October 28, 2021 • 11 mins
There are many stories from the Tulsa Massacre that have been lost throughout history. The Massacre itself is barely mentioned in public schools today. Fortunately for you, we went down to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to uncover some of these stories.
Linda Barnett sits in and shares the story of her uncle Frank and his contributions to the Greenwood community post-Tulsa Massacre, the suppression of the Tulsa Massacre in schools, The apprenticeship programs Uncle Frank conducted for black surgeons when white hospitals rejected them, and unequal access to healthcare.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
As you know, our crew went out to Tulsa, Oklahoma
for the one anniversary of the Greenwood massacre in nine
While they were there, they were able to catch up
with multiple people who had stories to tell that aren't
usually told. So part of our job here at Money
Moves is to let you in on the moves made
in our communities, in our past, in our present, so
(00:20):
that you can also make your money move today. Right now,
we have an exclusive interview with Linda Barnett, whose uncle
was an ally to the residents of the Greenwood community
after the massacre and was able to play a crucial
(00:42):
part in the ability of the Greenwood community can meet
the essential needs of its citizens post massacre. Let's listen
in originally the Flak side of my family, that's my
mag name is from Kansas, Um. My dad went to
medical school at KU and so did my uncle Fry
and and I have my great grandparents were rural physicians
(01:04):
in Kansas. My uncle Frank was a doctor in Coffeeville, Kansas,
and then an opening with Sinclair Oil Company came here
in Tulsa, came up in to him and I think
that was probably in the maybe early forties or maybe
in the even late thirties, and so they moved to Tulsa. Woodward,
(01:26):
Oklahoma's where I grew up and where my family moved
in after the big tornado, and Woodward because they really
needed doctors to they they had one of the worst
tornadoes in history out there. So we went out there
and and uh, you know, rebuilding and all of that
in Woodward. And then Uncle Frank and at Jesse, we're
here in Tulsa, and we would come over and visit them,
(01:47):
and they would visit us a lot. So that was
my original Tulsa connection. I live here now after I
retired from working for the state. My father, who grew
up in Wichita and graduated from the University of Kansas,
he got out of World War two, not purposefully, but
he got out of World War two because the Navy
wanted him to finish medical school because they needed doctors.
(02:09):
And when he finished medical school, the war had just ended,
but he went overseas and when he came back, my
Uncle Frank, who was living here and tell us a
he interned at St. John's Hospital. And I remember my
dad telling me once that those centrifuge machines that labs
doctors labs had that separated blood, you know, so that
they could examine it. Uh. That machine him a globin
(02:33):
machine they called. It was invented by a black doctor
in Florida. And my dad told me, and I've done
some research on it, that same doctor that invented that
machine and Florida died from a car accident because they
wouldn't treat him in a white hospital. And I mean,
you know, they were My dad and my uncle Frank
(02:55):
were very strong about how that just wasn't right at all, right,
And I'm proud of my dad, I'm and I'm proud
of the lessons that he taught me. We I didn't
know anything about the massacre until I started listening to
my dad and my uncle talk about it during family gatherings.
You know, they had a din they would go and
(03:16):
talk about medical things and all of that. So I
knew about the massacre when I was a kid. But
when I went to school at o U and pledged
the sorority and got to know some Tulsa girls, I
asked him about it and they thought I'd made it up.
You know. That was incredulous to me, but thinking why
would you make something like that up? You know. But
(03:36):
I went okay, because it was so suppressed. They had
no idea, there was no it was never taught in
history classes or anything. It was. It was completely suppressed.
But I knew about it, coming from northwest Oklahoma and
rural Oklahoma, just because I had heard my dad and
my uncle talk about it and talk about what a
horrible thing it was. Uh, Smithsonian Magazine and the National
(04:00):
Geographic Magazine had excellent, well researched articles on on the
Race massacre. And the cover of Smithsonian Magazine had the
statement was the truth about Tulsa and the truth was
suppressed for so many years. And I put that on
my Facebook page and said that it was well worth reading.
(04:20):
It was very well researched and well worth reading. And
there were so many things in that article that I
didn't know. And Uh, I had a friend say, Linda,
do you think that really happened? And I said, and
I replied, yes, this is Smithsonian Magazine, not the National
Enquirer or anything, you know, And this is Smithsonian Magazine.
(04:41):
They based it on historical facts, you know. So I
think that that kind of of reporting has really helped,
you know, And I'm I'm saving articles from both of those.
For people that I know that might think it didn't happen.
Uncle Frank, as I said, was chief surgeon for Sinclair
(05:01):
War Company. Uh, he had every Wednesday off. There was
a man who was injured in an all field accident
in Gladewater, Texas. Actually that accident and I have newspaper
articles about that accident took eight lives. It was one
of those blowouts. And this man that was injured was
sent to Moten Hospital here in Tulsa because he was black,
(05:23):
and my uncle Frank went over there to check it out,
to check out what was happening. The guy needed surgery,
and Uncle Frank performed the surgery because none of the
black doctors there could do surgery because you learned surgery
by observing it and they weren't allowed to observe it
in white hospitals. They were capable, but they didn't have
the experience. So from that day on, over ten years,
(05:47):
he spent every Wednesday day off going to Moten Hospital
performing surgeries, teaching black doctors how to do the surgery.
And he performed over two thousand free surgeries during that
time period doing that. But the purpose was not just
to donate the surgery. The purpose was to teach the
black doctors how to do surgery. And Dr Bate one
(06:10):
of the black doctors there who was initially there, and
he just died in nineteen nine, I mean in twenty nineteen,
he wrote a book about the history of black medicine
in Oklahoma and he dedicated it to Uncle Frank. This
is an article from the Tulsa Tribune in March of
nineteen fifty three. They were celebrating Brotherhood Week and they
did this article on my uncle Frank and the work
(06:31):
he had done at Moten Hospital. It quotes the two
thousand operations and all that. It appeared in other news
articles like the Christian Advocate. And then this is the
book that Dr Bate wrote about the history of black
medicine in Oklahoma, and uh he dedicated it to my
uncle Frank, who was also his friend. And one of
the newspaper articles it said that, uh, he and my
(06:53):
aunt Jesse used to say that he left, he took
his own surgical tools over there. Those were what he
was familiar with, and he had his doctor bag with
his surgical tools in one hand and he had a
fan under the other because there wasn't any air conditioning
or anything then. So and you know, every every single Wednesday.
He never missed Wednesday for the training in the surgery.
(07:15):
And he was actually chief surgeon at St. John's of
course White Hospital here, uh, and he was chief of
staff there at in nine. I never heard he ever
complain or act like he was in any danger or
anything like that, but in fact it was. It wasn't
until uh St John's talked about him defying Jim Crow
(07:38):
laws and Oklahoma sadly, uh, when Oklahoma became a state
in nineteen oh seven, that's the first legislation they passed
were Jim Crow lass and there were consequences. There would
have been consequences had had anybody decided to to file them.
(07:59):
I feel like they've so strongly about it because of medicine,
because of of that working on you know, doing surgery,
and and you know, I don't care what color or
nationality you are. When you opened somebody help to do surgery,
it's pretty similar. And I think that that's when they
(08:20):
that they that it hit them. Maybe Uncle Frank and
he was just a fun guy that uh that was
low key and created great impact. There wasn't a violent
bone in his body, but he still made a difference,
and that we all can make a difference. I feel
that we have a long way to go. I grew
(08:41):
up in you know, I went to college in the sixties.
I sat in on on Civil rights UM demonstrations in
the South oval at ou Um. I called my parents
and asked them if I could go march with Dr
King and of course they said no. And I thought
they were horrible. And I realized that when I had kids,
that they were just worried about my safety. But I thought,
(09:03):
and a lot of my peers think this too, that
we did a lot for the civil rights movement and
things are better now, They're not good enough. And it
wasn't probably until the George Floyd uh case that that
I actually realized, Man, we have a long way to go,
a long way Togo. I want people to look at
(09:24):
Greenwood as the symbol of what jealousy and hate and
and can do and and uh and how it can
how it can rise again and be something. And I
think we um. I think this is the perfect place
for that to happen. It should be a center for Olive,
Oklahoma as a place of healing and change. I feel
(09:48):
very proud of my uncle Frank for what he did,
and I hoped to be able to continue that legacy
through my grandchildren. He was an unobtrusive kind of person,
but he made a difference, and I think we all
can do them. Even as a debate against unequal access
to quality healthcare today comes into play as it regards
to black and brown people and especially women, we have
(10:10):
to remember that it's had a longstanding historical basis. Even
with able bodied men and women who wanted to become doctors.
The limitations on educational training truly tied the hands of
people who just wanted to help out and support their community.
But it was people like Linda's uncle that helped to
allow the community to become self sustaining. The black doctors
(10:31):
of Tulsa may not have been able to attend traditional
med schools and trained to be surgeons and physicians, but
it was apprenticeship programs with experienced surgeons that helped them
to create strong and steady hands that I'm sure saved
more than one life in Greenwood. Money Movers, thank you
for joining us for today's untold Sorry, I'm sure there
are thousands more that we haven't even begun to scratch
(10:52):
the surface of, but keep it locked to the Money
Moves podcast powered by Greenwood to learn more about those
secrets to success that had yet to be told. We've
got more to come, so take a look. Stay tuned
tomorrow and every day this week for very special you
won't want to miss. Former Mayor Cassine reads It's not
(11:14):
easy being a front runner in such a tough race.
Your life has no ruth on it. You literally can
achieve anything and go anywhere where your talents can take you.
Money Moves is an I heart Radio podcast powered by
Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcast
on iHeart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
(11:35):
or wherever you get your podcasts from.
As you know, our crew went out to Tulsa, Oklahoma
for the one anniversary of the Greenwood massacre in nine
While they were there, they were able to catch up
with multiple people who had stories to tell that aren't
usually told. So part of our job here at Money
Moves is to let you in on the moves made
in our communities, in our past, in our present, so
(00:20):
that you can also make your money move today. Right now,
we have an exclusive interview with Linda Barnett, whose uncle
was an ally to the residents of the Greenwood community
after the massacre and was able to play a crucial
(00:42):
part in the ability of the Greenwood community can meet
the essential needs of its citizens post massacre. Let's listen
in originally the Flak side of my family, that's my
mag name is from Kansas, Um. My dad went to
medical school at KU and so did my uncle Fry
and and I have my great grandparents were rural physicians
(01:04):
in Kansas. My uncle Frank was a doctor in Coffeeville, Kansas,
and then an opening with Sinclair Oil Company came here
in Tulsa, came up in to him and I think
that was probably in the maybe early forties or maybe
in the even late thirties, and so they moved to Tulsa. Woodward,
(01:26):
Oklahoma's where I grew up and where my family moved
in after the big tornado, and Woodward because they really
needed doctors to they they had one of the worst
tornadoes in history out there. So we went out there
and and uh, you know, rebuilding and all of that
in Woodward. And then Uncle Frank and at Jesse, we're
here in Tulsa, and we would come over and visit them,
(01:47):
and they would visit us a lot. So that was
my original Tulsa connection. I live here now after I
retired from working for the state. My father, who grew
up in Wichita and graduated from the University of Kansas,
he got out of World War two, not purposefully, but
he got out of World War two because the Navy
wanted him to finish medical school because they needed doctors.
(02:09):
And when he finished medical school, the war had just ended,
but he went overseas and when he came back, my
Uncle Frank, who was living here and tell us a
he interned at St. John's Hospital. And I remember my
dad telling me once that those centrifuge machines that labs
doctors labs had that separated blood, you know, so that
they could examine it. Uh. That machine him a globin
(02:33):
machine they called. It was invented by a black doctor
in Florida. And my dad told me, and I've done
some research on it, that same doctor that invented that
machine and Florida died from a car accident because they
wouldn't treat him in a white hospital. And I mean,
you know, they were My dad and my uncle Frank
(02:55):
were very strong about how that just wasn't right at all, right,
And I'm proud of my dad, I'm and I'm proud
of the lessons that he taught me. We I didn't
know anything about the massacre until I started listening to
my dad and my uncle talk about it during family gatherings.
You know, they had a din they would go and
(03:16):
talk about medical things and all of that. So I
knew about the massacre when I was a kid. But
when I went to school at o U and pledged
the sorority and got to know some Tulsa girls, I
asked him about it and they thought I'd made it up.
You know. That was incredulous to me, but thinking why
would you make something like that up? You know. But
(03:36):
I went okay, because it was so suppressed. They had
no idea, there was no it was never taught in
history classes or anything. It was. It was completely suppressed.
But I knew about it, coming from northwest Oklahoma and
rural Oklahoma, just because I had heard my dad and
my uncle talk about it and talk about what a
horrible thing it was. Uh, Smithsonian Magazine and the National
(04:00):
Geographic Magazine had excellent, well researched articles on on the
Race massacre. And the cover of Smithsonian Magazine had the
statement was the truth about Tulsa and the truth was
suppressed for so many years. And I put that on
my Facebook page and said that it was well worth reading.
(04:20):
It was very well researched and well worth reading. And
there were so many things in that article that I
didn't know. And Uh, I had a friend say, Linda,
do you think that really happened? And I said, and
I replied, yes, this is Smithsonian Magazine, not the National
Enquirer or anything, you know, And this is Smithsonian Magazine.
(04:41):
They based it on historical facts, you know. So I
think that that kind of of reporting has really helped,
you know, And I'm I'm saving articles from both of those.
For people that I know that might think it didn't happen.
Uncle Frank, as I said, was chief surgeon for Sinclair
(05:01):
War Company. Uh, he had every Wednesday off. There was
a man who was injured in an all field accident
in Gladewater, Texas. Actually that accident and I have newspaper
articles about that accident took eight lives. It was one
of those blowouts. And this man that was injured was
sent to Moten Hospital here in Tulsa because he was black,
(05:23):
and my uncle Frank went over there to check it out,
to check out what was happening. The guy needed surgery,
and Uncle Frank performed the surgery because none of the
black doctors there could do surgery because you learned surgery
by observing it and they weren't allowed to observe it
in white hospitals. They were capable, but they didn't have
the experience. So from that day on, over ten years,
(05:47):
he spent every Wednesday day off going to Moten Hospital
performing surgeries, teaching black doctors how to do the surgery.
And he performed over two thousand free surgeries during that
time period doing that. But the purpose was not just
to donate the surgery. The purpose was to teach the
black doctors how to do surgery. And Dr Bate one
(06:10):
of the black doctors there who was initially there, and
he just died in nineteen nine, I mean in twenty nineteen,
he wrote a book about the history of black medicine
in Oklahoma and he dedicated it to Uncle Frank. This
is an article from the Tulsa Tribune in March of
nineteen fifty three. They were celebrating Brotherhood Week and they
did this article on my uncle Frank and the work
(06:31):
he had done at Moten Hospital. It quotes the two
thousand operations and all that. It appeared in other news
articles like the Christian Advocate. And then this is the
book that Dr Bate wrote about the history of black
medicine in Oklahoma, and uh he dedicated it to my
uncle Frank, who was also his friend. And one of
the newspaper articles it said that, uh, he and my
(06:53):
aunt Jesse used to say that he left, he took
his own surgical tools over there. Those were what he
was familiar with, and he had his doctor bag with
his surgical tools in one hand and he had a
fan under the other because there wasn't any air conditioning
or anything then. So and you know, every every single Wednesday.
He never missed Wednesday for the training in the surgery.
(07:15):
And he was actually chief surgeon at St. John's of
course White Hospital here, uh, and he was chief of
staff there at in nine. I never heard he ever
complain or act like he was in any danger or
anything like that, but in fact it was. It wasn't
until uh St John's talked about him defying Jim Crow
(07:38):
laws and Oklahoma sadly, uh, when Oklahoma became a state
in nineteen oh seven, that's the first legislation they passed
were Jim Crow lass and there were consequences. There would
have been consequences had had anybody decided to to file them.
(07:59):
I feel like they've so strongly about it because of medicine,
because of of that working on you know, doing surgery,
and and you know, I don't care what color or
nationality you are. When you opened somebody help to do surgery,
it's pretty similar. And I think that that's when they
(08:20):
that they that it hit them. Maybe Uncle Frank and
he was just a fun guy that uh that was
low key and created great impact. There wasn't a violent
bone in his body, but he still made a difference,
and that we all can make a difference. I feel
that we have a long way to go. I grew
(08:41):
up in you know, I went to college in the sixties.
I sat in on on Civil rights UM demonstrations in
the South oval at ou Um. I called my parents
and asked them if I could go march with Dr
King and of course they said no. And I thought
they were horrible. And I realized that when I had kids,
that they were just worried about my safety. But I thought,
(09:03):
and a lot of my peers think this too, that
we did a lot for the civil rights movement and
things are better now, They're not good enough. And it
wasn't probably until the George Floyd uh case that that
I actually realized, Man, we have a long way to go,
a long way Togo. I want people to look at
(09:24):
Greenwood as the symbol of what jealousy and hate and
and can do and and uh and how it can
how it can rise again and be something. And I
think we um. I think this is the perfect place
for that to happen. It should be a center for Olive,
Oklahoma as a place of healing and change. I feel
(09:48):
very proud of my uncle Frank for what he did,
and I hoped to be able to continue that legacy
through my grandchildren. He was an unobtrusive kind of person,
but he made a difference, and I think we all
can do them. Even as a debate against unequal access
to quality healthcare today comes into play as it regards
to black and brown people and especially women, we have
(10:10):
to remember that it's had a longstanding historical basis. Even
with able bodied men and women who wanted to become doctors.
The limitations on educational training truly tied the hands of
people who just wanted to help out and support their community.
But it was people like Linda's uncle that helped to
allow the community to become self sustaining. The black doctors
(10:31):
of Tulsa may not have been able to attend traditional
med schools and trained to be surgeons and physicians, but
it was apprenticeship programs with experienced surgeons that helped them
to create strong and steady hands that I'm sure saved
more than one life in Greenwood. Money Movers, thank you
for joining us for today's untold Sorry, I'm sure there
are thousands more that we haven't even begun to scratch
(10:52):
the surface of, but keep it locked to the Money
Moves podcast powered by Greenwood to learn more about those
secrets to success that had yet to be told. We've
got more to come, so take a look. Stay tuned
tomorrow and every day this week for very special you
won't want to miss. Former Mayor Cassine reads It's not
(11:14):
easy being a front runner in such a tough race.
Your life has no ruth on it. You literally can
achieve anything and go anywhere where your talents can take you.
Money Moves is an I heart Radio podcast powered by
Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcast
on iHeart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
(11:35):
or wherever you get your podcasts from.
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