The Date Was June 1, 1921, "BLACK WALLSTREET",
the name fittingly given to one of the most affluent All-
BLACK Communities in America, was bombed from the air
and Burned to the ground by mobs of envious Whites.
In a period spanning fewer than 12 hours, a once thriving
Black Business District in northern Tulsa lay smoldering --
a model Community destroyed and a major Black-American economic
movement resoundingly defused.
The Night's Carnage left some 3,000 Black Americans
Dead and over 600 Successful Businesses Lost. Among
these were 21 Churches, 21 Restaurants, 30 Grocery
Stores and 2 Movie Theaters, plus A Hospital, A Bank, a
Post Office, Libraries, Schools, Law Offices, a half dozen
Private Airplanes and even A Bus System.
As could have been expected, the impetus behind it all
was the infamous Ku Klux Klan, working in consort with
Ranking City Officials and many other Sympathizers.
The best description of BLACK WALLSTREET, or Little
Africa as it was also known, would be to compare it to a
mini - Beverly Hills.
It was the golden door of the BLACK Community during
the early 1900s, and it proved that Black Americans
could create a successful infrastructure.
That's What BLACK WALLSTREET, Was All About.
The Dollar circulated 36 to 100 Times, sometimes taking
a year for currency to leave the Community.
Now a Dollar leaves the BLACK Community in 15-minutes.
As Far As Resources, there were Ph.D.'s residing in
Little Africa, BLACK Attorneys and Doctors. One Doctor
was Dr. Berry who owned the Bus System. His average
income was $500 a Day, a hefty pocket change in 1910.
It was a time when the entire State of Oklahoma had only
2 Airports, yet 6 BLACKS, Owned their own Planes. It
was a very Fascinating Community. The mainstay of the
Community was to educate every child. Nepotism was the
one word they believed in. And that's what we need to get
back to.
The main thoroughfare was Greenwood Avenue,
and it was intersected by Archer and Pine Streets.
From the First Letters in each of those Three Names you
get G.A.P. and that's where the renowned R and B Music
Group The GAP Band got its name. They're From Tulsa.
BLACK WALLSTREETwas a prime example of the typical
BLACK Community in America that did businesses, but it
was in an unusual location.
You See, At The Time, Oklahoma was set aside to be a
BLACK and Indian State. There were over 28 BLACK Townships there.
One third of the People who traveled in the terrifying "Trail of Tears"
along side the Indians between 1830 and 1842 were BLACK People.
The Citizens of this proposed Indian and BLACK State
Chose A BLACK Governor, a Treasurer from Kansas
named McDade. But the Ku Klux Klan said that if he
assumed Office that they would Kill Him within 48 hours.
A lot of BLACKS owned Farmland, and many of them had
gone into the Oil Business. The Community was so tight
and wealthy because they traded Dollars hand-to-hand,
and because they were dependent upon one another as a
result of the Jim Crow Laws.
It was not unusual that if a Resident's Home accidentally
Burned down, it could be rebuilt within a few weeks by
Neighbors. This was the type of scenario that was going
on Day-to-Day on BLACK WALLSTREET.
When BLACKs intermarried into the Indian Culture, some
of them received their promised '40 Acres and A Mule' and
with that came whatever oil was later found on the properties.
On BLACK WALLSTREET, a lot of global business was conducted,
The community flourished from the early 1900s until June 1, 1921.
That's when the largest massacre of non-military Americans in the
history of this country took place, and it was lead by The KU KLUX KLAN.
Imagine walking out of your front door and seeing 1,500
homes being burned. It must have been amazing.
Survivors we interviewed think that the whole thing was
planned because during the time that all of this was going
on; White Families with their children stood around the
borders of their community and watched The Massacre,the looting
and everything -- much in the same manner they would watch a lynching.
The riots weren't caused by anything Black or White.
It was caused by jealousy. A lot of White Folks had come back
from World War I and were poor.
When they looked over into The BLACK Communities
and realized that BLACK Men who fought in The war
had come home heroes, that helped trigger the destruction.
It cost the BLACK Community everything, and not a single
dime of restitution--no insurance claims--has been
awarded the victims to this day. Nonetheless, they rebuilt.
We estimate 1,5 00 to 3,000 People were Killed and we
know that a lot of them were Buried in Mass Graves all
around the City. Some were thrown into the river.
As a matter of fact, at 21st Street and Yale Avenue, where
there now stands a Sears parking Lot, that corner used
to be a Coal Mine. They threw a lot of the Bodies into the
shafts.
Unmarked Graves
TULSA, Oklahoma (CNN)
Beulah Smith and Kenny Booker, two elderly Oklahomans,
lived through one of the worst race riots in U.S. History,
a rarely mentioned 1921 Tulsa Blood Bath that officially
took thousands of Black-American lives.
The Tulsa Race Riot Commission, formed two years
ago to determine exactly what happened, will consider
next week the Controversial Issue of what, if any,
reparations should be paid to the known survivors
of the Riot, a Group of less than 100 that includes
Beulah Smith, now 92, and Kenny Booker, 86.
'The Gun Went Off, The Riot Was On'
On the night of May 31,1921, mobs called for the lynching
of Dick Rowland, a Black Man who shined shoes, after hearing
reports that on the previous day he had assaulted Sarah Page,
A white woman, in the elevator she operated in a downtown building.
A Local Newspaper, had printed a fabricated Story that Rowland
tried to rape Page. In an editorial,the same newspaper said a
hanging was planned for that night.
As Groups of both Blacks and Whites converged on the Tulsa Courthouse,
a White Man in the crowd confronted an armed Black Man, A War Veteran,
who had joined with other Blacks to protect Rowland.
A fabricated newspaper story triggered The violent
riots that left hundreds, if not thousands, dead.
Comm. Member Eddie Faye Gates told CNN what happened
next. "This White Man," she said, Asked The Black Man,
"What Are You Doing With This Gun?"
"I'm going to use it if I have to," the Black Man said, according to Gates,
"and(the White Man) said, 'No, you're not. Give it to me,' and he
tried to take it. The gun went off, the White Man was dead, The riot was on."
Truckloads of Whites Set Fires and Shot Blacks on sight.
When the smoke lifted the Next Day, more than 1,400
Homes and Businesses in Tulsa 's Greenwood District, a
prosperous area known as the "Black Wall Street," lay
in ruins.
Today, only a single block of the Original Buildings
remains standing in the area. Experts now estimate
that at least 3,000, Died.
'We're in a heck of a lot of trouble'
Beulah Smith was 14 yrs. old the Night of the Riot.
A neighbor named Frenchie came pounding on her family's
door in a Tulsa neighborhood known as "Little Africa" that
also went up in flames.
"Get your families out of here because they're, Killing
Niggers uptown," she remembers Frenchie saying. "
We hid in the weeds in the hog pen," Smith told CNN.
People in a Mob that came to Kenny Booker's house
asked, "Nigger, Do You Have A Gun?" he told CNN.
Booker, then a teen-ager, hid with his family in their attic
until the home was torched. "When we got downstairs,
things were burning. My sister asked me, 'Kenny, is the
world on fire?' I said, 'I don't know, but we're in a heck
of a lot of trouble, baby."
Another riot survivor, Ruth Avery, who was 7 at the time,
gives an account matched by others who told of bombs dropped
from small airplanes passing overhead.
The Explosive Devices may have been Dynamite or Molotov Cocktails --
gasoline-filled bottles set afire and thrown as grenades.
"They'd throw it down and when it'd hit, it would burst into
flames," Avery said.
Only A single block remains of the 1,400 Homes and
Businesses that made up the area known as the 'Black
Wall Street'.
Unmarked Graves
Many of the survivors "mentioned bodies were stacked like cord wood,
says Richard Warner of the Tulsa Historical Society.
In its search for the facts,The Commission has literally
been trying to dig up the truth. Two Headstones at Tulsa's
Oaklawn Cemetery indicate that riot victims are buried there.
In an effort to determine how many, archeological experts
in May used ground-piercing radar and other equipment
to test the soil in a search for Unmarked Graves.
The test picked up indications that hundreds, of people
have been buried in an area just outside the cemetery.
Many thanks to our forefathers 88 years ago.
Something To Motivate Us All. Please Share.
