Death in a Promised Land (26 page)

12
. Application for Charter of Tulsa, Oklahoma Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, November 27, 1922; NAACP Director of Branches to Ernest Richards, Esq., September 11, 1926; NAACP Director of Branches to W. H. Williamson, June 25,1930; all in Tulsa Branch Files, Box G-175, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress.

No further information was located regarding the Tulsa chapter of the African Blood Brotherhood. Although the national organization at first hedged the question as to whether its members were involved in the riot (probably because its New York office had not been contacted yet by Tulsa ABB members), it later openly associated itself with the steadfast self-defense shown by black Tulsans in the spring of 1921. The organization’s initial statement, made by Cyril Briggs in New York City on June 5, 1921, read in part: “An article in the (New York]
Times
of June 4 implies responsibility on the part of the African Blood Brotherhood for the unfortunate bloody occurances
[sic]
in Tulsa, Okla. This organization has no other answer to make save admit that the African Blood Brotherhood is interested in having negroes organized for self-defense against wanton attack by whites,” quoted in the New York
Times,
June 5, 1921, p. 21. The November, 1921, edition of the ABB’s magazine, the
Crusader,
however, stated: “As We Have Done by You—Do You by Us! Remember
Tulsa!
Remember the Bright, Untarnished Record of the ABB! What Other Organization Can Match That Brave Record?”, quoted in Theodore G. Vincent,
Black Power and the Garvey Movement
(San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972), 75.

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 Violence: 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, J
im 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.