The Tulsa Massacre, Greenwood, and the Trauma that still plagues Black America
"There are so many ways to be disgusted, it pretty much makes one's head turn. But the way to be truly vile is to despise other people's pain." — From Giovanni's Room (1956) — Baldwin
One hundred years ago, on May 30, a 19-year-old black man named Dick Rowland attempted to enter the Drexel Building elevator in Tulsa Oklahoma. Reports suggest that he stumbled upon Ricky entering the elevator and inadvertently touched an equally startled white girl named Sarah Page. Sarah screamed, Rowland ran, triggering someone on the first floor who accused Rowland of ripping off her dress and raping her. While Sarah Page denied that the ethereal incident occurred, her statements did not stop the mob from hunting Rowland down and jailing her. That scream and the subsequent community-wide lie led to the worst terrorist incident in American history. Whites terrorized Tulsa's historic self-contained Greenwood section from the evening of May 31 to the morning of June 1, in an all-black neighborhood affectionately called Negro Wall Street. Negro Wall Street got its name in 1905 after the founder of Tuskegee University, Booker Washington. Rumors spread to the Greenwood section of Tulsa that a white mob gathered outside the prison detained and killed Roland. Although Roland was jailed, he was not murdered.
According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, lynching was a form of punishment primarily reserved for highwaymen and cattle rustles before or after the state of Oklahoma. However, after the formation of the state of Oklahoma, lynchings took on a more sinister terrorist and racist tone. From 1906 to 1940, Oklahoma ranked 13th in the total number of lynchings. Before Oklahoma became a state, most of Oklahoma lynchings were reported among Oklahoma's non-African ancestry community. After statehood, most lynchings occurred among people of African descent. Rumors of lynching sent an emerging and empowered black community to action in defense of Rowland. Greenwood residents faced white crowds. Some of those residents were former World War I soldiers who had just returned from Europe. Oklahoma black men fought in World War I. While American soldiers did not want to fight other than black Americans, the French gladly accepted the black soldiers and their sacrifices. According to Krebs 'Black Americans had come out of the war, were aware of the injustices at home, were more confident of their abilities, and were more willing to fight for their civil rights. The Rev. Harold Cook, one of Tulsa's most outspoken white supremacists, even claimed that treating African American soldiers "like white soldiers on the same plane" was the leading cause of the race genocide' (Tulsa World, 31, May 2020 )
Contemporary literature describes the rapidly changing social and racial environment of America and Oklahoma in the early 1900s. From 1900 to 1920, the Oklahoma black population tripled. During the first 20 years of the 20th century in Oklahoma, the rise of Black Wealth, Black political participation, and the growing population of State Negroes and Freedmen. Those changes and the racist attitudes that black Americans should not be treated equally created the perfect toxic environment for the Tulsa massacre. Whites terrorized the historic self-sufficient Greenwood section of Tulsa from the evening of May 31 to the morning of June 1.
The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics officially recorded 36 dead. A 2001 State Commission examination of events confirmed 39 dead, 26 Black and 13 White, based on contemporary autopsy reports, death certificates, and other records. About 10,000 black people became homeless, and property damage occurred over $ 1.5 million in real estate and $ 750,000 in personal property (equivalent to $ 32.45 million in 2020). The 10,000 blacks reported as homeless after the massacre represented 75 percent of Tulsa's total black population in 1920.
The 1920s also saw the rise of dark-minded leaders such as Tuskegee University founder, Booker T. Washington, and Pan African movement leader Marcus Garvey. Both the leaders believed in collective value, economic self-reliance. Garvey believed that black liberation rests on black nationalists... political equality through self-determination. He believed that freedom would not be found without personal sacrifice. Oklahoma was an audience of both leaders and his philosophy among the Blacks.
More than 6,000 blacks were held in detention camps for more than a week after the massacre. As the residents attempted to rebuild, they were fined. Roland never had to rebuild his life. Sara testified that she was not raped. Roland left Tulsa for Kansas City and was never able to recover. The story of his life in 2021 is still relevant today.
My cousin BC Franklin and his team offered to provide legal aid to anyone who was fined for attempting to rebuild their home. Some residents of Greenwoods lived in tents for more than a year. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, the state's attorney blamed the terror victims for the massacre. 'The Tulsa Tribune, the state's Attorney General, several ministers and the Tulsa mayor put forward this argument. In a speech in Tulsa on June 17, the attorney general said:
'The reason for this riot was not Tulsa. This can happen anywhere, because the negro is not the man he was 30 years ago, when he was content to walk on his own street, accepting a white man as his benefactor. But years have passed, and Negroes have been educated, and race papers have spread the idea of race equality.'
The grand jury called for an investigation, followed the Attorney General's lead, and concluded in its report:
'The courthouse gathered a crowd about purely spectators and curious seekers ... There was no crowd feeling among the whites, there was no talk of lynchings nor weapons. The assembly was silent until the arrival of the armed Negro, who was the direct cause of the riot.'
The state's leading attorney used his power to grant immunity to whites who robbed homes or murdered African Americans. This remained the dominant narrative until attention began to draw on the genocide outside the African American community in Oklahoma.
White hostility fueled the grand jury process and white fragility based on the decision that Greenwood residents defending Roland and the community were guilty. They were free to think and had equal rights.
In Buck Colbert's Lost Manuscript, he wrote, "The flames roar and burp and lick their barbed tongues in the air. Smoke rose to the skies in thick, dark volumes, and amid all this, planes—now a dozen or more in number—still swung around with the agility of the natural birds of the air. Colbert also wrote, "The sidewalks were literally covered with burning turpentine balls. I knew very well where they came from, and I was well aware that the first in every burning building was from the top." Why fire? " Colbert was very familiar with the politics of white anger and apathy. While practicing law in Ardmore, Oklahoma, he represented a client in Louisiana and was not allowed to speak in court. This experience made my cousin Buck Franklin so much Impressed that he left his native southern Oklahoma and moved to the safety of the All Blacks Rentisville, Oklahoma.
Tulsa was not the only city in Oklahoma where black people lived in fear of white terror. My alma mater city, Norman, Oklahoma, maintained a sundown segregation culture well into the 1960s. My uncle Captain James Willis, a Vietnam Veteran, and countless cousins were arrested while driving after sunset. The genetic panic of the trauma still permeates the DNA of the back folks. We have been traumatized in the US for over 400 years.
Recalling a brutal massacre that happened a hundred years ago, I ask myself, what has changed? Are African American and Indigenous People Safe in Oklahoman? Has our country and Oklahoma harmonized with its racist history? Four hundred years of historical evidence suggests that we have not. There are still two Americans, one for Europeans and the other for all.
"There are so many ways to be disgusted, it pretty much makes one's head turn. But the way to be truly vile is to despise other people's pain." — From Giovanni's Room (1956) — Baldwin
- Dr. Maurice Franklin is a native of Pauls Valley and Ardmore, Oklahoma. He is Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration. Dr. Franklin loves to write about her family and growing up in Oklahoma. He attributes his activism and social justice commitment to the influences of James Baldwin, Marcus Garvey, and his cousin, Dr. John Hope Franklin.