Civil rights protestors marched at the Oklahoma State Capitol on June 7, 1964. 46 January/February 2019 OklahomaToday.com 46_Civil Rights.indd 46 12/5/18 4:08 PM FREEDOM ROAD At the convergence of cultures and history, Oklahoma’s place in the nation’s civil rights story is unlike any other. In this feature, a Tulsa writer and researcher team up to track the currents of the Civil Rights Movement from before statehood through the turbulent days of the 1950s and ’60s, following the heroic path of those who fought for their freedom in the Sooner State. By QURAYSH ALI LANSANA with research by BRACKEN KLAR Portraits by SHANNON NICOLE HE 1960S GENERALLY are considered ment is important and unique. e state’s red the heart of the modern struggle earth served as battleground and litmus test Tfor African American civil rights, for the movement dating all the way back to and many of that era’s most well-known before statehood. ough great progress has moments happened in the Deep South. But been achieved here, many of those old growing Oklahoma’s place in the Civil Rights Move- pains continue to ache. OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY January/February 2019 OklahomaToday.com 47 46_Civil Rights.indd 47 12/5/18 4:08 PM OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SCOIETY 48 January/February 2019 OklahomaToday.com 46_Civil Rights.indd 48 12/5/18 4:08 PM OST BLACKS INITIALLY These former slaves, known as Infantry and the mostly white “Boom- arrived in Indian Territory Freedmen, attained significant eco- ers” negatively affected race relations Min the middle of the nine- nomic and political gains amid great in the state for decades. teenth century via the Trail of Tears indifference from both Native Ameri- But it was a Kansas businessman, and other forced relocations as the cans and whites. No longer property Edward (Edwin) P. McCabe, who property of the slaveholding Creek, but property owners, the Freedmen envisioned Indian Territory as a new Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and cultivated farms and livestock in land of opportunity for black Ameri- Seminole nations. Many attempted addition to becoming entrepreneurs cans free of the oppressive legislated to escape their bondage by revolt or and merchants. Some white people racism of the post-Civil-War South. by running away, and both black and resented the wealth and stability black McCabe came to Oklahoma in 1890 white abolitionists worked to overturn Oklahomans acquired during the after a visit to Washington, D.C., slavery during this time. By the 1861 period, and their hatred often mani- during which he visited President onset of the Civil War, these tribes fested in threats and lynching bees. Benjamin Harrison to encourage his owned approximately 10,000 Africans. Many Native Americans, also strug- support for African American voting After the war, the federal government gling to sustain their own indepen- and civil rights. McCabe encouraged granted freedom and allotments of dent economy, treated the Freedmen blacks to relocate to Indian Territory, land to newly freed black citizens, an with disdain. But their success paved an initiative that was assisted by the initiative that was not greeted warmly the way for a second migration of Oklahoma Immigration Association of by all Native Americans. African Americans into the land that Topeka, which called for the creation “Following the Civil War, these slaves would become Oklahoma. of Oklahoma as an all-black state with were freed and entered into the tribal McCabe as its first governor. life of the Indians, intermarrying and McCabe’s dream of an all-black state becoming an integral part of the Red never became a reality, but he, along Man’s life and customs,” wrote Roscoe T WAS THE promise of land that with white land developer Charles Dunjee, editor of The Black Dispatch spurred this second migration, H. Robbins, established the town of newspaper in Oklahoma City, in an Ibeginning with the first Land Langston in 1890 and the Oklahoma editorial dated April 29, 1939. Run in 1889. During the 1880s, it Colored Agricultural and Normal Col- Portraits, left to right: Oklahoma’s had been the task of Henry O. Flip- lege—now known as Langston Univer- first African American legislator A.C. per, the first black graduate of West sity—seven years later. Hamlin; The Black Dispatch founder Point, and Allen Allensworth, a black Langston was hardly unique. Dur- Roscoe Dunjee; and businessman and Langston co-founder Edward (Edwin) chaplain—they were the only black ing this second migration of blacks to P. McCabe. Top left, The Tullahassee commissioned officers to serve in the Oklahoma, as many as fifty all-black Manual Labor School was a Creek territory—to lead the Twenty-fourth towns were established and served Nation-funded boarding school opened for Freedmen in 1883. Tullahassee is Infantry in their task of preventing as testament to African Americans’ one of the oldest historic all-black towns “Boomers” from illegally relocating resolve to control their own destinies in Oklahoma. Bottom left, Chickasaw from Kansas to Oklahoma. Clashes and live free of racism. Black Okla- Freedmen file for allotments in Tishomingo. between the all-black Twenty-fourth homans bought farmland, established January/February 2019 OklahomaToday.com 49 46_Civil Rights.indd 49 12/5/18 4:08 PM banks and other businesses, and ran can to serve in the new state legis- the world—had ever seen at the time. for political office. Two black men, lature. Hamlin was elected in 1908 Tulsa’s Greenwood District, which Green I. Currin and David J. Wallace, in the midst of a Republican renais- came to be known as “Black Wall served in the Territorial Legislature sance in state politics, but his election Street,” grew with Tulsa during the oil prior to statehood during a time when prompted the legislature to draft a boom of the 1910s. The area contained school segregation by race still was constitutional amendment requir- thirty-five blocks of more than a hun- optional—though in the late 1890s, ing voters to pass a literacy test—one dred prosperous African American- the legislature passed statutes making from which most white citizens were owned businesses and residences. A it mandatory. exempt—though this was overturned dollar spent here would remain in the by the Supreme Court in 1915. In neighborhood for more than a year. 1916, the legislature passed another The area also was home to two clause denying blacks the right to newspapers, most notably The Tulsa EGREGATION AND CIVIL vote. These actions reflected a larger Star. Andrew J. Smitherman, the Star’s rights played a major role during trend across the South. publisher, began his career by found- Sthe formation of a proper state “. by 1910, the Negro had been ing The Muskogee Star in 1912 before on the land that was Indian Territory. effectively disenfranchised by consti- moving the operation to Tulsa in At the 1906 Constitutional Con- tutional provisions in North Carolina, 1913. Through his newspaper, Smith- vention, a “race distinction” passage Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, and erman shared his message of African formally separated school and trans- Oklahoma,” wrote the late historian American autonomy and encouraged portation facilities. President Theo- John Hope Franklin, a Rentiesville na- armed resistance to combat lynching dore Roosevelt even became involved, tive, in his 1947 book From Slavery to bees and other forms of racial vio- threatening to deny Oklahoma’s entry Freedom: A History of American Negroes. lence. He authored searing editorials into the Union if the transportation and poems that spoke to economic provision, which he strongly opposed, and racial disparities. In 1920, Smi- remained in the state’s founding docu- therman was invited by Governor ment. The clause was removed but ESPITE A GENERAL atmo- J.B.A. Robertson to participate in an swiftly reinstated by Oklahoma Senate sphere of legalized discrimina- interracial conference on the ram- Bill One, the first piece of legislation Dtion in housing, employment, pant lynching of black Oklahomans. in the state’s history. transportation, education, and voting When the Tulsa Race Massacre of A.C. Hamlin, a Republican from restrictions, black Oklahomans built 1921 broke out, many white Tulsans Guthrie, was the first African Ameri- a community unlike any America—or blamed Smitherman, and he was The Long Journey LEARN MORE ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICANS’ HISTORY IN OKLAHOMA FROM THE TRAIL OF TEARS THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR, THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, AND INTO THE PRESENT DAY AT THESE EVENTS AND SITES ALL OVER THE STATE. The John Hope Franklin Center for John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park Reconciliation, Greenwood Cultural Center 290 North Elgin Avenue in Tulsa 322 North Greenwood Avenue Tulsa Historical Society & Museum in Tulsa, (918) 295-5009 or jhfcenter.org 2445 South Peoria Avenue in Tulsa, (918) 712-9484 or tulsahistory.org Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame For more on Oklahoma’s black history, MEGAN ROSSMAN order the Long Road to Liberty or visit 5 South Boston Avenue in Tulsa, TravelOK.com/long-road-to-liberty (918) 928-5299 or okjazz.org 50 January/February 2019 OklahomaToday.com 46_Civil Rights.indd 50 12/5/18 4:08 PM charged with inciting a riot by local courts. By this time, however, he had moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, and the case never was brought to trial because that state refused to comply with Oklahoma’s extradition efforts. The race massacre devastated the Greenwood neighborhood. More than three hundred black people were killed and 10,000 rendered homeless after white mobs set fire to businesses and more than a thousand homes in the area. Some even flew over the riot in their private planes dropping kero- sene bombs to aid in the devastation.