Death in a Promised Land

by Scott Ellsworth

  51. Tulsa World, August 22, p. 1, and August 24,1920, p. 1; Tulsa Tribune, August 22, p. 1, August 24, pp. 1, 4, and August 28, 1920, p. 1.

  52. Tulsa World, August 22, p. 1, and August 24,1920, p. 1. Tulsa Tribune, August 22, p. 1, August 24, pp. 1, 4, and August 25, 1920, p. 1. See also Tulsa Star, August 28, 1920, p. 1

  53. Tulsa World, August 27,1920, p. 1, Tulsa Tribune, August 28, 1920, p. 3. See also Tulsa World, August 22, p. 1, August 23, p. 10, August 24, p. 1, August 25, pp. 1,12, and August 28, 1920, p. 1; Tulsa Tribune, August 22, p. 1, August 23, p. 1, August 24, pp. 1, 4, August 25, p. 1, August 27,1920, p. 1; Tulsa Star, August 28, 1920, p. 1. The Tulsa Times had folded, and the Tribune was the successor to the Democrat.

  54. For one week after the Nida shooting, Roy Belton was identified in the newspapers as “T. M. Owens,” which may have been an alias which he gave to the police. His age was also given as seventeen and nineteen. Tulsa World, August 22, p. 1, August 24, p. 1, August 29, p. 9, September 1, p. 12, and September 2, 1920, p. 9; Tulsa Tribune, August 23, p. 1, August 24, p. 1, and August 28, 1920, p. 1.

  55. Tulsa Tribune, August 23, p. 1, August 24, p. 1, and August 27, 1920, p. 1; Tulsa World, August 24, p. 1, and September 2, 1920, p. 1.

  56. Tulsa Tribune, August 25, p. 1, and August 27, 1920, p. 1; Tulsa World, August 25, pp. 1, 12, August 28, pp. 1, 9, August 29, p. 9, August 30, p. 1, and September 2, 1920, p. 1.

  57. The jail was located on the top floor of the building, and, in a situation that was to be repeated the next year, the Sheriff ordered that the elevator be sent to the top floor each night. Tulsa World, August 25, p. 12, and August 31, 1920, p. 4; Tulsa Tribune, August 28, 1920, p. 1.

  58. Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, p. 1; Tulsa World, August 28, 1920, p. 1.

  59. Raymond Sharp said that he did not know how to plea, and the not-guilty plea was entered for him. Tulsa Tribune, August 28, 1920, p. 1; Tulsa World, August 28, pp. 1, 9, and August 29, 1920, p. 9.

  60. Tulsa World, August 29, p. 1, and August 30,1920, p. 3; Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, pp. 1–2.

  61. After Roy Belton was abducted, Sheriff Woolley took Harmon and Sharp by automobile to the jail in Muskogee. Tulsa World, August 29, p. 1, and August 30,1920, pp. 1–3; Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, pp. 1–2.

  62. The crowd that viewed the lynching was estimated at two thousand people and higher. Tulsa World, August 30, 1920, pp. 1–3; Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, p. 1; Tulsa Star, September 4, 1920, p. 1; White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” 909.

  63. Tulsa World, August 29, p. 1, and August 30,1920, p. 1; Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, p. 1.

  64. Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, p. 2.

  65. Tulsa World, August 29, 1920, p. 1.

  66. Ibid.; Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, p. 3. A collection of clippings about this incident are located in the Administrative Files, Box C-364 [Lynching—Oklahoma], NAACP Papers, Library of Congress.

  67. Gustafson’s and Woolley’s statements on the lynching were almost identical. Tulsa World, August 30, 1920, pp. 1–3.

  68. Tulsa World, August 30, p. 4, August 31, pp. 1, 4, September 1, pp. 1, 4, 12, September 2, pp. 1, 4, September 3, pp. 1, 18, September 5, p. A1, September 6, p. 1, and September 10, 1920, pp. 1, 13; Tulsa Tribune, August 31, p. 12, September 6, p. 1, September 9, p. 1, September 10, p. 1, September 21, p. 2, September 24, p. 1, and September 29, 1920, p. 1.

  69. Tulsa Star, September 4, 1920, pp. 1, 4.

  Chapter 3: Race Riot

  1. Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7,1978, Tulsa, and Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa City Directory, 1921 (Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1921); “Alumni Roster” for Booker T. Washington High School, 1916–1929, courtesy of W. D. Williams.

  2. Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, and Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa Tribune, May 31, 1921 [incorrectly cited as June 1, 1921], in Loren L. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot” (M.A. thesis, University of Tulsa, 1946), 22.

  3. Walter White wrote in the New York Evening Post: “The immediate cause of the riot was a white girl who claimed that Dick Rowland, a colored youth of nineteen, attempted to assault her.... The following day the Tulsa Tribune told of the charge and the arrest of Rowland. Chief of Police John A. Gustafson, Sheriff McCullough, Mayor T. D. Evans, and a number of reputable citizens, among them a prominent oil operator, all declared that the girl had not been molested; that no attempt at criminal assault had been made. Victor F. Barnett, managing editor of the Tribune stated that his paper had since learned that the original story that the girl’s face was scratched and her clothes torn was untrue,” quoted in “Mob Fury and Race Hatred as a National Danger,” Literary Digest, LXIX (June 18, 1921), 8; Tulsa World, June 2, 1921, p. 2; Mary E. Jones Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster (n.p., n.p., n.d.), 7, 29.

  4. Tulsa World, June 2, 1921, pp. 1–5; Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, and Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa; Walter White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” Nation, CXII (June 29, 1921), 909. Tulsa police reports for this period no longer exist.

  5. Tulsa Tribune, May 31, 1921, in Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 21–22. In his narrative, Loren Gill properly identified this article as being in the May 31, 1921 issue of the Tribune, but incorrectly footnotes it as being in the June 1 issue. The inference is clear that Gill, who has since passed away, did not have a complete copy of the May 31 issue of the Tribune to work with, but merely this article.

  6. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa. The Thompson statement is in Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 29–30.

  7. Statement of “A.H.” in Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 47–49.

  8. Charles F. Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years: A History of the Sooner State and Its People, 1889–1939 (Hopkinsville, Kentucky: Historical Record Association, 1941), 206. Ross T. Warner wrote: “A nineteen-year-old Negro youth allegedly attacked a white girl elevator operator in the Drexel Building. This incident was played up sensationally in the evening papers, and the talk of lynching spread like prairie fire,” Oklahoma Boy: An Autobiography (n.p., n.p., n.d.), 136.

  9. Tulsa Tribune, May 31, 1921, in Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 22. Miscellaneous statement of Bill McCullough [TS], Civil Case 1062, Box 25, Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives (OSA), Oklahoma City; R. Halliburton, “The Tulsa Race War of 1921,” Journal of Black Studies, XX (March, 1972), 337; White, “Eruption of Tulsa,” 910.

  10. Tulsa Tribune, June 3, p. 1; and June 6, 1921, p. 3.

  11. Tulsa Tribune, June 6,1921, p. 3; “Message (of] Mayor to Commissioners,” Record of Commission Proceedings, City of Tulsa, Vol. XV, June 14, 1921, p. 25, in the City Commission Secretary’s Office, City Hall, Tulsa; Clipping File for lynchings in Oklahoma, Administrative Files, Box C-364, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress; Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, and Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa.

  A few years before the Tulsa riot, blacks armed with high-powered rifles had hidden within range of the jail in Muskogee where an accused black was held, and where a crowd of whites had gathered. Trouble was averted when the whites were dispersed by the authorities; the blacks went home. And less than four months after the Tulsa race riot, Oklahoma City barely escaped having a similar racial clash after a group of whites had taken a young black from the county jail and lynched him outside of the capital city. Joseph B. Thoburn and Muriel H. Wright, Oklahoma, A History of the Sooner State and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1929), II, 291.

  12. Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, p. 1; Tulsa World, June 10, 1921, p. 8; Statement of O. W. Gurley, State of Oklahoma v. Will Robinson, et al., Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma City.

  13. Interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa; W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; and Robert Fairchild, June 8,1978, Tulsa; statements of Henry Jacobs and John Henry Potts, Civil Case 1062, Oklahoma State At
torney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives; White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” 910; San Francisco Chronicle, June 4, 1921, p. 3; Tulsa World, June 2, p. 7, June 3, p. 1, June 6, p. 3, June 9, p. 4, June 10, p. 8, July 4, pp. 1, 2, July 15, p. 1, July 20, pp. 1, 7, and July 21, 1921, p. 3.

  14. Major Jas. A. Bell [“Report on Activities of the National Guard on the Night of May 31st and June 1st, 1921”] to Lt. Col. L. J. F. Rooney, July 2, 1921, in the Governor James B. A. Robertson Papers [hereafter cited as the “Robertson Papers”], Oklahoma State Archives. See also Redmond S. Cole to Jas. G. Findlay, June 6, 1921, in the Redmond S. Cole Papers, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman.

  15. Bell to Rooney, July 2, 1921, in Robertson Papers, Oklahoma State Archives.

  16. Interview with I. S. Pittman, July 28,1978, Tulsa; Tulsa Tribune, July 3,1921, p. 1.

  17. Interview with Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, p. 1; Tulsa World, July 7, 1921, p. 3; White, “Eruption of Tulsa,” 910; Frances W. Prentice, “Oklahoma Race Riot,” Scribner’s, XC (August, 1931), 151–57.

  18. Major Byron Kirkpatrick [“Activities on the Night of May 31, 1921 at Tulsa, Okla.”] to Lt. Col. L. J. F. Rooney, July 1, 1921, and, Bell to Rooney, July 2, 1921, in Robertson Papers, Oklahoma State Archives; Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years, 207–209.

  19. Telegram, John A. Gustafson, Wm. McCullough, and V. W. Biddison to Governor J. B. A. Robertson, June 1,1921, and, Kirkpatrick to Rooney, July 1,1921, in Robertson Papers; Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years, 209–12.

  20. Citing an interview that he conducted with George Henry Blaine on June 5,1946, Loren Gill stated that about five hundred “armed men and boys” were given special commissions by the police within one-half hour after the outbreak of violence, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 28; Tulsa World, June 10,1921, p. 8; interview with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa.

  21. Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years, 210–11; Statement of Mr. [S.J.?] McGee, Civil Case 1062, Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives; Tulsa World, June 2, 1921, p. 2.

  22. Statement of Major C. W. Daly, Civil Case 1062, Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives; Interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa, W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, Henry Whitlow, June 6, 1978, Tulsa, V. H. Hodge, June 12, 1978, Tulsa, N. C. Williams, July 20, 1978, Tulsa, and B. E. Caruthers, July 21, 1978, Tulsa County.

  23. Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, p. 1; Tulsa World, June 2,1921, p. 2; Ed Wheeler, “Profile of a Race Riot,” Oklahoma Impact Magazine, IV (June-July, 1971), 21; interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa.

  24. Tulsa Tribune, June 5, 1921, 7; Tulsa World, July 19, 1921, p. 7.

  25. Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa, N. C. Williams, July 20, 1978, Tulsa, and I. S. Pittman, July 28, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa Tribune, July 15, 1921, p. 9.

  26. Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, p. 6; Tulsa World, June 2, 1921, pp. 1, 7; interview with Robert Fairchild, June 8,1978, Tulsa. Some whites later claimed that the Mt. Zion Church had been used as an arsenal by blacks, as a way to rationalize its destruction. W. D. Williams, however, has provided us with a bit of compelling evidence to relegate such an assertion into oblivion. On a Sunday morning shortly before the riot, Williams and some of his friends had crawled throughout the structure—probably in an attempt to avoid the church service—and saw no arms or ammunition. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7,1978, Tulsa. See also Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 32–33, 35n.

  27. White, “Eruption of Tulsa,” 910; New York Times, June 2, 1921, pp. 1–2; Tulsa World, July 14, 1921, p. 1; Wheeler, “Profile of a Race Riot,” 22; interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa, W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, and Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa.

  28. Tulsa World, June 2, 1921, p. 1; Captain Frank Van Voorhis [“Detailed Report of Negro Uprising for Service Company, 3rd Infantry, Oklahoma National Guard”] to Lieutenant Colonel L. J. F. Rooney, July 30, 1921, in Robertson Papers, Oklahoma State Archives; interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa, W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa, V. H. Hodge, June 12, 1978, Tulsa, and I. S. Pittman, July 28, 1978, Tulsa.

  29. Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, p. 7.

  30. Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years, 211–12; Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, p. 1; interview with Henry Whitlow, June 6,1978, Tulsa; Warner, Oklahoma Boy, 138; Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 11.

  31. Prentice, “Oklahoma Race Riot,” 155; Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years, 213.

  32. Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years, 213–14; Tulsa World, June 2, p. 2, June 3, p. 2, and July 21, 1921, p. 3.

  33. Tulsa World, June 2, p. 2, July 14, 1921, p. 2; Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman, June 5, 1921, p. 4; Halliburton, “The Tulsa Race War of 1921,” 343.

  34. Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 9–12; Theodore G. Vincent, Black Power and the Garvey Movement (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1972), 75,146–47.

  35. New York Times, June 2, 1921, p. 2; Clarence B. Douglas, The History of Tulsa, Oklahoma: A City with a Personality (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1921), II, 621.

  36. Tulsa Tribune, June 2, 1971 [sic], p. A7; New York Times, June 2, pp. 1–2, and June 8,1921, p. 7.

  37. Bell to Rooney, July 2,1921, and Major Paul R. Brown to Adjutant General Barrett, July 1, 1921, in Robertson Papers.

  38. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 48–49, 67.

  39. Ibid., 67.

  40. Record of Commission Proceedings, City of Tulsa, September 27, p. 299, July 26, p. 133, July 29, p. 152, September 23, p. 283, and October 14, 1921, p. 356.

  41. Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years, 216.

  42. White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” 910.

  43. Warner, Oklahoma Boy, 137–38; interview with Henry Whitlow, June 6, 1978, Tulsa; Calvin Chase, “A Report From the Tulsa Riot Scene,” Washington Bee, June 11, 1921, in Vincent, Voices of a Black Nation, 51–52 (See also White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” 910); Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 46. Gill cites interviews which he conducted in the 1940s with Police Commissioner J. M. Adkison, Police Captain George H. Blaine, and Dr. George H. Miller.

  44. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 45–46.

  45. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Oklahoma City Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921, in Teall, Black History in Oklahoma, 208.

  46. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 47, 49, 50, 78–79. A different estimate, that of 860 homes and stores having been burned, is to be found in Douglas, The History of Tulsa, II, 621.

  47. Record of Commission Proceedings, City of Tulsa, June 14, 1921, to June 6, 1922. The secretary of the City Commission did not record all of the claims presented to the commission in the Record; in the minutes for the July 29,1921, meeting, a long list of claimants and claims is concluded with the notation, “and others see list on file” (p. 151), but I could not locate this file.

  48. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 55.

  49. Ibid., 49–51; Record of Commission Proceedings, City of Tulsa, July 26, p. 142, and July 29, 1921, p. 151.

  50. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 71.

  Chapter 4: Law, Order, and the Politics of Relief

  1. Mary E. Jones Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster (n.p., n.p., n.d.), 224–25; interview with Seymour Williams, June 2, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa World, June 1, pp. 1–3, and June 2,1921, p. 1; Tulsa Tribune, June 1, pp. 1–2, June 2, p. 1, and June 7, 1921, p. 4.

  2. Citizens Security Bank and Trust Company, Ad Libs to Bixby History, 1924–1974 (n.p., n.p., n.d.), 61; interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa, and Robert Fairchild, June 8,1978, Tulsa; Clarence B. Douglas, The History of Tulsa, Oklahoma: A City with a Personality (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1921), I, 623; Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 13–14, 37; Loren L. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” (M.A. thesis, University of Tulsa, 1946), 60, 67; Major Paul R.
Brown to the Adjutant General of Oklahoma, July 1, 1921, Robertson Papers, Oklahoma State Archives; Tulsa World, June 3, 1921, p. 4.

  3. Tulsa World, June 3, p. 8, and June 6, 1921, p. 9; Tulsa Tribune, June 3, p. 1, and June 12, 1921, p. 13; Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 30–35, 43–47; Frances W. Prentice, “Oklahoma Race Riot,” Scribner’s, XC (August, 1931], 156; Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 57, 64, 66. Gill also reported that some whites secured the release of blacks who were not employed by them (p. 57).

  4. Minutes of Directors Meetings, Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, October 7,1921, in the offices of the Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, Tulsa; Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 14; Tulsa Tribune, June 8, 1921, p. 1; Tulsa World, June 2, pp. 1–2, June 3, pp. 1–2, June 4, p. 1, June 5, pp. 1–3, June 7, p. 9, and June 14,1921, p. 16.

  5. Tulsa World, June 9,1921, p. 7; Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 18; Halliburton, The Tulsa Race War of 1921, 31; Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 60; Douglas, The History of Tulsa, I, 627; Minutes of Directors Meetings, Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, October 7, 1921.

  6. Interview with Robert Fairchild, June 8,1978, Tulsa; Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 71; New York Times, June 2, 1921, p. 1; Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, p. 1; Tulsa World, June 2, p. 7, June 3, pp. 1, 13, June 9, p. 13, and June 15, 1921, p. 16.

  7. Charles F. Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years: A History of the Sooner State and Its People, 1889–1939 (Hopkinsville, Ky.: Historical Record Association, 1941], 213; Douglas, The History of Tulsa, I, 621–22; Captain Frank Van Voorhis to Lt. Col. L. J. F. Rooney, July 30, 1921, in Robertson Papers, Oklahoma State Archives; Tulsa World, June 1, pp. 1–3, June 2, p. 7, June 3, pp. 1, 13, June 4, pp. 1, 2, June 9, p. 13, and June 15, 1921, p. 16.

  8. Tulsa Tribune, June 2, p. 10, and June 10, 1921, p. 1; Barrett, Oklahoma after Fifty Years, 215—16. Barrett listed only Field Orders No. 1–4 and 7. See also Tulsa World, June 4, 1921, pp. 1, 2.