Death in a Promised Land (16 page)

We, therefore, recommend that permission be granted by the city to the negroes to build on their own property as a solution of the problem facing the city at this time.

The report was eventually submitted to the Reconstruction Committee, who rejected its recommendations.
³⁰

Sympathy for the dilemma that black Tulsans faced was not, however, the only reason why some of the members of the Chamber’s board of directors eventually turned “against” the plans of the Executive Welfare Committee, the city government, and other white groups to secure land in black Tulsa for the construction of a railroad terminal. In August, Colonel Reeves of the board stated:

We must forget the causes of the riot and find a solution that will be basically right. We must determine whether this area is physically suited for a terminal point. Even if it is a terminal point, we are not ready to condemn it for a terminal point. We can not condemn property for factory sites. Railroad engineers will look to the physical site only. I suggest that cheap shacks be constructed rather than 6, 8 or 10 story buildings, because when the proper time comes to condemn it it will be possible to finance the proceedings. At the present time we must abandon the idea of buying this property for factory and warehouse sites because we have no corporation formed to buy this land.

He added one more reason: “If we had a company formed it would still be impossible to buy this land for a certain percentage of the negroes would not sell.”
³¹

Black Tulsans were far from silent on this issue, and it was only their action which prevented this further attempt by white Tulsans to destroy their community. A protest was presented to the City Commission on July 28 by property owners “against the closing of Haskell Street” opposite the Booker T. Washington School. On August 26 another petition, which was duly received and filed, was presented to the commissioners “of residents and property owners for repealing or modification of the Ordinance relating to the fire limits, and by so doing give permission to rebuild destroyed property in the Burned Area.”
³²
Evidence suggests that the East End Welfare Board was also involved in these actions against the new fire ordinance.
³³

B. C. Franklin, right, one of the attorneys who helped to defeat the city’s fire ordinance.

Courtesy of Mrs. Mozella Jones

The action which ultimately decided the dispute over the fire ordinance was the lawsuit filed in district court on August 1 by the black Tulsa law firm of P. A. Chappelle, I. H. Spears, and B. C. Franklin. The case,
Joe Lockett
v.
the City of Tulsa
requested permission for Lockett to rebuild and for the court to enjoin the city from enforcing its new ordinance. The black Tulsans won their suit some three weeks later, when three judges declared the ordinance void on the grounds that it took private property without due process of law.
³⁴

This defeated move for a new railroad station and the relocation of black Tulsa was the substance of the initiatory post-riot policies of Mayor Evans, the City Commission, and the Reconstruction Committee. This is hardly surprising, especially when one considers Evans’ public statements about the riot. In his June 14 message to the City Commission, in which he clearly blamed black Tulsans for the riot, Evans implied that the destruction of most of black Tulsa during the riot may have been a good thing for the city! Much in the manner that some city officials had felt that the lynching of Roy Belton would prove “beneficial” to Tulsa, the Mayor stated:

It is in the judgement of many wise heads in Tulsa, based upon a number of years, that this uprising was inevitable. If that be true and this judgement had to come upon us, then I say it was good generalship to let the destruction come to that section where the trouble was hatched up, put in motion and where it had its inception....

All regret the wrongs that fell upon the innocent negroes and they should receive such help as we can give them if within our power. It, however, is true of any warfare that the fortunes of war fall upon the innocent along with the guilty. This is true of any conflict, invasion or uprising. Think of what would have happened had the Allies marched to Berlin.

The mayor’s message was endorsed by all of the city commissioners except C. S. Younkman.
³⁵

The Reconstruction Committee was officially in operation until January, 1922, but little was discovered of its activities after the fire ordinance was declared unconstitutional. The actions of the City Commission concerning the riot were primarily responsive in nature. It disallowed, and in a few rare cases, allowed, claims against the city for losses incurred during the riot. In July, 1921, it responded to a Red Cross report of unsanitary conditions in the burned district by investigating the matter, and then allowed up to $700 to be spent for toilet facilities. The Commission granted a request by a group of black plumbers that they temporarily be given plumber’s permits without cost. In a few instances, primarily in the removal of trash and debris, the Commission may have initiated action—but even then such motions were in response to the actions and desires of others.
³⁶
Thus, taken as whole, the primary post-riot policies of Tulsa’s white authorities were to first give the impression to the rest of the nation that white Tulsa would make reparations and rebuild the burned black district, and then to unsuccessfully attempt to prevent black Tulsans from rebuilding their community where it had been.

IV

The dislocation of black Tulsa that the riot caused was immense. One-half of the city’s black population was forcibly interned for varying lengths of time. When they gained their release, many of these people found that their homes had been destroyed. Most had to live with friends or relatives, or simply make do the best they could. Some left town for good, and of them, historian Henry Whitlow has stated: “According to the Tulsa
Tribune
—on the night of the riot and immediately thereafter, many Negroes moved from Tulsa and never returned. But as has been said, locally, those that left were afraid and/or tired of living under conditions that existed in Tulsa. However, those that stayed were unafraid and were determined to make living conditions better. They began to rebuild.”
³⁷

The erection of tents and shacks in the burned areas of black Tulsa began when blacks were allowed to return, and probably increased considerably by mid-June, at which time most black Tulsans had been released by the white authorities. Over 350 tents were erected during the first week, some of which had wooden floors and screen doors. Although some of these tents were provided by local businessmen, the lion’s share was initially supplied by the Red Cross.
³⁸

The fire ordinance passed by the City Commission slowed the rebuilding process. Upon request of the Red Cross, which was possibly working in conjunction with the East End Welfare Board, the Commission at first allowed blacks to construct temporary structures upon those lots within the new fire limits, but they rescinded their permission one week later. Some clandestine rebuilding took place while the fire ordinance was in force. When the ruling against the ordinance was handed down on September 1, the rate of rebuilding had assuredly increased, as the cold weather was fast approaching. Although City Commission records reveal that a few people appeared before that body to seek permission to rebuild, it is possible that many others worked solely through Building Inspector H. E. Kopp and Fire Marshal Wesley Bush.
³⁹

Even though a fair amount of rebuilding had taken place by the beginning of autumn, conditions were extremely harsh for the mass of black Tulsans. The actions of the Chamber of Commerce and the City Commission had made preparations for the ensuing winter months nearly impossible. On October 25, Walter White wrote: “Practically all of the colored citizens who remain in Tulsa are living in tents and a few boarded shacks [which] have been constructed through the Red Cross and through contributions made by this Association [NAACP]. In a letter we have just received from Tulsa, it is stated that few of the citizens have any protection from the weather and that there will be many deaths from pneumonia, influenza and exposure during the coming winter because of the failure of the white citizens of Tulsa to keep their promises.”
⁴⁰

Something approaching one thousand black Tulsans spent the winter of 1921–1922 in tents.
⁴¹
By the summer of 1922, all black Tulsans were said to be living in “wooden buildings,” and during that year, brick buildings once again began to line Greenwood Avenue. Slowly, but surely, black Tulsa prospered again.
⁴²

A few days after the riot, the Tulsa
World
had written:

Vandalism has taken the homes and savings of thousands of people. Tulsa must restore that which has been taken. The sins of a comparative few are thus visited upon a whole community. But it is a cross that must be shouldered willingly and heroically. This restitution, not because of affectionate regard for the colored man, but because of an honorable and intense regard for the white race whose boast of superiority must now be justified by concrete acts.

Not else can the wounds of passion be healed or the scars of intolerant hatred be soothed. In this moment men of Tulsa stand at the crossroads in the city’s destiny. There must not, there cannot, be any hesitating.
⁴³

This opinion that Tulsa, meaning
white
Tulsa, must rebuild the burned black district was echoed by the
Tribune,
and voiced, as we have seen, by “prominent” white Tulsans such as L. J. Martin and Alva J. Niles. This is not to suggest that the
World,
the
Tribune,
ex-Mayor Martin, nor the Chamber of Commerce spoke for
all
of white Tulsa, for they clearly did not (they being more representative of the city’s upper and middle class whites).
⁴⁴

The fact is that, contrary to these announced intentions in the
World
and elsewhere, white Tulsans did not rebuild black Tulsa. Indeed, as has been shown, the city government and other white groups tried to prevent it. Any role which local whites had in the rebuilding came through three indirect avenues. First, there were some local donations to the Red Cross. Second, some whites were property owners in black Tulsa, and these people rebuilt the destroyed structures on the land which they owned—in order to once again collect rent from black tenants. And lastly, some whites loaned money to black employees for rebuilding purposes.

An early tent, right, where homes had been.

Courtesy of the Metropolitan nlsa Chamber of Commerce

This is an extremely complex question, but extensive research on it has led me to the conclusion that the white role in the rebuilding of black Tulsa has been grossly exaggerated. The $26,000 that the Executive Welfare Committee turned over to the Red Cross was collected (under the direction of C. S. Avery) probably, though not necessarily, in large part from white Tulsans, and it is conceivable that some of it may have been used for rebuilding purposes. Many whites were property owners in the burned district, and pending further research, one must conclude that they played a hand in the rebuilding of their property. There were a couple of other exceptions, including a house built for blacks in the burned district by the Gypsy Oil Company. Aside from the $11,400 which the City Commission paid the Red Cross for “expenditures made on account of the riot of May 31 and June 1, 1921,” there is not much evidence for any substantial, direct role played by the city in the reconstruction of black Tulsa. It allocated some provisions for sanitation, such as trash removal, plumbing, and scavenger work (who was to reap the benefits of this is unclear), but this had little to do with the actual rebuilding of the destroyed area.
⁴⁵
On the whole, it is evident that white Tulsans had only a minimal role in the rebuilding of the devastated area.