The Tulsa Massacre, Revisited

Ol' Hobbs's Sunday Sermon

I have often wondered what went through Dickie Rowland's mind in May of 1921 once he realized that he was being accused of sexually assaulting a young white woman, Sarah Page, who was an elevator operator at the Drexel Office Building in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I wonder whether Rowland, highly regarded by white businessmen for his skills in the shoe shine trade, felt that his closeness to the wealthy white elite would grant him due process of law—a right that was his by the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but one rarely afforded to Blacks during the Jim Crow era? 

I wonder whether Rowland dropped names to his jailers, demanding that "this" powerful white man or "that" one be summoned to vouchsafe his work ethics, skills, or most crucially, his character? I wonder whether he was puzzled as afternoon turned to evening and the still of a late Spring night turned to, as Thomas Hardy wrote, a "madding crowd" of white men amassing at the local jail to take his life?

The Greenwood District pre-Massacre

I have often wondered whether Rowland, in his nervous solitude at the jail, demanded to consult with an attorney, as was his right per the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? His proximity to powerful whites each day probably made him well acquainted with the top white litigators in Tulsa but again, with Jim Crow being the social order, his thoughts probably turned to one of the finest Black litigators in all of Oklahoma, Buck Franklin. At the time Franklin, a graduate of Atlanta Baptist College (later renamed Morehouse College), was father to young John Hope Franklin, so named in honor of Dr. John Hope, Morehouse's first Black president. The younger Franklin would grow up to become arguably the most famous Black historian of the 20th Century but digressing, whether Rowland made a request for his father's counsel is lost to history now, drowned out by the madding crowd's lust for vengeance despite having no proof beyond Sarah Page's word that a crime had even been committed.  

I have often wondered whether anyone even tried to get word that night to Attorney Franklin about Dickie Rowland's arrest, or alert him that a group of Black men, many World War I veterans, had armed themselves to go and protect Rowland from mob violence? Those courageous Black men knew all too well that Oklahoma was no different than neighboring Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri as far as the lynchings of Black men, women, and children. Yes, children, as a decade earlier, Laura and L.D. Nelson (age 14), mother and son, were lynched to death in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma for being “uppity”—replete with photos placed onto picture post-cards to remind that Black lives did not matter in the least bit to white lynch mobs! 

Laura and L.D. Nelson, lynched, 1911

I have often closed my eyes and envisioned this regiment of proud Black men—shotguns, rifles, and pistols in hand—marching in formation towards the jail with the same steely resolve that they marched against Kaiser Wilhelm's German soldiers "Over There" in France. A resolve they had to "make the world safe for Democracy," as President Woodrow Wilson extolled in 1917, all the while knowing that basic democracy was being denied to them and other Black folks "over here" in the United States. 

When the 75 or so Black soldiers arrived at the jail, I wonder what the immediate chatter was like between them and the madding white crowd that had grown to nearly 1,500? I wonder were they nervous by the sight of far superior numbers, knowing full well that they were likely to die while making a last stand for justice? I wonder whether Sheriff W.M. Mcullough tried to stand between the contrasting parties, one drunken with alcohol, rage, and white privilege to pick and choose which laws to obey, the other resolved to "declare" the natural law that "all men are created equal" while protecting Rowland's legal rights to due process, counsel, and a jury trial by his peers? Or did chaos immediately ensue, perhaps ignited by the incredulous lot of white men angered by what they deemed insolence from a group of "uppity" Black men who had "forgotten their places." We may never know, but what we do know is that the 75 or so Black men, exercising their Second Amendment rights to bare arms, refused to lay down their arms and within minutes of arriving at the jail, chaos, disorder, and a full-scale fire fight was in effect. 

The far larger madding crowd soon turned into a murderous mob and curiously enough, after they dispatched the regiment of former Black soldiers at the jail, instead of breaking into the cells to lynch Dickie Rowland, they turned all of their angry attention towards the prominent Black Greenwood Section, reverently known as "Black Wall Street," in Tulsa. 

I have often wondered what Rowland thought as he remained guarded at the jail but likely could hear, maybe could see, and quite surely could smell the unmistakable stench of burning human flesh? The Black soldiers having been vanquished, the madding white crowd's lust was far from sated; in the ensuing hours, the mob moved through each street, alley, building, and home in the Greenwood section, beating or killing every Black man, woman, and child in sight!

Over the next 16 hours, Black grocery stores were looted and burned! Black barbers and beauticians were killed and their shops were torched! The offices where Black doctors, lawyers, and accountants pursued their crafts were literally bombed by airplanes from the sky and by the hands of lynch mobsters on the ground! Over a dozen Black churches were destroyed, including Vernon AME, one that fortunately had a basement that was not torched and served as a shelter for some Black survivors! Vernon AME would later be rebuilt and become a leading center of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s!

Vernon AME—then and now

Thousands of Black owned houses were razed to the ground and Dr. A.C Jackson, a surgeon who was among the most respected men in the city regardless of race, was shot and killed by the mobsters on his front porch—as he cried out for peace from his white neighbors!

No peace would be in the offing, but thanks to the wisdom of Attorney Buck Franklin, we at least have a written record of what these events looked like 100 years ago this week. A record that, in time, could lead to justice for the remaining survivors and descendants of the dead. Attorney Franklin realized on the first full day of unrest that a massacre was ready to unfold, thus his decision to flee the city with his family. Before fleeing, Franklin was able to watch some of the carnage and inscribed: "I could see planes circling in mid-air. They grew in number and hummed, darted and dipped low. I could hear something like hail falling upon the top of my office building. Down East Archer, I saw the old Mid-Way hotel on fire, burning from its top, and then another and another and another building began to burn from their top...Lurid flames roared and belched and licked their forked tongues into the air. Smoke ascended the sky in thick, black volumes and amid it all, the planes—now a dozen or more in number—still hummed and darted here and there with the agility of natural birds of the air."

Atty. Buck Franklin/Dr. John Hope Franklin

Franklin further noted that before rushing home to usher his family to safety, that he "locked the door, and descended to the foot of the steps...the side-walks were literally covered with burning turpentine balls. I knew all too well where they came from, and I knew all too well why every burning building first caught from the top...I paused and waited for an opportune time to escape. ‘Where oh where is our splendid fire department with its half dozen stations?’ I asked myself. ‘Is the city in conspiracy with the mob?’”

Yes sir, Attorney Franklin, the city was in conspiracy!!! A conspiracy with no shame in that over 6,000 Black survivors were paraded through Tulsa at gunpoint and held in a mass outdoor holding pen like livestock. As there was little to no insurance funds to rebuild, some whites soon swooped in and bought the destroyed Black properties for pennies on the dollar. Returning after the massacre, Attorney Franklin used all of his legal skills to stop eminent domain and other legal efforts to turn "Black Wall Street" lilly white. 

As Attorney Franklin worked on these cases, I have often wondered how betrayed he must have felt to see that the very law that he swore an oath to uphold was being used to usurp the property rights of Blacks? Or the conclusion per the Grand Jury that: "There was no mob spirit among the whites, no talk of lynching and no arms. The assembly was quiet until the arrival of the armed Negros, which precipitated and was the direct cause of the entire affair.” Indeed, 100 years later, we still have no clue as to how many hundreds if not thousands of Blacks were killed and thrown into unmarked graves in and around Tulsa.

Last, I also wonder...quite often, actually...whether Dickie Rowland ever felt any "survivor's remorse" about the Tulsa Massacre? You see, what often goes unmentioned is that Rowland was never lynched that night and in September of 1921, all charges against him were dismissed after...wait for it...Sarah Page allegedly penned a missive declining to pursue charges! A Tulsa World article quotes a relative saying that the family believes that Rowland and Page were lovers and later reunited in Kansas City, Missouri, but the truth is that no one knows for certain where the pair moved to or what became of their lives.

Sigh...

As I revisit in wonder about the events in Tulsa 100 years ago this week, the historian in me is reminded once more that black lives have always been imperiled due to a systemic racism that allowed whites to own, rape, beat, and kill Blacks with impunity. Such knowledge is why I often cringe when I read or hear comments following more recent police killings of Blacks that "this is not who we (Americans) are!" Sure it is, this is precisely what America has always been, a place where the enslaved or the victim of Jim Crow can hear or learn about the Declaration of Independence and recite the Bill of Rights attached to the U.S. Constitution, and yet still know that those rights are fleeting or non-existent where Black folks are concerned!

Nevertheless, one also must be able to see that Dickie Rowland circa May 1921 is no different than a Trayvon Martin, a Sandra Bland, a Botham Jean, or any number of falsely accused Blacks of the past decade who were arrested or killed over spurious allegations. One must be able to see that the legally armed Black men who were slain trying to defend Roland were no different than a legally armed Philando Castille being slain in 2016; that Dr. A.C. Jackson being slaughtered on his front porch is no different than Breonna Taylor being slain as she slept in her home! Thus the power of history, to realize in real time that what was past surely is prologue or better yet, to paraphrase William Faulkner, "in America, the past isn't dead--it isn't even the past."

Lest we forget...

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