Grandma told me about “The Night Tulsa Died”. She started by saying that most black people in the United States originally came from Africa.

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African people, including children were kidnapped from their homes.

Whole families were forced

onto big ships as slaves

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And brought to the USA

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“It’s a wonderful thing for a man to be able to say that he saved his own fathers life. Your grandfather was such a man.”cf

September 22 1862, declared freedom of all African Americans from slavery. But in 1921 racial hatred and separation still existed and African Americans were not treated equally.

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In those days everything was either black or white.

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This sinister chapter in American History has not been spoken of, in 90

years. 1921 - 2011

“Black Wall Street”

37 block, black community The Greenwood District Tulsa, Oklahoma USA 1921

“Black Wall Street”

A boomtown flush with oil money.

A prosperous community that had professionalmen and women of color, and well educated children.

• Hooker dry goods

Blacks owned every business in their community, that the white community had.

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Tulsa had two movie theatres, a bank, a hospital, an ambulance service, and a funeral home. Tailor shops, Barbers, and dry goods stores. More than 600 businesses and professional offices.

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A pool hall

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Tulsa had Dunbar elementary and secondary schools. Two Newspapers; the Tulsa Star and Oklahoma Sun. Restaurants, cleaners, and more than 30 grocery stores. But racial segregation was pervasive.

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The wild west was globally conscious. Solders were back from WWI.

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A dollar passed from one community member to another 47 times before it left the Greenwood District, “The Black Wall Street”,

so coined by Booker T. Washington.

. On the morning of May 31 1921, a shoeshine boy named, Dick Rowland, who was permitted to use the washroom on the third floor of the Drexel Bank Building, entered the elevator.

Roland accidently tripped on the uneven elevator threshold and fell into Sara Page, a white girl, elevator operator. Caught off guard, and stunned, she cried out. The onlookers called the Tulsa police, and Roland was arrested, and accused of an alleged rape attempt.

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The Klu Klux Klansmen wanted a lynching, without a hearing. So they marched to the court house.

25 leaders of the black community, armed themselves and went to the

court house with the intention of protecting the young shoe shine boy from the white lynch mob that was

growing.

But were turned away by the sheriff.

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And shocking exhibitionism.

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but also…

Happy Audiences.

Photography & Journalism

was often an integral part of the proceedings.

The black community did not want to see another lynching

for white entertainment.

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A white man confronted and tried to disarm a black solider. “What do you think your going to do with that gun, boy?” “Protect my self if necessary!” He said. “Like Hell you will Nigger!” Shots were fired. The first , second and third victims lay dead.

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.r negro was slain.

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Hoods

children

Telephone and telegraph lines were cut and the railroad was blocked. no communication to the outside world was possible.

“I couldn’t believe that ‘my country tis of the’ was shooting at

me.”

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• Dr. Olivia Hooker

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White Tulsans' with bags over their heads, went into black homes and killed whole families.

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• Each home was systematically looted torched

All black men and boys were forced from their homes with hands raised.

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taken to the convention center or the fair grounds on the other side of the tracks.

6 planes were loaded with incendiary devices and dropped on the 37 square blocks of the Greenwood District,

“SETTING THE NIGHT ON FIRE”

One of the planes was owned by The Oklahoma Police Department.

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Marshall Law was enacted The National Guard was called. They brought… machine guns.

A night when some say 3,000 Americans were massacred, by other Americans.

Some children, were literally ‘scared to death.’ A night when some say 3,000 Black Americans were massacred, by White

Americans

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Black children were seeing the massacre from a different perspective.

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everything was burned to the ground

10,000 black Americans

were left homeless. There were untold numbers of dead, wounded, and missing.

And after it was all over, black men were forced to clean up the ashes.

A tent city was set up on the fair grounds.A thousand lived in that condition for more than a year

Nothing would ever be the same.

“ I’m 107 , but I remember 90 years ago, I remember that night.The Arkansas River was clogged with bodies, a large pit was dug in the cemetery, and a hay bailer was used to tie the bodies together. One man heard the sheriff say “go out there andshoot you a ‘nigger’, and the law will be on your side”and that’s just what they did.” Otis Clark

What happened to the shoeshine boy?

He was never charged – and let go.

Your Grandfather saved his own fathers life, by

using the law.J.B. was accused of

starting the riot, and your Grandfather was able to stop his extradition which

would mean death.

In 1997 J.B. was posthumously

exonerated from any wrong doing.

There was no Justice for black people

During this lawless time. 10,000.

Were left homeless, and all of their

Real property was stolen and burned.

.john hope Franklyn

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The legal dream team was formed in 2005.

. The Tulsa Commission

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“You can’t fix what you don’t know” (baldwin) Now that we know what happened in Tulsa, we must “right the wrong.” This is a stain on U S history. We need to acknowledge our history to begin to heal. We now know what happened. Now we can make this right. It is no longer hidden from history. It’s 2011. It’s been 90 years. Reparations for the survivors and their decedents.