Death in a Promised Land

by Scott Ellsworth

  In Tulsa, Belton was taken to Nida’s hospital room, where Nida identified Belton as the man who had shot him. Belton, however, denied that he had any knowledge of the crime, and insisted that he had spent Saturday evening with Marie Harmon, a white woman in her twenties. Harmon was arrested by the police, and on Monday she confessed that she had been in Nida’s cab with Belton, and a man named George Moore. She claimed that Belton had shot Nida, but that she had known nothing about the plans for the crime.55

  On Tuesday, Belton confessed. He claimed, however, that the shooting of Nida was unintentional, that the revolver had been damaged when he struck the taxi driver with it, and that it accidentally discharged while he was trying to repair it. Belton, too, stated that Harmon had known nothing about the plans for the crime, but that Raymond Sharp, a seventeen-year-old grocery store employee, did. Sharp was later picked up by the police as an accessory, and he confessed his knowledge of the affair. George Moore, the other man in the cab, was nowhere to be found.56

  It was reported by the World that Belton, “realizing the seriousness of his predicament and bitterly resentful of the manner in which the public had taken the event of Saturday night, asked assurance that violence would not follow his statement.” Belton, however, was far from being the only one aware of this possibility. By Thrusday night, August 26, Sheriff Woolley had heard rumors that the courthouse—where Belton, Harmon, and Sharp were interned in the county jail—might be mobbed in the event that Homer Nida died. Consequently, Woolley posted two extra armed guards to protect the three prisoners, who were held on the top floor of the building.57

  The next day, the Tribune, which at that time rather rarely printed front-page photographs, carried one each of Belton and Harmon. The newspaper reported that, in Harmon’s case, “the chances are that she will turn state’s evidence in the hope that she will escape heavy punishment by so doing.” As for Belton, the Tribune stated that he planned to “escape on a plea of insanity.”58

  Tulsa courthouse. Most prisoners were held in the jail on its top floor.

  Early on Saturday morning, Homer Nida died. The same day, Roy Belton and Raymond Sharp were arraigned in court, and each pleaded not guilty to the charges. That afternoon’s Tribune quoted Nida’s widow as stating: “I hope that justice will be done for they have taken an innocent life and ruined my happiness. They deserve to be mobbed but the other way is better.”59

  Other Tulsans thought differently. Shortly before eleven o’clock on that same Saturday evening, several men in cars began to assemble in front of the courthouse. “In a few minutes,” the World later reported, “the handful of men outside the building had increased to hundreds and shortly a thousand people blocked the streets in curiosity and anticipation.” About fifty men in the crowd were armed with pistols and shotguns, and some had their faces covered with handkerchiefs. Soon, a delegation of these men entered the courthouse, and asked Sheriff Woolley for Belton. “Let the law take its course, boys,” the sheriff was reported to have replied. “The electric chair will get him before long, but you know this is no way to interfere with the law.” The men, however, were adamant, and they disarmed Woolley and ordered him to secure the release of Belton, who had been placed in a cell normally reserved for black prisoners on the top floor. Harmon and Sharp were left in their cells, and when Belton was led outside the courthouse, it was reported that onlookers cheered as his captors shouted, “We got him boys. We’ve got him.”60

  Belton’s hands were bound, and he was placed inside Homer Nida’s taxicab, which earlier had been stolen from the authorities. A large caravan of cars was formed, and after some zig-zagging through town, the line of cars, “nearly a mile long,” drove to the spot near Red Fork where Nida had been shot. The city police arrived at the courthouse after Belton had been taken away, and according to Police Chief John Gustafson, “We did the best thing, jumped into cars and followed the ever increasing mob.”61

  Once at the desired spot, Belton’s captors took him from the car and began to ask him why he had killed Nida. He denied that he had done so, and denied ever making a confession. The inquisition of Belton might have continued, but members of the crowd were anxious, and cries of “Where’s the rope” and “Don’t waste time” were to be heard. A rumor spread that a posse was in close pursuit, so the entire group moved to a spot along the Jenks road, about three miles southwest of Tulsa. By the time the crowd reassembled, it was reported that at least a thousand cars were present, and that women and children were among the onlookers. Most of the Tulsa police force had arrived, too, but they were instructed by Chief Gustafson not to intervene. Gustafson later justified his order by stating that “any demonstration from an officer would have started gun play and dozens of innocent people would have been killed and injured.” Instead, the local police kept the onlookers from getting too close to Belton and his captors, and it has been reported that they also helped to direct traffic.62

  Belton was led to the west side of the road, underneath a large signboard owned by the Federal Tire Company. A rope was secured from a nearby farmhouse, and a noose was thrown around his neck. He asked for a cigarette, which he smoked as he silently stared at his captors. Roy Belton was then lynched.63 His body hung for eleven minutes, during which time one of his executioners reportedly yelled: “Don’t shoot! Don’t anybody shoot! Let him hang and suffer like Nida suffered!”64 The World later reported that “sudden pandemonium broke loose” when the body of Roy Belton dropped to the ground.

  Hundreds rushed over the prostrate form to get bits of the clothing. The rope was cut into bits for souvenirs. His trousers and shoes were torn into bits and the mob fairly fought over gruesome souvenirs.

  An ambulance was finally pushed through the jam of automobiles. The body was carried to the car, late arrivals still grabbing for bits of clothing on the now almost nude form.65

  Belton’s body was then taken back to an undertaker in the city, and it was reported that a crowd of several hundred people “gathered despite the late hour and insisted upon viewing the remains.”66

  Police Chief John Gustafson said later that the lynching, while “regrettable,” was “probably inevitable because of the great feeling which had been aroused by the cruel manner in which Homer Nida was killed.” Furthermore, he stated: “I do not condone mob law—in fact, I am absolutely opposed to it—but it is my honest opinion that the lynching of Belton will prove of real benefit to Tulsa and vicinity. It was an object lesson to the hijackers and auto thieves, and I believe it will be taken as such.” Echoing the police chief, Sheriff Wool-ley stated that he thought the affair would prove beneficial to Tulsa because “it shows to the criminal that the men of Tulsa mean business.” Tulsa Mayor T. D. Evans was out of town during the affair.67

  The World called the event “a righteous protest” and stated: “There was not a vestige of the mob spirit in the act of Saturday night. It was citizenship, outraged by government inefficiency and a too tender regard to the professional criminal.” The Tribune editorialized that “lynch law is never justified,” but criticized the courts and “our high officials” rather than the lynchers of Roy Belton. The World also criticized government officials, including Sheriff Woolley. It reserved special venom, however, for Governor James B. Robertson, Acting Governor Waldrop, and Lieutenant Governor Trapp, all of whom publicly condemned the lynching. The

  World accused them of having created a “pardoning orgy,” and concluded that “it is not government we have here in Oklahoma but a hideous travesty.” Furthermore, the newspaper ominously stated, “We predict that unless conditions are speedily improved,” the lynching of Belton “will not be the last by any means.”68

  Of Tulsa’s three newspapers, only the Star, the city’s black weekly, announced itself as “unalterably opposed” to the event. The editor of the Star, A. J. Smitherman, declared, “There is no crime, however atrocious, that justifies mob violence.” The black newspaper reported that, “sad to relate, Oklahoma shook hands with the American l
ynching state of Georgia last Saturday night at Tulsa and Sunday night at Oklahoma City by [the] lynching of a white boy and a colored boy by mob violence.” The Star added, prophetically: “The lynching of Roy Belton explodes the theory that a prisoner is safe on top of the Court House from mob violence.”69

  Chapter 3

  Race Riot

  Roy Belton’s death was of special significance to black Tulsans, whose brethren throughout the state were more and more the victims of white mobs. Any faith in the city’s white law enforcement officials had been shattered by the events of 1920. If a white could be lynched in the “Magic City,” what was to stop a mob from lynching a black? This question loomed large the next spring.

  I

  Opportunities for young black men in Tulsa in 1921 were severely circumscribed, regardless of education; therefore it is perhaps not very unusual that Dick Rowland had dropped out of Booker T. Washington High School to go to work downtown. One common occupation for Tulsa’s teenage black males in the early 1920s was to work at the white-owned and white-patronized shoe shining parlors on Main Street. Robert Fairchild, who during his after-school hours worked with Rowland, recalled that these young people were paid five dollars a week. “But,” he added, “the tips were just out of sight. At that time, you see, Tulsa was in the oil boom, and everybody would go to bed poor as Lazarus, and wake up rich as country butter. They didn’t know what to do with their money, and they’d come down there and get a shine, and they’d give you a dollar as [soon as they’d give you] fifteen cents.”1

  There were no toilet facilities for the bootblacks, so the owner of the shine parlor where Rowland worked arranged for his employees to use the restroom on the top floor of the nearby Drexel building. To get to the restroom, the bootblacks would have to ride up the elevator, which was operated by white women. So, as he often would do, on Monday morning, May 30, 1921, nineteen-year-old Dick Rowland went into the Drexel building to use the restroom. The elevator operator was a young white girl named Sarah Page, who was about seventeen years old. Minutes later, Dick Rowland ran out of the elevator. What actually transpired is probably forever clouded in obscurity, but many white Tulsans soon came to believe that Rowland had attacked the girl, scratched her hands, and tore her clothes.2

  But there are many other accounts as to what happened, perhaps the most common being that Rowland accidentally stepped on Page’s foot in the elevator, causing her to lurch back, and when he grabbed her arm to keep her from falling, she screamed.3 In any event there is no real evidence that Dick Rowland attempted to assault Sarah Page. The preliminary police report on the incident did not mention Page by name, and the police did not arrest Rowland until the next day. More importantly, those who knew Rowland at the time do not believe that he would have done such a thing, and as Walter White of the NAACP later wondered: why were so many people ready to believe that Rowland was so ignorant as to attempt a rape in a crowded office building within earshot of many people?4

  Main Street, looking south from Third, in the early 1920s. The Drexel building is the fifth building down on the left. Across the street, barely visible beneath the Boston Shoe Store, is a sign for a shine parlor.

  Courtesy of the McFarlin Library, University of ’Iblsa

  Dick Rowland was arrested by two Tulsa police officers, one black and one white, on Tuesday. While the police were quietly conducting their investigation, the Tulsa Tribune decided to portray the incident in a vastly different light. What the Tuesday, May 31, 1921, issue of this newspaper said may never be known in its entirety. When the early issues of the Tribune were later microfilmed, someone had ripped out a front-page article and removed part of the editorial page. The original bound volumes of the newspaper have also been destroyed. However, in his 1946 thesis on the riot, Loren Gill stated that the Tribune “carried the following inflammatory news item prominently displayed on the front page”:

  The Drexel building.

  Courtesy of the McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa

  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 [sic] 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 the 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 in sight but thought nothing of it at the time.

  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 both by the girl and the clerk, 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.5

  There can be but little doubt, however, that this issue of the Tribune, then edited by Richard Lloyd Jones, had more to say about the incident. Dr. P. S. Thompson, president of the Tulsa Medical, Dental, and Pharmaceutical Association, stated that the “immediate cause” of the riot “was a report in the Tulsa Tribune that threats were being made to lynch a Negro for attempted criminal assault upon a White girl, which was wholly without foundation or cause.” One informant, W. D. Williams, has a vivid memory that the Tribune carried an article headlined, “To Lynch Negro Tonight.”6 Another person wrote after the riot that:

  The Daily Tribune, a White newspaper that tries to gain its popularity by referring to the Negro settlement as “Little Africa,” came out on the evening of Tuesday, May 31, with an article claiming that a Negro had had some trouble with a White elevator girl at the Drexel Bldg. It also said that a mob of whites were forming in order to lynch the Negro.7

  Similarly, Adjutant General Charles Barrett, who led the National Guard into Tulsa to suppress the riot, stated that the riot had its origins in the Drexel building incident, and in “the fantastic write-up of the incident in a sensation-seeking newspaper.”8

  This issue of the Tribune hit the streets of Tulsa at about 3:15 P.M. Forty-five minutes later, a man called the police and notified them that there was lynch talk on the streets of the city, and Police and Fire Commissioner J. M. Adkison called Sheriff Willard McCullough and informed him of the same. The talk soon spread to action. Sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 P.M., a crowd of whites began to form outside of the courthouse, where Rowland was being held. It has been reported that there were some three hundred whites outside the courthouse by 7:30 P.M., and that this crowd grew to four hundred by nine o’clock.9

  Sheriff McCullough later stated that when three white men walked into the courthouse around 8:20 P.M., he promptly ordered them out, telling them that there was not going to be a lynching. McCullough then went outside and ordered the crowd to disperse. However, he apparently did not attempt to enforce his order. The crowd of whites remained. Although the sheriff later claimed that he expected no serious trouble coming out of the situation, he did take some precautionary measures. He sent the elevator to the top floor of the building, where the jail was, and rendered it inoperable. He sent his guards to the top floor, too, where he had them barricade themselves behind a door at the top of the narrow and easily defendable flight of stairs. He ordered them not to open the door for anyone.10

  Some black Tulsans were justly alarmed by these developments. The fate of Roy Belton after a similar crowd of whites had gathered outside of the courthouse less than a year before was a fresh memory. And there were enough recent incidents of blacks being spirited away from Oklahoma jails and lynched to give cause for alarm. With rightful urgency, black Tulsans gathered among themselves on Greenwood Avenue to discuss their options.11

  Apparently, there was some confu
sion as to whether Sheriff McCullough desired and sought black aid for the defense of the court-house. Barney Cleaver and another black policeman had been in touch with McCullough throughout the evening. Cleaver had called the sheriff and told him that there was a rumor circulating in the Greenwood business district that a white mob was forming. Cleaver asked if he could come down to the courthouse, but McCullough asked him to stay where he was and try to calm things down at that end. Later, the sheriff told Cleaver that he could come downtown. Other blacks stated that they had called McCullough to offer their assistance, and that he later requested it.12

  Sheriff Willard McCullough.

  Courtesy of the Tulsa World.

  At about 9:15 P.M., false reports reached the Greenwood area that the white mob was storming the courthouse. Henry Jacobs later stated that he saw J. B. Stratford, a hotel proprietor, getting together an armed group and telling some of his comrades: “Boys, we will send and get the Muskogee crowd and you go on up and lay there ’til they come.” Another man claimed that he saw J. K. Smitherman, black deputy sheriff, go into a “choc” joint and collect some men to “go downtown” with him. Barney Cleaver stated that he tried to stop a group of blacks from going, but that they only laughed and threatened him. Some fifteen minutes later, a group of twenty-five to thirty black Tulsans armed with rifles and shotguns appeared at the courthouse and offered their services to Sheriff McCullough for the defense of the jail. Some police at the scene convinced these people that Rowland was safe, and that the authorities could handle any situation which might arise. Apparently reassured, the blacks left. The white crowd, however, remained.13