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Divided by the Tracks: Memory of the Tulsa Race Riot Caroline Olsen Colorado College History Department May 2013

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Divided by the Tracks: Memory of the Tulsa Race Riot

The Tulsa Race Riot is no anomaly to American history. Its story is similar to countless other tales of race riots around the country. A black male accused of trying to rape a white female, which set off a series of events including the complete destruction of the black community and the slaughter of an unknown number of black people--men, women, and children alike. What is unique to Tulsa is the fact that the race riot was not discussed, not confronted, and unresolved for almost eighty years, and still today the white and black communities have not reached a real, lasting conclusion. The fact that the riot was kept silenced and unaddressed even in collegiate Oklahoma history classes for that length of time has given Tulsans the chance to shape their own memories without the influence of official statements and histories.

The segregation of memory in Tulsa between the white and black communities continues to shape the lives and memories of both races today.1 The African-American experience in Tulsa is founded upon what Sidney Flack, pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in north Tulsa, calls “layering of (traumatic) memories,” beginning with the Tulsa race riot, and growing to include the construction of Interstate 244 through the heart of the Greenwood District in the

1960s and the desegregation of the Tulsa Public School system in 1972, all actions which have negatively impacted their community.2 The white community, however, has experienced a kind of historical amnesia, and still today does not discuss the race riot willingly or frequently. The exclusion and repression of memories such as the race riot has allowed white Tulsans to exist behind a facade of peace, permits them to avoid discussion which could bring about closure.

Both communities’ goal is to move on, but the approach of these respective communities are in stark contrast. While the white community’s version of “moving on” entails a passive approach

1 Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Promised land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 98. 2 Sidney Flack, interview with the pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, November 27, 2012.

Olsen 3 in which the community ceases discussion of the riot altogether and simply moves past the memory, the black community’s ideal approach is much more engaged and action-oriented.

They want dialogue, and tangible benefits that have been repeatedly denied to them such as access to a better, equal education, a grocery store in their community with higher-quality goods, and proper funding of community projects.

The first half of this essay will discuss the events of the riot, its causes, and the immediate aftermath, and the segregation of memory which began shortly after the violence ceased, evident in such sources as the Tulsa World and in publications of the NAACP. The latter half will address the construction of I-244, the desegregation of Tulsa Public Schools, and finally how all of these events have combined with different communities’ perceptions of the riot to form Tulsa as it endures today. I hope in this way to reveal how the memory of the riot continues to divide contemporary Tulsa despite concerted efforts on both sides to “move on” and move forward in their own ways, and as a collective city.

The Causes and Events of the Race Riot

The causes of the race riot were as old as Tulsa was, and began to form almost immediately upon Tulsa’s inception as a “white” city. Oklahoma gained statehood in 1908, and, as Scott Ellsworth, a prominent Tulsan historian, argues, “Tulsa was a boom city in a boom state.”3 The city grew rapidly, with the population skyrocketing to more than fifty times its original size in the years between 1900 and 1920. This rapid population boom mirrors the fact that the area surrounding Tulsa was gushing with oil. “The story of Tulsa is the story of oil,”

Ellsworth maintains, and oil and the money that came with it attracted a diverse population.

Everyone from wealthy entrepreneurs to poor men looking to strike it rich poured into Tulsa.

3 Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 8.

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Before the white population migrated to Tulsa and Oklahoma, however, the land was occupied not only by Native Americans but also black freedmen, who had formerly been the slaves of tribes such as the Choctaw and the Cherokee.4

As Tulsa grew, its black community also grew in conjunction as many African-

Americans found work in the ever wealthier white section of Tulsa. “Confined by law and racism, black Tulsa was a separate city, serving the needs of the black community. And as Tulsa boomed, black Tulsa did too.” Many members of the black community became wealthy themselves, as hotel entrepreneurs, movie theater owners, doctors, lawyers, and store owners.5

Some even became more wealthy than members of the white community. They filtered into the new Greenwood District as they saw economic opportunities arise there. The Greenwood

District began to be nationally known as “Black Wall Street,” in turn drawing even greater numbers of African-Americans searching for more economic freedom and a thriving community.

The fact that there were black men who were more wealthy than many members of the white community caused much animosity and jealousy among its members--particularly the less- privileged white men--and many felt that those wealthy black men were usurping their place in society.6 It was these whites who would later jump at the chance to destroy the black community, and were later blamed for the violence despite the fact that many wealthier men also participated.

While Tulsa was in the midst of its rapid physical development, the establishment of a strong vigilante tradition, including a thriving chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, grew concomitantly.

4 The following general narrative of the causes, events, and aftermath of the Tulsa race riot based upon an account of the riot from Scott Ellsworth’s, Death in a Promised Land, pages 1-111. 5 As seen from the stories of these black entrepreneurs from many different sources, these men and women came from all over the United States searching for freedom from the oppression of Jim Crow, and the racism ever-present in their towns of origin. 6 Ellsworth, 9 and 14.

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These vigilantes, men from all socioeconomic classes in Tulsa perhaps growing more fearful of the thriving Greenwood District, took it upon themselves to enforce the racial hierarchy.7 They attacked and lynched everyone from African-Americans to a young white man accused of murdering a cab driver, and targeted members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) who they felt were out of place. Not only was the Klan prospering in Tulsa, but Women of the

Ku Klux Klan and the “Junior” Ku Klux Klan were also blossoming into great organizations of their own. This vigilante tradition, as old as Tulsa itself, would later contribute, if not begin, the race riot. Along with this tradition also grew the corruption of the Tulsa Police force, who were known to stand idly by during episodes of this mob violence, during one scene of mob violence, even directing traffic. Tulsa thus entered the decade of the 1920s with an edge against the black community that had been clearly defined throughout the city’s youth.

Another root of the Tulsa Race Riot was World War I. Because African-Americans were permitted to serve in the US Army, and were allowed to keep their guns and ammunition upon their return home, the white community became especially paranoid and fearful of the dangerous black men with guns. African-American soldiers also returned with the idea that because they fought alongside white men and for the country of the United States, they deserved to be considered equal to their white counterparts. The idea of equality also made blacks more indignant about the postwar wave of white violence against minorities and others they viewed as threatening.8 The idea of self-defense thus grew in the African-American community; if anyone threatened them or a member of their community, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) condoned the taking up of arms in order to “protect...against

7 The Ku Klux Klan that grew in Tulsa at this time was part of the second Klan that burgeoned in the 1920s, from Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). 8 These minorities included Jews, Catholics, and Communists (particularly the Industrial Workers of the World).

Olsen 6 barbarous practices inflicted upon [a black person] because of his color.”9 All of these developments in the African-American community furthered the animosity and fear that was already expanding in the white community, causing racial tensions to continue to escalate beyond that prompted by the growth of the KKK. As Ellsworth notes, it would only take “an impudent negro, a hysterical girl, and a yellow journalist,” to ignite the fire that would start the riot.10

On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young black man named Dick Rowland who worked as a shoeshine across the tracks in the white section of Tulsa was accused of attempting to rape

Sarah Page, an elevator operator in the Drexel building. As researchers have discovered,

Rowland most likely accidentally stepped on the foot of Ms. Page, and in order to prevent her from falling over he grabbed her arm. She screamed, causing Rowland to run away in fear. As is always true with stories such as these, the tale grew out of proportion, with rumors circulating that Dick Rowland had assaulted Sarah Page, scratching her arms and tearing her clothes.

Rowland was arrested the next day, and taken to the county jail. Shortly after his arrest, the local newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune printed the following article:

Nab Negro for attacking Girl in Elevator A negro delivery boy who gave his name to the public as “Diamond Dick” but who has been identified as Dick Rowland, was arrested on South Greenwood avenue this morning by Officers Carmichael and Pack, charged with attempting to assault the 17- year-old white elevator girl in the Drexel building early yesterday. He will be tried in municipal court this afternoon on a state charge. The girl said she noticed a negro a few minutes before the attempted assault looking up and down the hallway on the third floor of the Drexel building as if to see if there was anyone is sight but thought nothing of it at the time.

9 Ellsworth, 23. 10 R. Halliburton Jr., “The Tulsa Race War of 1921,” Journal of Black Studies 2, no. 3 (1972): 349.

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A few minutes later he entered the elevator she claimed, and attacked her, scratching her hands and face and tearing her clothes. Her screams brought a clerk from Renberg’s store to her assistance and the negro fled. He was captured and identified this morning by both the girl and the clerk, the police say. Tenants of the Drexel building said the girl is an orphan who works as an elevator operator to pay her way through business college.11

In response to this inflammatory, slanderous article, a large crowd of whites began to gather outside of the jail in which Rowland was incarcerated in the early evening of May 31.

When word reached Greenwood that a white mob was gathering outside the courthouse, a group of black men gathered to discuss the best way to respond. Because of the strong rhetoric of self-defense that was widely circulating the black community, these men ultimately decided they should go down to the jail themselves carrying the guns they acquired during the War, and assist the police in defending Dick Rowland from the lynch mob. When the first group of twenty-five or thirty black men reached the jail, the Sheriff assured them that he would personally guarantee Rowland’s safety. Upon hearing the Sheriff’s promise, the group retreated, but the white mob remained. When word reached Greenwood that the white mob had grown to include 2,000 people, and that these people were becoming more and more restless and aggressive, the group of armed black men went back down to the courthouse, this time with between sixty and seventy men in their ranks. When a white man attempted to disarm one of the black defenders, a shot was fired and all hell broke loose.

The black men retreated quickly back into Greenwood, many killed along the way, and the white mob began to raid local hardware stores in order to increase their supply of guns and ammunition. The Tulsa Police force was a major factor in the arming of the white mob, and instead of working to suppress the mob, they were fervently helping to break into stores and

11 Ellsworth, 48.

Olsen 8 dispensing out guns. Early in the morning, the out-of-control white mob began to burn

Greenwood. When firefighters approached to attempt to put out the fire in the first burning building, the white mob prevented them from getting anywhere near the fire, and forced them to return to their station with their equipment. Around 6:00 o’clock in the morning, the systematic burning and looting of the Greenwood District began. The black community tried to resist and defend their homes, families, and community, but they were greatly outnumbered. Many fled along the Frisco railroad tracks, seeking safety in neighboring communities, and many others were captured, most by the Tulsa Police, and taken forcefully to makeshift internment camps.

Countless other black residents of the Greenwood District were burned in their homes, killed in the streets, or remain completely unaccounted for; there are various reports of bodies of the dead being unceremoniously hurled into the Arkansas River.

The scene was complete chaos. Some whites were killed simply because they stood in the way of the raging white mob, because they had a home in the Greenwood District, or because they were mistaken for black people amidst the fighting and burning. Around 9:15 on the morning of June 1, troops from the National Guard arrived at the scene after having been called by the governor earlier that morning. Instead of immediately beginning to put out fires and stop the killing and looting, reports recount that National Guard troops sat down to eat breakfast.

Martial law was declared later that morning. Only after did the troops begin to aid the fire department in their efforts to put out the fires in Greenwood. On the day of the riot, more than

6,000 black people were interned around Tulsa--at McNulty Baseball Park, at the Tulsa

Fairgrounds, and at the Convention Center. The number of dead, both black and white, was originally estimated around 50, but researchers have since guessed that there were somewhere between 27 and 300 dead African-Americans and only around ten white people.

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The Red Cross moved into Tulsa to aid an enormous number of those wounded. Many people who had been hurt, though, refused to get help from the Red Cross either because they were white and did not want to be discovered as rioters or were black and were afraid of being taken for fighters and fired from their jobs or killed. None of the dead black citizens of Tulsa were given proper burials. There were rumors of mass graves and many unmarked grave sites, preventing survivors from having a place at which they could formally grieve the loss of their loved ones. Instead, the survivors were forced to grieve everything in silence; they had lost family members, their homes, their businesses, their livelihoods, and all of their belongings, but were kept from having a tangible place they could go where they were allowed to mourn.

Instead, they were stuck in detention camps with their fellow Greenwood citizens, wondering whether a relative was dead or simply in another camp.

The Immediate Aftermath; Before the Silence

The estimated costs of damage inflicted upon the community of Greenwood was about

$1.5 million; a third of that total included losses from the business district alone.12 The Red

Cross estimated that around 1,115 residences had been completely destroyed, and there were 314 houses that were looted, but not burned. Many African-Americans filed claims against the city of Tulsa for their losses, but these claims were never answered. In fact, insurance companies refused to answer to these claims because of something they called ‘the riot clause.’ By June 2, all black Tulsans who were being interned--around 4,000--were consolidated to one camp located at the site of the Tulsa Fairgrounds. Conditions were abominable: people were placed under armed guard twenty-four hours a day and were given shelter in cattle and hog pens. The prisoners were given food, clothing, and bedding on June 1 and 2, but the health conditions in the fairgrounds arena deteriorated quickly. At first, the only black Tulsans allowed to leave the

12 This estimate is not adjusted for inflation.

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Fairgrounds were those who were picked up and vouched for by a white employer. Most of those African-Americans who were interned secured their release by June 7, but the fairgrounds were not emptied until June 15. Even after they were out of the camp, all blacks were forced to wear or carry green cards whenever they were out on streets which read ‘Police Protection.’

They had to carry these cards until July 7.

Almost immediately, the white community began to place blame on the citizens of the

Greenwood District, blaming black newspapers for igniting racial tensions leading to the riot. A few days after the riot, the white pastor of Centenary Methodist Church claimed that the black population was solely responsible for the riot, and insisted “there had been ‘no spirit of mob violence in front of the courthouse’” because he had been there to see.13 According to Ellsworth,

Reverend Harold G. Cooke also proclaimed that the African-Americans who had gone down to the courthouse in order to protect Dick Rowland were “criminal and liquor-frenzied,” and they

“outraged the white people of this community.” If they had not outraged the crowd at the courthouse, nothing would have happened. 14

Fear, despite the complete destruction wrought by the rioters upon the Greenwood community, was still rampant among whites in Tulsa. All black Tulsans were forbidden to own or purchase any firearms for a period of several weeks after the riot, and any black person from outside the city trying to enter Tulsa was forbidden to do so. White Tulsans, Ellsworth argues, evidently feared a “black ‘counterattack’” from those blacks who lived around Tulsa. There were some efforts to provide charity and relief to those affected by the riot apart from services provided by the Red Cross, and the Colored Citizens Relief Committee and East End Welfare

Board, but after the first few days, grassroots charity from the white community slowed down

13 Centenary Methodist Church is now known as the primary gathering place of the Tulsa chapter of the Ku Klux Klan throughout Tulsa’s history, see Appendix A for pictures. 14 Ellsworth, 76.

Olsen 11 and ground to a halt. The Red Cross was the more powerful of the two groups providing true relief, and worked until December of 1921 to provide care for survivors. Despite efforts on the part of organizations outside of Tulsa, the city government turned down any offers of money, and ironically declared, “the citizens of Tulsa ‘were to blame for the riot and that [the city] would would bear the costs of restoration.’”15

In order to organize and perform rehabilitation work and bring Tulsa “back to normalcy,” the city nominated the Executive Welfare Committee, and its successor the Reconstruction

Committee. 16 The first action taken by the Executive Welfare Committee was to begin appraising land in the Greenwood District and to encourage white businessmen to purchase the land from the black owners in order to turn the area into a white industrial and wholesale district.

Its next action was to pass Fire Ordinance No. 2156, under which a large part of the burned district would be placed under the fire limits of the City of Tulsa.17 Under the city’s fire ordinances, structures were to be constructed out of concrete, brick, or steel and had to be at least two stories high. The passage of this ordinance was obviously to prohibit the blacks in

Greenwood from rebuilding, because to rebuild a structure with those limitations would have been far too expensive for the now-fairly impoverished owners of the burned buildings. It was well known that the city of Tulsa and its white businessmen had been eyeing this section of the

Greenwood District for years with hopes of repurposing it into a new white district. The

Executive Welfare Committee also proposed a Union Station along the Frisco railroad tracks.

Despite black complaints that under these new fire codes, they would not be able to rebuild, the white government pressed on to claim the land for their own.

15 Ellsworth, 78, 84. 16 Ibid, 82-83. 17 The Greenwood District had previously been its own entity.

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At this moment the black community flexed its muscles and showed white Tulsa, as they have done time and time again since, that they were not going anywhere. The black law firm

P.A. Chappelle, I.H. Spears, and B.C. Franklin filed a lawsuit against the fire ordinance on

August 1, and won three weeks later when the district court judges declared the ordinance “void on the grounds that it took private property without due process of law.”18 The initiatives of the

Reconstruction Committee to claim the burned district for white Tulsa slowed down and eventually came to a halt in January of 1922 after they realized that the black community would not allow the loss of their land and were ready to fight in court if white Tulsa continued to attempt to push them out. The black community set up temporary tents and shacks as they began the rebuilding process. As winter approached, the pace of rebuilding accelerated, but still almost

“one thousand black Tulsans spent the winter of 1921-1922 in tents.” In 1922, though,

Greenwood began to be filled once again with brick buildings, and the community began to prosper once more. As the black community still adamantly states, “white Tulsans did not rebuild black Tulsa.” 19

The governor of Oklahoma ordered a Grand Jury to investigate the riot after his visit on

June 2, 1921, and on June 25, the jury handed down its final report. The report read as follows:

We find that the recent race riot was the direct result of an effort on the part of a certain group of colored men who appeared at the courthouse on the night of May 31, 1921, for the purpose of protecting one Dick Rowland then and now in the custody of the sheriff of Tulsa county for an alleged assault upon a young white woman. We have not been able to find any evidence either from white or colored citizens that any organized attempt was made or planned to take from the sheriff’s custody any prisoner; the crowd assembled about the courthouse being purely spectators and curiosity seekers resulting from rumors circulating about the city. There was no mob spirit among the whites, no talk of lynching and no arms. The assembly was quiet until the arrival of the armed

18 Ellsworth, 88. 19 Ellsworth, 90; 91.

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negroes, which precipitated and was the direct cause of the entire affair.20

As is immediately obvious from this report, Ellsworth asserts, the white citizens of Tulsa were intent upon blaming anyone but themselves for the riot, whether out of fear, or unwillingness to take responsibility. The immediate responses of the riot are all colored in this way, and all provide different accounts of what happened, who the aggressors were, who was to blame, and why the riot happened. These varied responses can be found in the Tulsa World, in Mary E.

Jones Parrish’s book Events of the Tulsa Disaster, and in a response to the riot written by a

NAACP worker, Walter White.

“Negro Uprising,” or Mob Violence?

In the days, weeks, and months following the events of the night of May 31 and the morning of June 1, 1921, differences emerged between the responses of the black and white communities which laid the foundation for the difference in perceptions of the riot that are manifested today. In the Tulsa World, a tone of shock, guilt, and finger-pointing was automatically part of the rhetoric of reporting about the riot. In “Editorial: The Disgrace of

Tulsa,” the author condemned the white community’s involvement the riot as the actions of a few rowdy ruffians who do not represent the majority of the white population. The article also laid blame on the black men who drove down to the courthouse to protect Dick Rowland, insisting, “The imprudence of the negroes in arming themselves and visiting the county jail

20 Ibid, 95.

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Despite the author’s acknowledgement that the violence of the white men on the

Greenwood community may have been wrong, he also felt that the black community was somewhat, if not more, culpable because of what he considered their brash actions. Of course, his article stated that the white citizens of Tulsa are “members of a superior race,” and used such terms that are typical of the time and would not be heard of in Tulsa today, but this article is representative of the white community because it also looks with sadness upon the burning of

Greenwood, lamenting that the white attackers “[dealt] their home community the foulest blow it has ever received in its history.” Even though the Greenwood District was separate from Tulsa proper, this author still considered it part of the “home community,” and was ashamed of the actions of his fellow white men.22

Another article published in the Tulsa World in June of 1921 that demonstrates the lack of positive white response is “$2,000 TO START FUND FOR RELIEF.” This article calls upon the white citizens of Tulsa to donate money in order “to wipe out [the] stain” of the race riot and

“to rebuild ‘Little Africa’ which was practically razed by fire during and after the rioting

Tuesday and Wednesday.” Insisting that “this is not the time of charity to be left to organizations,” the Tulsa World urged the white population to redeem itself and come to the black community’s aid.23 This article is exemplary of a bulk of the white sentiment in that although it calls for donations and charity, the white community contributed very little to aid the

21 “Editorial: The Disgrace of Tulsa,” Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleid=19210602_222_0_Proudm83169 [accessed November 25 2012]. 22 “Editorial: The Disgrace of Tulsa.” 23 “$2,000 TO START FUND FOR RELIEF,” Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleid=19210602_222_0_TheWor810279 [accessed November 14 2012].

Olsen 15 black community. After the initial response from a few white churches in collecting clothes, bedding, and other goods, the donations and charitable giving ceased, and the black community was on its own.

Apart from the shame and obvious guilt apparent in the white community, they felt the need to blame third parties for the riot. In their eyes, the black community instigated the violence, but the lax city government, the police force, and the county sheriff were also to blame.24 In “Mass Media and Governmental Framing of Riots: The Case of Tulsa, 1921,” Chris

M. Messer and Patricia A. Bell argue, that many Tulsans, both white and black, viewed the police department as inept, and as directly involved with the riot. The white community generally blamed the police for not being able to protect Greenwood and its citizens, yet despite their contempt for police ineptitude, many members of the white community thought it best to use white police officials to guard and keep watch over the black community. The white community strove to reassert its dominance over the black population in an effort to preserve the status quo, and in order to keep the riot as quiet and under wraps as possible. 25

The response of the African-American community in Tulsa was filled with emotional trauma and hopelessness, but also in many cases with anger and determination. Mary E. Jones

Parrish’s Events of the Tulsa Disaster, written in 1921 but not published until the 1998, reported on the horror and events of the riot, and includes interviews with many of the people she was interned with at the camps after the riot. In Mrs. Jones Parrish’s eyes, the group of men who traveled to the jail to protect Dick Rowland were “brave and loyal Black men who were willing to give their lives, if necessary, for the sake of a fellow man,” not the belligerent and out-of-line

24 “Martin Blames Riot to Lax City Hall Rule,” Tulsa Tribune, http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleid=19210602_222_0_FixesR120809 [accessed November 25 2012]. 25 Messer, Chris M. and Patricia A Bell, “Mass Media and Governmental Framing of Riots: The Case of Tulsa, 1921,” Journal of Black Studies, http://jbs.sagepub.com/content/40/5/851 [accessed November 14 2012].

Olsen 16 instigators that the white community blamed. Parrish recounted the horrors of the riot, and the terror of the black community as they watched their homes and businesses burn, and tried desperately to try and escape alive and locate members of their families. Mrs. Jones Parrish recounted “the humiliation of coming in [to the detention centers from Greenwood] like that, with many doors thrown open watching you pass, some with pity and others with a smile,” as she and her fellow African-Americans were transported to the detention centers. The author discussed the utter sadness, humiliation, and bitterness of the black community, and in the latter half of the book in which she interviews people about the riot and their experiences, despair and anxiety are omnipresent. In the end, Mary E. Jones Parrish calls for equality and the betterment of all of mankind with hope and ambition.26

Mary E. Jones Parrish’s story was not the only African-American response chronicled in

1921, however. In an article printed in The Nation, Walter F. White of the NAACP also reacted to the riot, but with much more accusatory language. In “The Eruption of Tulsa,” White sarcastically noted that the white community did not “[pause] to find whether or not the story of

[Dick Rowland and Sarah Page] was true” before destroying the Greenwood District. In fact,

White angrily but accurately stated that this story is completely and utterly untrue because “any sane person attempting criminally to assault a woman would have picked any place in the world rather than an open elevator in a public building with stores of people within calling distance.”

Mr. White cited the main cause of the riot not as the equality-seeking black men who went to the courthouse but a “bitter resentment on the part of the lower order of whites, who [felt] that these colored men, members of an ‘inferior race’ [were] exceedingly presumptuous in achieving greater economic prosperity than they who [were] members of a divinely ordered superior race.”

26 Mary E. Jones Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, University of Tulsa McFarlin Library, http://cdm15887.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15887coll1/id/129/rec/27 [accessed November 27, 2012]

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White later sadly but angrily lamented, “What is America going to do after such horrible carnage--one that for sheer brutality and murderous anarchy cannot be surpassed by any of the crimes now being charged to the Bolsheviki in Russia?”27

The responses of Mary E. Jones Parrish and Walter White are exemplary of the African-

American community. Both authors convey a definite sense of utter devastation and sorrow, as seen in Events of the Tulsa Disaster, but once the white community threatened to remove the black population from Greenwood altogether through fire codes and plans for a union station and industrial district, the black population took the offensive in order to protect themselves and their community, as seen in Walter White’s angry but determined “The Eruption of Tulsa.” This resilient, determined attitude, rather than sorrow and feelings of helplessness, became characteristic of the black community in Tulsa throughout their post-riot history. The white attitude following the riot, that of inaction and some intermittent attempts to weaken the African-

American community, also characterized that community up until about ten years ago.

“Urban Renewal” and the Desegregation of Tulsa Public Schools

In the early 1960s, the city of Tulsa created an “urban renewal” program, which Hannibal

B. Johnson, author of Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic

Greenwood District and prominent attorney in Tulsa, argues was “a means by which to rehabilitate and redevelop deteriorated or distressed urban areas” and which “targeted [areas] which were poor, black, or both.” Johnson further maintains that urban renewal did nothing for race relations in Tulsa. He quoted Dr. Sibley Butler, a professor of development of the

University of Texas, in insisting that “with the expansion of expressway systems, urban renewal added further stress to an already unstable community.” The construction of Interstate 244, which cuts directly through the heart of the historic Greenwood District, sliced the African-

27 Walter F. White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” Nation 112, no. 2921 (1921):909-910.

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American community in two. 28 Later, visitors to the Greenwood District expressed “[shock] at the degradation of North Tulsa--the brutal results of past eras of city planning that allowed expressways to be cut through what is probably one of the most potentially interesting sections, and the wholesale destruction of entire neighborhoods.”29

The urban renewal program bought out the black businesses located on the stretch of land upon which they wanted to build I-244, destroying that area and making the land around it much less valuable. Urban renewal was termed “urban removal” by the African-American community, who watched as their once-thriving district turned to ruin. In 1978, the Tulsa Neighborhood

Regeneration Project released a report that “described the Greenwood District as an area ‘that is left today [with] generally abandoned and underutilized buildings, sitting in a sparse population of poor and elderly black(s) awaiting the relocation counselors of the Urban Renewal program.’”

The Greenwood District remained “a skeleton of its former self,” due largely to the construction of I-244 through the heart of the community.30

The desegregation of the Tulsa Public School District is the third layer in the black community’s “layering of memory,” which Pastor Sidney Flack believes further shapes the

African-American experience in Tulsa today.31 Before desegregation, the sole African-American high school in Tulsa, Booker T. Washington High School, was one of the top high schools in the nation, excelling in academics and athletics, and providing a major point of pride for the African-

American community. The middle school in the black community, Carver Middle School, was one of the top middle schools in the state. In 1972, Tulsa Public Schools underwent forced desegregation, and the experience was traumatizing, almost tearing the black community apart.

28 See Appendix A for pictures. 29 Hannibal B. Johnson, Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District (Austin: Eakin Press, 1998), 114, 115. 30 Johnson, Black Wall Street, 116. 31 Flack.

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Julius Pegues, the chairman of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, a graduate of

Booker T. Washington High School, and the head of the Tulsa Development Authority, was in

Tulsa during desegregation offered an account of the story. 32

According to Pegues, in 1968 the NAACP filed federal suit against Tulsa Public Schools for equal access to education, equal learning materials, and equal facilities. The suit eventually ended up at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, where Tulsa Public Schools was told it had to desegregate. As Pegues tells it, the story goes that the white superintendents told their principals to make two columns on a piece of paper. On the left hand side of the page, the principals were to write which teachers were good and those they would like to keep, and on the right, to write which teachers were not as good and who they did not care to keep. The good white teachers stayed in south Tulsa, and the bad white teachers went to north Tulsa. The administration told the white students of south Tulsa they had a choice: they could go north to the black schools, or stay at their home schools. Unsurprisingly, most white students chose to stay at their schools in south Tulsa, except a handful of those who went north to Booker T.

Washington because of its reputation of excellence and student success. In north Tulsa, in schools such as Booker T. Washington and Carver, the principals, teachers, and students did not have that kind of option. The teachers and students who were to go south did not have a choice, but were told they were going by the white superintendents and administrators who were in charge of integration.

The new white teachers in the still heavily African-American schools were not used to diverse conditions, argues Pegues, and therefore had trouble with the diverse group of students they were now in charge of teaching; the African-American schools have suffered from

32 The following account of the desegregation of Tulsa Public Schools is from Julius Pegues, interview with the chairman of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, November 29, 2012.

Olsen 20 desegregation ever since. At Carver Middle School, integration was not moving fast enough and the white school board decided to close the school, with rumors circulating that they were planning the same end for Booker T. Washington High School. With the knowledge that “when you close schools, communities die,” Mr. Pegues and a few others went to the school board building to protest because, “we weren’t ready to die just yet.”33 The decision was made at the next meeting to officially close Carver, despite the room’s being filled with many African-

Americans who vocalized their objections. Thanksgiving was the week after the school board made their decision, and to protest, Julius Pegues and some colleagues went to the education wing of the school board building to sit until they got the chance to make their argument. They noticed they were sitting in front of a camera and no one was coming, so in order to force the issue, they moved to an area that was not under video surveillance. In a matter of minutes, the superintendents, their deputies, and the police chief were all in the building. The police chief,

Jack Purdy, was familiar with Mr. Pegues, and asked him what was going on. Julius Pegues complained to the chief that the superintendents were trying to shut down their schools, and they were not going to let that happen. The police chief, Jack Purdy, said to the superintendent, “You have to be doing wrong, because if you weren’t doing wrong, these people wouldn’t be here.”34

After the sit-in, the superintendents made the executive decision to reopen and remodel

Carver Middle School as a completely desegregated school with 50% white children, and 50% black children. The white superintendents never took action against Booker T. Washington High

School, and instead made the wise decision to leave it alone knowing full well that if they decided to attempt to close the school, the black community would respond with haste. In the

1990s, sadly, the school board ofBooker T. Washington High School made the rule that in order

33 Pegues. 34 Pegues.

Olsen 21 to go to the school, students had to apply and qualify, which means that most of the students who live in the Booker T. Washington District cannot attend their neighborhood school. The story of

Tulsa and of the black schools is an interesting way to think about desegregation in the south.

Rather than the popular story of how challenging it was for black children attending white schools, the story of Tulsa is one that speaks to the difficulty for black schools during the process of integration. If Julius Pegues and his colleagues had not stepped up to defend Carver Middle

School, the school would have closed, and the same could have been true for Booker T.

Washington High School, which is still one of the most successful schools in Oklahoma.35

“When you close schools, communities die. And we weren’t ready to die just yet.”36 The determination and resilience Julius Pegues demonstrated in 1972 and continues to demonstrate today reflects upon the general attitude of the African-American community despite the layers of traumatic memory, beginning with the race riot and building to include the construction of I-244 and desegregation that Sidney Flack argued shapes the black experience in Tulsa. Pride and resilience also shape the black experience in Tulsa, and have kept the black community on their feet much longer than many would have expected.

Interestingly, the white community does not spend much time thinking about how things such as desegregation and the construction of I-244 has hurt the black community. Bill Hinkle, a native Tulsan and professor of advertising at the University of Tulsa, when asked about desegregation, replied, “I don’t think it was as bad as people might want to think....I don’t remember there being a whole lot of issues about that.” When I asked Bill about the construction of I-244, Bill looked as though he had never really thought about it. 37 But this lack of acknowledgement is not necessarily a reflection of Bill or the white community’s concerted

35 See Appendix A for pictures. 36 Pegues. 37 Bill Hinkle, interview with University of Tulsa Professor of Advertising, November 29, 2012.

Olsen 22 effort to neglect the black community. I believe this is a reflection of location; because the black and white communities are still quite separate and have historically been so, the bulk of the white community has been relatively unaffected by events such as desegregation and the construction of I-244, and therefore have not had to give a huge amount of thought to those episodes. Bill

Hinkle’s story illustrates the attitudes and emotions of many white Tulsans now, and how racism is not necessarily the main factor at work, but it is more the desire to move on in their own way that drives their actions and inactions.38

Bill Hinkle is a native Tulsan, whose maternal grandfather, Clyde C. Hearn, was a telegraph operator for the Frisco railroad and who participated at some level in the riot. Clyde

Hearn (whose real last name was O’Hearn, but he dropped the ‘O’ in order to not be associated with the Irish) was a proud, outspoken racist who did not even believe that African-Americans should be allowed beyond the Friso tracks. Clyde referred to African-American males as

“niggras,” and African-American females as “washa women,” and made sure his children and grandchildren knew exactly how he felt about the African-American community. On the night of May 31, he went down to his office on the tracks “with a baseball bat and a shotgun,” and called people in to come and fight.

Bill still does not know if his grandfather actually took part in the violence, but “it wouldn’t surprise [him].” Clyde was a veteran of World War I, and was not particularly wealthy, but was delighted about his participation in the “Greenwood fight” in “Colored Town.”

Bill does not think Clyde was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but he knows he was at least an ardent supporter. Despite his grandfather’s racism, Bill’s immediate family was not overtly racist, and was constantly appalled by Clyde’s overtly bigoted language and ideas. Bill never

38 Although, as Bill understands, there are still racist people, but he does not believe that the majority of white Tulsans are motivated by racism.

Olsen 23 went into Greenwood as a child simply because “that just wasn’t what you did,” but it had nothing to do with racism. Bill lamented, “racism is just as present today as it was eighty years ago. It’s just not as acceptable now as it was back then. White people don’t talk about [the riot], and white people with family members who participated don’t discuss it. White people just want it to go away, they don’t want to talk about it because it’s such a blight on the history of Tulsa.”39

Bill’s response, I think, is characteristic of much of the white population of Tulsa today.

White people, especially relatives of white rioters, do not want to think about it because it is such a poor reflection on their predecessors and ultimately on them--a reflection they do not believe they deserve. After all of the building and the effort to revitalize the community, “the

Greenwood District is fabulous,” Bill said, and people want to visit, but “white people don’t want [their visits to Greenwood] to center around the race riot.” Instead of dealing proactively with the memory of the race riot, the white population would rather take a passive approach and simply let the riot go undiscussed until the memory fades away. “As long as people are teaching about it in a family structure, the riot will never be over.” 40

The Black Community: A Story of Resilience

The black community in Tulsa has demonstrated an unprecedented amount of resilience given the amount of stress and trauma to which it has been subjected. Beginning with the Tulsa

Race Riot, which provides the basis for their experience, and including the construction of I-244 and desegregation, black Tulsans have shown a strength and pride befitting to their situation and circumstances. Instead of simply allowing themselves to be defeated, they have stood against the tide and ensured that they are remembered and respected. The story of Mt. Zion Baptist Church is one that encompasses these sentiments. Mt. Zion Baptist was established in 1909, but had a

39 The following stories and thoughts are taken from my interview with Bill Hinkle. 40 Hinkle.

Olsen 24 very modest beginning. They did not have a building to call their own, but quickly developed a plan to construct one in order to solidify their place in the community. After a few years, they had raised a modest $42,000, but the building was estimated to cost $92,000, so the church hesitantly accepted a $50,000 loan. On April 4, 1921, Mt. Zion Baptist Church held its first services in its brand new building. On June 1, white rioters razed the building to the ground, leaving only ashes and debris. Insurance companies refused to compensate their loss, citing the

‘riot clause’ used to prevent any insurance responsibility in rebuilding Greenwood, and the congregation was left to rebuild on its own dime.

The members of Mt. Zion struggled for over fifteen years, circulating through a number of reverends, and living with a $50,000 debt looming. Finally, in 1937, Reverend J.H. Dotson began to help the congregation raise money to begin to reconstruct the church and repay their debt. In 1952, the congregation held its first services in the new, $300,000 building that had taken 31 years to finance and rebuild after the riot.41 When Interstate 244 was constructed, it was planned to run not 40 feet from Mt. Zion, making it impossible to sit in church without the noise of cars flying by on the new highway.42 Contrary to expectations, though, Mt. Zion remains a thriving, vivacious congregation with a beautiful brick building in the historic

Greenwood District. Despite all difficulties and hindrances, the congregation, like the African-

American community, has striven to succeed and flourish.

The Greenwood Cultural Center is another symbol of the effort of the black community to build itself back up after the traumatic events it experienced. In late 1980, the Greenwood

Chamber of Commerce received a $3.5 million grant from the Economic Development

Administration to begin developing the Center, which represents the rich history of the

41 Hannibal B. Johnson, Black Wall Street, 83-88. 42 See Appendix A for pictures.

Olsen 25

Greenwood community, and is meant to heighten awareness about the District’s history. It is a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization which conducts programs designed to “[focus] on African-

American history and culture and [seeks] to enhance race relations” in Tulsa today. The main goal of the Greenwood Cultural Center is to provide “a multipurpose education, arts, and humanities complex for people of all races, with an emphasis on the positive development of children and youth.”43 Their various programs are designed to address different aspects of

African-American history and culture, what African-American scholars and artists have contributed to Tulsa, and to preserve the historic Greenwood District.44 The Center has an exhibit devoted completely to the Tulsa Race Riot, with articles, both recent and old, photographs showing Greenwood before and after shots as well as pictures showing the rounding up of African-Americans being taken to internment camps, a wall covered with portraits of the survivors, and many individual stories of the riot.

Themes of humiliation, but also triumph, encapsulate the Greenwood Cultural Center, and it is as if they trying to tell Tulsa and the wider state and national audiences, “Look how far we’ve come.” Outside of the Center is a memorial dedicated to the lives and businesses lost in the Tulsa Race Riot. The memorial itself resembles the Vietnam Wall; it is a black granite slab in which the onlookers can see their reflections past the names engraved in white on the granite.45 The Greenwood Cultural Center embodies much of the African-American community: pride in their history, self-reflective as a resilient community, and taken by a desire to promote dialogue and education. The Center has been usurped, though, as the focal point of the

Greenwood community and of the community’s history. The John Hope Franklin Reconciliation

43 Hannibal B. Johnson, Black Wall Street, 119. 44 Hannibal B. Johnson, Black Wall Street, 123. 45 See Appendix A for pictures.

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Park, completed in 2010, has rapidly become the new center of attention in the Greenwood community.

The John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park, planned entirely by Julius Pegues, cost a total of $5 million to build, and took 9 years to complete.46 Located in the center of historic

Greenwood, the park is meant to be a monument to the African-American story in Tulsa. There is a path circumambulating the park meant to be reflective and peaceful. On the north side, there is a monument with three openings dedicated to three different parts of the African-American story: one for hostility, one for humiliation, and one for hope. The opening dedicated to hostility holds a life-size statue of a white man with a gun, the opening for humiliation contains a statue of an African-American man with his hands raised in surrender, and the opening for hope has a man holding a baby.47 These three statues are meant to signify the African-American story, but are punctuated by the race riot despite the emphasis placed upon not dwelling on it.48 The story of the race riot, of defeat and rebirth, is the story of the African-American community, no matter how much emphasis the black community places on not concentrating solely on the events of the riot.

In the focal point of the park, a sculptural column depicts the African-American story as great bronze plaques circling the column describe the story. It is in this section of the park particularly that any visitor gets a sense for whom the park is really meant: the black community.

The plaques contain phrases such as “We were Oklahomans before there was an Oklahoma,” and

“We survived,” and in the plaque devoted to the violence of the race riot, the white attackers are

“them” (emphasis added). There is an obvious effort to distinguish “us,” the African-American community, from “them,” the white community. In the final plaque, the emphasis is on

46 Pegues. 47 See Appendix A for pictures. 48 Flack.

Olsen 27 overcoming the past and moving forward, just as the African-American community has always done. “Now, we must all climb together,” reads the final sentence of the final plaque. The community is encouraged to look forward and stand united in the face of adversity, whether that means the race riot, the construction of I-244, desegregation, or whatever other hardship should come their way. The column reflects the hope and ambition of the black community to move forward; at the top, the sculptures of people are depicted raising their hands and climbing beyond the limits of the bronze column into the sky. The park is a culmination of the African-American experience and thought since the race riot. It includes scenes of terror and humiliation, but ultimately the triumph and hope the black community sees in themselves.49

The Greenwood Cultural Center and the park are not the only efforts on the part of the black community to reconcile their memories, however. The John Hope Franklin Center for

Reconciliation offers many programs and has multiple initiatives meant to continue the process of reconciliation and improved race relations in Tulsa. Every year in the late spring, it hosts a national symposium devoted to tackling issues of race and reconciliation. The organization brings in speakers from across the nation to discuss their ideas and research, and to conduct seminars to facilitate dialogue. The three-day event is completely open to the public and people of all races are encouraged to attend. The John Hope Franklin Center also holds a series of dialogues each year that are free and open to the public based upon reconciliation and forming relationships in order to weave a more tightly knit Tulsa community. The Center also hosts a dinner each autumn called “Reconciliation Dinner,” meant like the dialogues and symposium to form relationships between people of all races and walks of life in order to foster a greater sense of community for the city of Tulsa. Some programs that the Center is hoping to develop in the near future is the establishment of a docent program for the park in which the docents would

49 See Appendix A for Pictures.

Olsen 28 educate visitors on African-American history, and a curriculum based on the park, so that teachers could take their students for a site visit and have a set curriculum from which to teach.

The purpose of all of these programs, according to Julius Pegues, is to move forward and to reconcile the past. The riot is not supposed to be the focal point of these programs or these initiatives.50 The white community, though, does not necessarily understand that. Whenever the word “dialogue” appears, many members of the white community are turned off because they believe these discussions are just meant to bring up the past they want desperately to forget. In order for both sides to reconcile their pasts, both the black and white communities need to find some sort of a middle ground upon which they can agree and begin the process of becoming one community instead of a city with many different neighborhoods.

The White and Black Communities Now: What Can Be Done?

In 1996, the state of Oklahoma authorized a group of people to begin “preparing a fuller, more accurate history [of the race riot] than had previously been available, collecting names and stories of survivors, and making recommendations regarding reparations.” Alfred Brophy, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law who prepared a segment of the Race

Riot Commission Report titled, “Assessing State and City Culpability: The Riot and the Law,” reports, “the sponsors of the Commission in the legislature wanted to move the riot to the center of Oklahoma’s history and also to arrive at some sort of justice, and perhaps even reconciliation, for a tragedy that was long-forgotten.” 51 After much research and deliberation, the Riot

Commission handed down its recommendations to the state legislature. These recommendations included, “(1) payments to living survivors; (2) payments to descendants of those who suffered

50 Pegues. 51 Alfred L Brophy., The Tulsa Race Riot Commission, Apology, and Reparation: Understanding the Functions and Limitations of a Historical Truth Commission In Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation, edited by Elazar Barkan and Alexander Karn (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006) 234.

Olsen 29 property damage in the riot; (3) a scholarship fund; (4) business tax incentives for the

Greenwood District; and (5) a memorial.”52 The state legislature decided to not pay reparations to survivors or their descendants, and instead resolved to create a scholarship fund (which would not be taken from state money), and finance the creation of a memorial, which became the John

Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park.

The white response to the creation of the Riot Commission reveals much of the white community’s sentiment even after seventy-five years. For much of the white population, “the

Riot Commission was an ugly reminder of a period which they would increasingly prefer to forget. They...saw the talk of the riot as further special pleading by blacks, who dwelled on an unfortunate period in a now long-past history.” Many whites felt the Riot Commission and discussion of the riot in the media “stirred up racial hatred, when people should instead have been attending to current problems.” There was also a backlash against reparations across the state, with the chorus of whites echoing “paying reparations was someone else’s responsibility because most of Tulsa’s current taxpayers were not alive in 1921...and...reparations would be insufficient to remedy the past tragedy.”53 In the Tulsa World section, “Calls to the Editor,” many calls about the Commission and reparations inquired “why Tulsans now should be made to feel responsible for a past that contains violence they did not commit.” Most of the people who called in expressed that they did not want to be made to feel guilty for the race riot that took place in Tulsa seventy-nine years previously when they were not even alive, and they definitely did not “want to pay for the crimes of former Tulsans.” One caller asked, “If we are supposed to

52 Julia Forrester-Sellers, “The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and the Politics of Memory,” (MA diss, University of Tulsa, 2000), 26. 53 Brophy, 241.

Olsen 30 get along, why do you keep bringing up things that are harmful and causing hatred? If we are to live in peace, we need to put this behind us.”54

To many, reparations is not a controversy over money. Reparations for some proponents are more of a symbol of acceptance, and about “dealing with the riot adequately and responsibly.”55 Because the state refused to pay reparations, the state and the white community have not accepted the riot, keeping the wound of the memory open. To others, reparations would have simply been a way for the white community of Tulsa and of Oklahoma “to simply check the box and move on,” alleviating themselves from any responsibility they may have to the black community.56 Reparations would have been a complicated process; Who gets the money? How much do we have to pay? and as many in the white community felt, “reparations [would have been] just a handout.”57 To many African-Americans, the city owes more than money. Their entire community was devastated, therefore they should receive more tangible forms of reparations than mere cash gifts. The African-American community believes they deserve equal access to a good education, a good grocery store with higher quality goods, and perhaps money to help sponsor community projects.

The white community and the black community were and still are in obvious disagreement about the meaning of “moving on.” For the white community, in order to move on and improve race relations, the riot needs to disappear from the media and from conversation, which in their eyes only incites hatred and recalls a violent past for which the white citizens of

Tulsa feel they have no responsibility. The black community, however, feels quite differently.

Quoting race riot survivor Eldoris McCondichie, “I have mixed emotions [about direct

54 Forrester-Sellers, 34, 35, 37. 55 Flack. 56 Hannibal B. Johnson, interview with author of Black Wall Street, November 28, 2012. 57 Hinkle.

Olsen 31 payments]. I’m not saying [reparations] wouldn’t be a welcome gesture. But after all these years, it’s not about the money.” McCondichie would argue that a memorial, a physical focal point for the community of Greenwood is more important, that way they can make sure their story is heard and that something like the riot never happens again.58 Brophy argued many times that “the reasons [whites] listed for stopping talking about the riot often reduced down to the theme that blacks should ‘get over’ the riot. It was related to the rhetoric that blacks are best served if they strive to make the best of their current situation” instead of dwelling on the past.59

To the white community, in order to move on, the riot should disappear from daily lives and discussions. “As long as the riot is taught in a family structure,” Bill Hinkle said, “the riot will never be over.”60

The white and black communities are not necessarily in disagreement about how to remember the riot, though, as much as it may seem. In a survey conducted by a joint effort of the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa and the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, participants were asked questions and given prompts discussing race relations and the Tulsa

Race Riot. Participants were White, Black/African American, Latino, or American Indian. The survey found that all participants generally agree on the situation of race relations in Tulsa today, but in most cases, Black/African American participants and Latino participants felt much stronger than Whites and American Indians. The questions and prompts they were given about the race riot include, “Do you know the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot?” “Which of the following best describes your knowledge of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot?” “I consider the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot to be relevant to race relations today,” and “It is important for Tulsans to know about the 1921 Race

Riot.” In all cases, Black/African American’s responded ‘strongly agree’ much more than the

58 Forrester-Sellers, 44. 59 Brophy, 242. 60 Hinkle.

Olsen 32

Whites who were surveyed. For example, to the prompt, “It is important for Tulsans to know about the 1921 Race Riot,” 80 African-Americans ‘strongly agreed,’ while only 54 Whites

‘strongly agreed.’ To another prompt, “The history of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot should be taught in public schools,” 72 African-Americans responded ‘strongly agree,’ while only 48 Whites had the same response.61 This difference between the relative strength of responses highlights the gap between the black and white communities today. While African-Americans feel very strongly that the riot should be discussed, taught in schools, and reconciled in a proactive way, the white population obviously feels less intensely about it. Most of the time, white answers follow the same pattern as African-American, but they are more hesitant to strongly agree, which reflects their general response to the Riot Commission and the effort to reconcile through dialogue. The white community, according to this survey, knows the riot is important, but would rather not discuss it at great lengths, and would prefer the riot to stay where they feel it belongs: in history.

One of the more traumatic events in United States history, the Civil War, underwent a reconciliation process that is similar although not completely parallel to the process that continues to take place in Tulsa. David Blight, a Professor of History at Yale University, considers the aftermath of the Civil War and the formation of the memory of the war in terms of race relations in his book, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Blight uses the fiftieth anniversary of Gettysburg in 1913 to both open and close his book, poignantly demonstrating how the commemorative event signifies the utter absence of black soldiers and race in general from the narrative of the Civil War, which was entirely created by the white

61 Heather Threadgill, Judy Branum, and Chad V. Johnson “John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation Tulsa Area Race Relations and History Survey,” University of Oklahoma http://www.tulsaworld.com/specialprojects/news/race-riot/TulsaRaceRelationsTechReport2011color.pdf [accessed November 26 2012].

Olsen 33 population. After the war ended in 1865, the nation was forced to construct a narrative that incorporated aspects of the two main groups in conflict: the Union and the Confederacy. Those left alive after the war “were compelled to remember, and from the stuff of memory, create a new nation from the wreckage of the old.”62 The entire reunion at Gettysburg, which involved veterans traveling to Gettysburg from almost every state in the union, important politicians such as President Wilson addressing the veterans, and ceremonies dedicated to remembering the dead and celebrating the progress of the unified nation, “was about forging myths and making remembering safe” for every group invited. 63 Left out of this invitation to remember safely was the African American population, many of whom died in the war and the rest who had continued to struggle living under Jim Crow and extreme racial oppression despite their freedom.

The black response to the reunion at Gettysburg “demonstrated how fundamentally at odds black memories were with the national reunion,” which strikes a familiar chord with the experience for African Americans after the Tulsa Race Riot.64 Instead of the Union and

Confederacy’s ability to form a new narrative and a memory that was completely white dominated and satisfying with each other, the white population in Tulsa was forced to create a fulfilling narrative within itself to settle on causation, details, legacies, and the like. After the riot, black Tulsans and white Tulsans were forced to compose their own stories, which unsurprisingly proved to be everything but cohesive, and the narrative of white Tulsa very much excluded their black counterparts much like the national memory that emerged out of the Civil

War. The memory of the Civil War, by 1913, “was both settled and unsettled; it rested in a core master narrative that led inexorably to reunion of the sections while whites and blacks divided

62 David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 6. 63 Ibid, 9. 64 Ibid, 10.

Olsen 34 and struggled mightily even to know one another across separate societies and an anguished history.”65 The Tulsa Race Riot, similarly, was both settled and unsettled; settled by the white and black populations separately, and completely unsettled between these two populations, who have never been able to form a memory that works for both groups.

Dominick LaCapra, a professor of history at Cornell University, discusses historical trauma and the memory of trauma in History in Transit: Experience, Identity, Critical Theory. In his chapter “Trauma Studies: Its Critics and Vicissitudes,” the author takes note of the difference between history and memory of traumatic events. “The event may be ‘history’ in one common, overly restricted sense of the word, that is to say, over and squarely in the past,” LaCapra notes,

“but the experience is not ‘history’ in this sense, evidently with respect to traumatic memory and more generally in the case of experience related to events carrying an intensive affective and evaluative charge,” such as the black experience in the Tulsa Race Riot. If everyone thought as the white community does, the Tulsa Race Riot would be “squarely in the past,” as LaCapra describes. But this event can only be purely “historical” when the memory of the event and the experience of everything that has followed is no longer remembered in the Greenwood community. LaCapra notes the importance of narrative in recovering from posttraumatic stress, arguing “narrative at best helps one not to change the past through a dubious rewriting of history but to work through posttraumatic symptoms in the present in a manner that opens possible futures.”66 A full ability to create narrative, however, has not been granted the African-

American community, and they therefore have not had the time to work through their posttraumatic symptoms. Instead, layer upon layer has been added to the memory of the Tulsa

Race Riot, and the black community until very recently has not had the opportunity to narrativize

65 Blight 397. 66 Dominick LaCapra, “Trauma Studies: Its Critics and Vicissitudes” In History in Transit: Experience, Identity, Critical Theory, edited by Dominick LaCapra, 106-143. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 124, 122.

Olsen 35 their experiences and begin the reconciliation process. In order to begin this process in earnest, the black and white community need to begin to unpack the Tulsa Race Riot together.

Olsen 36

In Black Wall Street, Hannibal B. Johnson notes, “there is an increasing realization that

Tulsa must view itself as a single community composed of distinct, interrelated, and valuable facets. Learning about, understanding, and celebrating those facets is ultimately in the best interest of the community as a whole.”67 Johnson is right: the memory of the riot cannot be tackled by the African-American community alone. The white community has to join together with the black community in order to begin the reconciliation process much as, after the Civil

67 Johnson, Black Wall Street, 146-147.

Olsen 37

War, northerns and southerners, and blacks and whites had to join together to reshape and reform the nation into one with which all groups were satisfied.68 The Greenwood District today is being once again made into a focal point of Tulsa. It is the site of a brand-new baseball stadium,

Oklahoma State University-Tulsa, new restaurants, and new apartment buildings. The

Greenwood community is being restored to its former glory, although this time, people of all different races will have the opportunity to enjoy it. The riot has come to mean so much more

68 Blight.

Olsen 38 than just what happened in 1921. Many details have been lost, most survivors are now deceased, and with its shiny new finish, it is easy to forget the tumultuous past of Greenwood. The riot has come to symbolize all of the stress and negative situations the African-American community has experienced throughout Tulsa’s history since it took place. The city of Tulsa cannot begin to unpack the other layers of memory, such as the construction of Interstate 244 and the desegregation of the public school system, until the community puts forth the effort and has the

Olsen 39 perseverance to first Appendix A unpack the riot together.

Tulsans tend to view their city as an unified body of

people, Centenary Methodist Church- The Primary Gathering of the Ku Klux Klan however it will not become such until all its in Tulsa’s Early History citizens overcome the memory of the riot and everything that followed, and begin to heal as one community.

Interstate 244 with the Greenwood Community directly behind it

Olsen 40

Booker T. Washington High School Tulsa Race Riot Memorial at the

Greenwood Cultural Center

Statue at the John Hope Franklin Mt. Zion Baptist Church and I-244. Reconciliation Park: Hostility, Humiliation, Hope

Olsen 41

Sculptural Column at John Hope

Franklin Reconciliation Park

View of John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park Olsen 42

Foundations left alone from the burning of Greenwood, 1921.

Telegraph used by Clyde C. Hearn at the Frisco Railroad Tracks in 1921, and presumably on the night of the Tulsa Race Riot.

Olsen 43

Olsen 44

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“$2,000 TO START FUND FOR RELIEF.” Tulsa World. http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleid=19210602_222_0_TheWor810279 [accessed November 14 2012].

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Healing the Wounds: Making Peace a Priority. Films Media Group, 2000.

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Anonymous. “Denies Negroes Started Tulsa Riot: Head of Blood Brotherhood Defends the Purpose of the Organization.” New York Times. http://0- search.proquest.com.tiger.coloradocollege.edu/docview/98425623?accountid=10222 [accessed November 14 2012].

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On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment.