostly sentinels of Tulsa's black residential neighborhoods.

Courtesy of the Metropolltan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce