Death in a Promised Land (23 page)

5
. Tulsa
Tribune,
May 31, 1921, in Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 21–22. In his narrative, Loren Gill properly identified this article as being in the May 31, 1921 issue of the
Tribune,
but incorrectly footnotes it as being in the June 1 issue. The inference is clear that Gill, who has since passed away, did not have a complete copy of the May 31 issue of the
Tribune
to work with, but merely this article.

6
. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa. The Thompson statement is in Parrish,
Events of the Tulsa Disaster,
29–30.

7
. Statement of “A.H.” in Parrish,
Events of the Tulsa Disaster,
47–49.

8
. Charles F. Barrett,
Oklahoma after Fifty Years: A History of the Sooner State and Its People, 1889–1939
(Hopkinsville, Kentucky: Historical Record Association, 1941), 206. Ross T. Warner wrote: “A nineteen-year-old Negro youth allegedly attacked a white girl elevator operator in the Drexel Building. This incident was played up sensationally in the evening papers, and the talk of lynching spread like prairie fire,”
Oklahoma Boy: An Autobiography
(n.p., n.p., n.d.), 136.

9
. Tulsa
Tribune,
May 31, 1921, in Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 22. Miscellaneous statement of Bill McCullough [TS], Civil Case 1062, Box 25, Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives (OSA), Oklahoma City; R. Halliburton, “The Tulsa Race War of 1921,”
Journal of Black Studies,
XX (March, 1972), 337; White, “Eruption of Tulsa,” 910.

10
. Tulsa
Tribune,
June 3, p. 1; and June 6, 1921, p. 3.

11
. Tulsa
Tribune,
June 6,1921, p. 3; “Message (of] Mayor to Commissioners,” Record of Commission Proceedings, City of Tulsa, Vol. XV, June 14, 1921, p. 25, in the City Commission Secretary’s Office, City Hall, Tulsa; Clipping File for lynchings in Oklahoma, Administrative Files, Box C-364, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress; Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, and Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa.

A few years before the Tulsa riot, blacks armed with high-powered rifles had hidden within range of the jail in Muskogee where an accused black was held, and where a crowd of whites had gathered. Trouble was averted when the whites were dispersed by the authorities; the blacks went home. And less than four months after the Tulsa race riot, Oklahoma City barely escaped having a similar racial clash after a group of whites had taken a young black from the county jail and lynched him outside of the capital city. Joseph B. Thoburn and Muriel H. Wright,
Oklahoma, A History of the Sooner State and Its People
(New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1929), II, 291.

12
. Tulsa
Tribune,
June 3, 1921, p. 1; Tulsa
World,
June 10, 1921, p. 8; Statement of O. W. Gurley,
State of Oklahoma
v.
Will Robinson, et al.,
Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma City.

13
. Interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa; W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; and Robert Fairchild, June 8,1978, Tulsa; statements of Henry Jacobs and John Henry Potts, Civil Case 1062, Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives; White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” 910; San Francisco
Chronicle,
June 4, 1921, p. 3; Tulsa
World,
June 2, p. 7, June 3, p. 1, June 6, p. 3, June 9, p. 4, June 10, p. 8, July 4, pp. 1, 2, July 15, p. 1, July 20, pp. 1, 7, and July 21, 1921, p. 3.

14
. Major Jas. A. Bell [“Report on Activities of the National Guard on the Night of May 31st and June 1st, 1921”] to Lt. Col. L. J. F. Rooney, July 2, 1921, in the Governor James B. A. Robertson Papers [hereafter cited as the “Robertson Papers”], Oklahoma State Archives. See also Redmond S. Cole to Jas. G. Findlay, June 6, 1921, in the Redmond S. Cole Papers, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman.

15
. Bell to Rooney, July 2, 1921, in Robertson Papers, Oklahoma State Archives.

16
. Interview with I. S. Pittman, July 28,1978, Tulsa; Tulsa
Tribune,
July 3,1921, p. 1.

17
. Interview with Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa
Tribune,
June 3, 1921, p. 1; Tulsa
World,
July 7, 1921, p. 3; White, “Eruption of Tulsa,” 910; Frances W. Prentice, “Oklahoma Race Riot,”
Scribner’s,
XC (August, 1931), 151–57.

18
. Major Byron Kirkpatrick [“Activities on the Night of May 31, 1921 at Tulsa, Okla.”] to Lt. Col. L. J. F. Rooney, July 1, 1921, and, Bell to Rooney, July 2, 1921, in Robertson Papers, Oklahoma State Archives; Barrett,
Oklahoma after Fifty Years,
207–209.

19
. Telegram, John A. Gustafson, Wm. McCullough, and V. W. Biddison to Governor J. B. A. Robertson, June 1,1921, and, Kirkpatrick to Rooney, July 1,1921, in Robertson Papers; Barrett,
Oklahoma after Fifty Years,
209–12.

20
. Citing an interview that he conducted with George Henry Blaine on June 5,1946, Loren Gill stated that about five hundred “armed men and boys” were given special commissions by the police within one-half hour after the outbreak of violence, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 28; Tulsa
World,
June 10,1921, p. 8; interview with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa.

21
. Barrett,
Oklahoma after Fifty Years,
210–11; Statement of Mr. [S.J.?] McGee, Civil Case 1062, Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives; Tulsa
World,
June 2, 1921, p. 2.

22
. Statement of Major C. W. Daly, Civil Case 1062, Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives; Interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa, W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, Henry Whitlow, June 6, 1978, Tulsa, V. H. Hodge, June 12, 1978, Tulsa, N. C. Williams, July 20, 1978, Tulsa, and B. E. Caruthers, July 21, 1978, Tulsa County.

23
. Tulsa
Tribune,
June 3, 1921, p. 1; Tulsa
World,
June 2,1921, p. 2; Ed Wheeler, “Profile of a Race Riot,”
Oklahoma Impact Magazine,
IV (June-July, 1971), 21; interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa.

24
. Tulsa
Tribune,
June 5, 1921,
7;
Tulsa
World,
July 19, 1921, p. 7.

25
. Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa, N. C. Williams, July 20, 1978, Tulsa, and I. S. Pittman, July 28, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa
Tribune,
July 15, 1921, p. 9.

26
. Tulsa
Tribune,
June 1, 1921, p. 6; Tulsa
World,
June 2, 1921, pp. 1,
7;
interview with Robert Fairchild, June 8,1978, Tulsa. Some whites later claimed that the Mt. Zion Church had been used as an arsenal by blacks, as a way to rationalize its destruction. W. D. Williams, however, has provided us with a bit of compelling evidence to relegate such an assertion into oblivion. On a Sunday morning shortly before the riot, Williams and some of his friends had crawled throughout the structure—probably in an attempt to avoid the church service—and saw no arms or ammunition. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7,1978, Tulsa. See also Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 32–33, 35n.

27
. White, “Eruption of Tulsa,” 910; New York
Times,
June 2, 1921, pp. 1–2; Tulsa
World,
July 14, 1921, p. 1; Wheeler, “Profile of a Race Riot,” 22; interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa, W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, and Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa.

28
. Tulsa
World,
June 2, 1921, p. 1; Captain Frank Van Voorhis [“Detailed Report of Negro Uprising for Service Company, 3rd Infantry, Oklahoma National Guard”] to Lieutenant Colonel L. J. F. Rooney, July 30, 1921, in Robertson Papers, Oklahoma State Archives; interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa, W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa, V. H. Hodge, June 12, 1978, Tulsa, and I. S. Pittman, July 28, 1978, Tulsa.

29
. Tulsa
Tribune,
June 3, 1921, p. 7.

30
. Barrett,
Oklahoma after Fifty Years,
211–12; Tulsa
Tribune,
June 3, 1921, p. 1; interview with Henry Whitlow, June 6,1978, Tulsa; Warner,
Oklahoma Boy,
138; Parrish,
Events of the Tulsa Disaster,
11.

31
. Prentice, “Oklahoma Race Riot,” 155; Barrett,
Oklahoma after Fifty Years,
213.

32
. Barrett,
Oklahoma after Fifty Years,
213–14; Tulsa
World,
June 2, p. 2, June 3, p. 2, and July 21, 1921, p. 3.

33
. Tulsa
World,
June 2, p. 2, July 14, 1921, p. 2; Oklahoma City
Daily Oklahoman,
June 5, 1921, p. 4; Halliburton, “The Tulsa Race War of 1921,” 343.

34
. Parrish,
Events of the Tulsa Disaster,
9–12; Theodore G. Vincent,
Black Power and the Garvey Movement
(San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972), 75,146–47.

35
. New York
Times,
June 2, 1921, p. 2; Clarence B. Douglas,
The History of Tulsa, Oklahoma: A City with a Personality
(Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1921), II, 621.

36
. Tulsa
Tribune,
June 2, 1971 [sic], p. A7; New York
Times,
June 2, pp. 1–2, and June 8,1921, p. 7.

37
. Bell to Rooney, July 2,1921, and Major Paul R. Brown to Adjutant General Barrett, July 1, 1921, in Robertson Papers.

38
. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 48–49, 67.

39
.
Ibid.,
67.

40
. Record of Commission Proceedings, City of Tulsa, September 27, p. 299, July 26, p. 133, July 29, p. 152, September 23, p. 283, and October 14, 1921, p. 356.

41
. Barrett,
Oklahoma after Fifty Years,
216.

42
. White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” 910.

43
. Warner,
Oklahoma Boy,
137–38; interview with Henry Whitlow, June 6, 1978, Tulsa; Calvin Chase, “A Report From the Tulsa Riot Scene,” Washington
Bee,
June 11, 1921, in Vincent,
Voices of a Black Nation,
51–52 (See also White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” 910); Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 46. Gill cites interviews which he conducted in the 1940s with Police Commissioner J. M. Adkison, Police Captain George H. Blaine, and Dr. George H. Miller.

44
. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 45–46.

45
. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Oklahoma City
Black Dispatch,
June 10, 1921, in Teall,
Black History in Oklahoma,
208.

46
. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 47, 49, 50, 78–79. A different estimate, that of 860 homes and stores having been burned, is to be found in Douglas,
The History of Tulsa,
II, 621.

47
. Record of Commission Proceedings, City of Tulsa, June 14, 1921, to June 6, 1922. The secretary of the City Commission did not record all of the claims presented to the commission in the Record; in the minutes for the July 29,1921, meeting, a long list of claimants and claims is concluded with the notation, “and others see list on file” (p. 151), but I could not locate this file.