Tulsa Race Massacre Part 2 The Burning of Greenwood

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Eric Gasca, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I can't give you many names,
and you're a bladery. Look I'm raising. I've got the

(00:24):
barah A long struggle for freedom, it really is a revolution.
Last time I started telling you the story of what
may be the worst race ride in American history, the
Tulsa Race massacre and the destruction of Black Wall Street.

(00:47):
I explained the start of Oklahoma and the initial hope
among African Americans that they might be able to turn
the territory and eventual state into a refuge of sort
for African Americans. We, however, then bore witness to how
they dream was betrayed and how Oklahoma actually began to
out Jim Crow the established Jim Crow States. Yet, in
spite of this, we saw how the Greenwood District in

(01:08):
Tulsa began to grow and thrive. A community where African
Americans were able to own and operate their own businesses,
a black community where all of their money essentially went
to support other Black individuals, and oasis of sorts from
racism and Jim Crow, and notably, a place where racism
was not tolerated Whites might have controlled the rest of Tulsa,

(01:29):
the state, and the country, but in Greenwood they knew
they had to watch what they said, lest they end
up like the white deliverymen who sent something racist and
offensive to one of the leading citizens of Greenwood, J. B. Strafford,
who took the delivery man down to the ground and
started punching him in a face until he left him
lying bloody in the street. Stratford was notably also fame

(01:50):
for stating that he would see to that Tulsa streets
were bathed in blood if a black man was ever
lynched there, a sentiment very much shared by many other
residents in the district. Stance would then be put to
the test when a Memorial Day, the thirtieth of May
nineteen twenty one, young black shoeshine boy Dick Roland was
accused of attempting to assault Sarah Page, the seventeen year

(02:11):
old white elevator operator in the Drexel Building. Rowland would
be arrested the following day, the thirty first to May,
but even though the police very much seemed to doubt
the accusations made against him, and indeed Sarah would reportedly
state that she had no interest in pressing charges. News
of the incident had already gotten out. Indeed, the white
residence of Tulsa would be stirred up by the coverage

(02:32):
of the incident in the inflammatory Tulsa Tribune. Rumors which
were reportedly partially propagated by the Tribune, then began to
swirl that nineteen year old Dick Rowland was going to
be lynched that very night. Galvanized by these rumors, multiple
groups of Greenwood residents would over the course of the
night leave their district and head over to the courthouse
in downtown Tulsa where Roland was being held, as he

(02:53):
were rightly worried for the young man's safety, given that
just nine months earlier, a white man named Rory Belton
had been taken from the very location and lynched. However,
Sheriff William McCullough, who hadn't been in charge during the
Belton incident, actually seemed to have things well in hand.
Each time then one of these groups came down, determined
to protect one of their own from a lynching, they
were turned back and more or less convinced for the

(03:15):
time being at least that Dick Roland was safe. Despite
the fact that over a thousand angry whites had gathered
in the street outside. Now, all this had been done
peacefully and without incident, but that would change when a
group had headed down shortly after ten pm attempted to
leave as a work infronted by members of the white mob,
with one of the white men and the mob demanding
that one of the black men out of Greenwood hand

(03:37):
over his army revolver. This led to a struggle for
the gun, which then led to the weapon going off unintentionally. Now,
while no one was apparently struck by the air and
bullet as a gun must point it up into the
air at the time, the sound of the gunshots seemed
to be one finally sent off the Tulsa Race riot,
as Sheriff McCullough would later describe that as being the
moment when quote, all hell broke loose. Before I continue

(04:00):
the story of the Tulsa Race massacer and the destruction
of Greenwood, first, like always, I want to give credit
to my sources, which include Scott Alwursts death and a
Promised Land, The Tulsa Race Massacre of nineteen twenty one,
Randy Kreebles Tulsa nineteen twenty one Reporting a Massaker, James S.
Hirsh's Ride and Remembrance the Tulsa Race Massacre and its Legacy,

(04:22):
Brandy Colbert's Blackbirds and the Sky of the story and
Legacy of the nineteen twenty one Tulsa Race Massaker, Tim
Mannigan's Massacre Destruction and the Tulsa Race Ride of nineteen
twenty one. R. J. Young's Rock Rahem for the Massacre,
a Black History on the conflict, Hope and Fond of
the nineteen twenty one Tulsa Race Massacer, the Charles River
Editors Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre, the

(04:44):
creation and destruction of America's wealthiest African American neighborhood. And
for this episode in particular, I also referenced Cameron McWherter's
Red Summer, The Summer of nineteen nineteen and the Awakening
of Black America and and V. Collins all held broke
loose American race rats from the Progressive era through World
War Two, and like always, these and any other sources

(05:06):
that I used will be posted on this podcast, Blue
Sky and CoFe pages plus for anyone who doesn't want
to be bothered skipping through commercials. There is always an
ad free feet available to subscribers at patreon dot com
slash distorted history. And with all that being said, let's
begin now. The people of Greenwood had plenty of reason
to believe that Dick Roland would be lynched by a
white mob after being accused of assaulting a white woman. Indeed,

(05:30):
according to Tusgigee Institute records, between eighteen ninety and nineteen
twenty two, thy seven hundred and seventy one people were lynched,
with most of these individuals being black and living in
the South. For example, in nineteen thirteen in Ana Dark, Oklahoma,
a black man, after being soaked in coal oil, was
set on fire by a lynch mob, at which point,
quote the Negro prayed in strigud in agony s he

(05:53):
flames reached his flesh, but his cries were drowned up
by the yells and jeers of the mob. Yet, despite
apparently men being there to witness his murder, none of
those involved were ever charged for their actions, despite apparently
making no attempts to hide their identities. Similarly, a mob
in Memphis would, rather than letting the courts do their job,
instead abducted a black man accused a murder out of jail.

(06:15):
They then cut off his ears and soaked him in
ghastly before finally setting him on fire. While in Tennessee,
a white mom poked at a black man's eyes with
a hot iron poker that they then pressed against his
genitals before finally throwing his body onto a bonfire. All
incidents that were in no way kept secret, as hundreds
two thousands gathered to watch the spentacle, with newspapers in

(06:35):
some instances even advertising these brutal lynchings ahead of time. Now,
while not an example one of these pre lynching advertisements,
the Vicksburg Evening Post in nineteen oh four would provide
the account of another one of these lynchings, and one
that I'm fairly sure has appeared in another one of
these episodes as a related the tale of a black
man who was accused of killing his wife's employer, who

(06:57):
was subsequently captured along with his wife and Doddsville missus,
at which point, according to the Vicksburg Evening Posts, they
were quote tied the trees, and while the funeral pyres
were being prepared, they were forced to suffer the most
fiendish tortures the Blacks were forced to hold out their
hands while one finger at a time was chopped off.
The figures were distributed as souvenirs. The ears and the

(07:18):
murderers were cut off. Halber was being severely his skull
was fractured and one of his eyes knocked out with
a stick. Yet still the white lynch mob was not
done as quote. The most excruciating form of punishment consisted
in the use of a large corkscrew in the hands
of some of the mob. This instrument was born into
the flesh of the men and woman in the arms, legs,

(07:39):
and body, and then pulled out these spirals, tearing out
big pieces of raw, quivering flesh. An incident that was
clearly not about justice, as surely the Southern Cords would
not have taken mercy on such a man if he
were indeed guilty. Plus, if this was about justice, why
was his wife given the same treatment instead? This was
all about satisfying the basis instincts of the racist mob

(08:02):
and about reminding the region sizable black population that they
better remain in their quote unquote place, with the likely
fear of being that if that population was ever mobilized
and violent revolved there would be little standing in their way.
Most specifically, though, these lynches were awarding to the quote
unquote new Negro, who stood in contrast to the quote
unquote own Negro, the mythical, happy, content and obedient and

(08:25):
slaved African American, while the so called new Negro was
without the supposed civilizing restraint of slavery and was thus
more barbarous in nature. By reading in between the lines
here we see why segregation was such an obsession in
the post war South, as it had been fine to
come into contact with black people regularly when they were
enslaved and thus by definition lesser than now. Though without

(08:48):
such barriers, whites apparently could not bear the thought of
them gaining any kind of equality or simply acting like
there might be some kind of equality between them, anything
less than subservience, and was an insult that they could
not stand, and so they did everything they could think
of to establish and maintain a new order centered around
the concept of white supremacy, with lynchings being an extra

(09:10):
legal tool of maintaining said system. Indeed, the Shreveport Times
in nineteen nineteen would see the quiet part loud when
they wrote, quote we better to say that fully ninety
percent of all race troubles in the South are the
result of the negro forgetting his place. If the black
man will stay where he belongs, act like a negro
should act, work like a negro should work, talk like

(09:32):
a negro should talk, Study like a negro should study,
there will be very few riots, fights, or clashes, which
is all to say, be absolutely subservient, and let us
do and treat you however we want, just like back
in the days of slavery, and will stop murdering you.
Given this situation, it's not surprising that the residents of
Greenwood and elsewhere were increasingly determined to stand out for

(09:55):
themselves and even attempt to prevent such wanton violence wherever
possible on f Fortunately, though, this seems to have often
led to massive, widespread violence, as large portions of the
white community looked to as brutally as possible crush any
kind of black resistance. Which is not to say that
they should not have stood off for themselves, or that
they brought this violent on themselves, but instead simply an observation.

(10:17):
Then what happened in Tulsa and greedwent on the thirty
first of May and the first of June was not
entirely unique, Indeed, starting a nineteen seventeen a series of
race riots for back of the United States, ultimately leading
to the Summer of nineteen nineteen also known as he
Read Summer, during which time there were at least twenty
six major riots, which were largely sparked by white mob

(10:39):
violence that ultimately resulted in tens of thousands of African
Americans being forced to flee their homes. One such riot
took place in Chicago. It all started when a group
of black men attempted to enter Lake Michigan from the
wrong side of the unofficial black and white dividing line.
This led to a small skirmish assorts with rocks being
thrown by both sides. Things, however, would escalate when a

(11:01):
raft for a group of young African American boys happened
to drift close to the scene of this conflict. As
when the whites on the beach saw the raft full
of black boys, they responded by throwing rocks at them,
with one of these rocks strucking young Eugene Williams in
the forehead. The rock then not only knocked the boy unconscious,
but also off the raft and into the waterser Lake Michigan,

(11:22):
where he drowned. Now was bad enough that a young
black boy had been killed for no reason, but what
made it worse was that when the cops arrived and
were informed of what went down, they refused to arrest
a man who was identified as being responsible for throwing
the fatal stone, at least in part because it was
African Americans who were giving them the testimony. Then, to

(11:43):
make things worse, the cops actually listened to the complaints
of the whites on the scene and then attempted to
detain some of the black men who had just watched
a boy be murdered. Outraged by the sheer unbelievable injustice
of this situation, some of the African Americans on the
scene responded by attacking the officer who was trying to
detain some of the black men. Seeing this, though, the

(12:04):
white crowd rushed to the officer's aid, and soon a
race fride was under way. Now this wasn't an isolated
incident either, as when news spread outward from the beach
about what had happened, more fights would he roped. Yet,
since the following day was a Monday, everyone just got
off the next morning and went to work. For the
time being, then it seemed like the violence of the

(12:24):
weekend might be left there. However, come the end of
the workday, as the cities African Americans tried to return
to their homes, they suddenly found themselves under assault by
white gangs who evidence suggests were aided by the cops
both during and after the riot. These gangs would literally
pull Charlley cars off their wires and pull black passengers
out of the cars so they could drag them into

(12:46):
the streets to be stabbed, beaten, and shot. Yet, amidst
all this, some of the black residents of Chicago would
demonstrate the same spirit as later seen in Tulsa, namely
that they were not just going to allow this to
happen without at least trying to defend themselves and their community.
One black veteran, for example, when assaulted in the street,
would stab and kill one of his assailants with a

(13:06):
pocket knife, an action that officially scared off his other attackers. Meanwhile,
other black men, probably former soldiers in their own right
totoo snipe again whites who came too close to black
neighborhoods during the riots, the ride though would continue on
through Monday afternoon. In a Tuesday where uniform white soldiers
and sailors joined the mobs, lee Vonson continued to search

(13:27):
downtown while cars were seen racing through black neighborhoods, firing
out of their windows and into houses. Meanwhile, in the
primarily white neighborhood of Inglewood, the black families who happened
to live there were driven from their homes, which were
then subsequently looted and burned to the ground. And still
the ride was not over, as the violence continued into Wednesday,

(13:47):
where deliberately set fires broke out all across black sections
of Chicago, while a mob with some two hundred whites
through brigs and fired bullets into a black apartment building.
In the end, fifteen whites would die during the Chicago
Raid Race rides of nineteen nineteen, while thirty three African
Americans would be killed and another three hundred and forty
two would be injured, while a thousand Black families would

(14:08):
be left without a home. Then there was the rite
in Washington, DC that seems to have been sparked by
the five to seven reported rapes that took place in
the outskirts of the city between June and July of
that year, or to be more precise, the spark was
how these rapes or attempted rapes were reported by the
city's newspapers, as the papers, in an effort to outdo
their competitors, not only reported every lurid detail, but also

(14:32):
just inflated the numbers, as they claimed that at least
eight dozen rapes had occurred. Most importantly, though, the papers
characterized all these rapes as being the acts of black
men targeting white women. To emphasize this, the papers made
a point of publishing the detailed description of the black
assailant given by a white woman, who later admitted that
no assault had taken place. Meanwhile, I study conducted three

(14:54):
years later would find that four of the assaults it
had actually occurred involved black women, and that assailants had
been identified as being white men, none of which, though,
fit the racist narrative and so was left out of
the papers. So, with the papers pushing this largely false narrative,
the white populace was convinced that there was an epidemic
of crimes being committed against white women by black men

(15:17):
in their city. Things would then come to a head
on the eighth of the July. As that night, the
wife of a white soldier would claim that two black
men approached her and tried to steal her umbrella. Yet,
despite this apparently being the totality of the story, as
she would further claim that when she resisted, they ran off.
The next day's headline would read quote Negro's attack girl.

(15:37):
White men vainly pursue, a headline which, given the context
of all their other reporting, proved to be the tipping
point in the city. As upon hearing that the police
had let a suspect go for lack of evidence, a
mob of some four to five hundred men, led by
two hundred marines toed to the streets of Washington, d c.
Intent on finding the two men so as to avenge

(15:58):
the wife and their fellow soure. However, finding two very
specific men in the nation's capital proved to be hard,
so the mob decided to simply start beating up any
black man they could find. Now DOUBLEACP officials were quick
to urge the Secretary of the Navy, one Joseph Daniels,
to do something to control his men. Daniels, however, made
no efforts to intervene in the unfolding emergency, likely because

(16:22):
Daniels was a strong supporter of segregation. The police similarly
opted to do little to nothing to put us stop
to the white mob violence. Congress Bean while also did nothing.
Granted a few would condemn the violence, but they took
no actual action. Nothing ever, changes. Then, comes Sunday, the
twentieth of July, two days after the initial start of

(16:43):
the riot, A minor dispute on Pennsylvania Avenue added even
more fuel to the fire as white veterans got drunk
and then proceeded to work themselves up all over again.
This then led to some three hundred sailors and soldiers
gathering in their uniforms outside the White House gates, from
where they started throwing stones and bottles and cars that
were driven by African Americans, and soon the mob even

(17:04):
started literally pulling blacks office street cars. Indeed, one black
woman would have to watch on in horror as a
mob of one hundred whites assaulted her husband in the street. Then,
come Monday morning, the violence started carrying over into the
black sections of the city. However, recognizing that they would
receive no police protection, the African American population of Washington
d C began arming themselves as they tot to the

(17:27):
streets of their neighborhoods armed with knives, bricks, razors, lead pipes,
and bats, while the World War One that's among them
pulled out the rifles that they'd used while stationed in France.
The race ride in DC would finally come to an
end when President Wilson, on the twenty second of July
finally sent in two thousand soldiers, marines, and sailors with
orders to restore order. The presence of these troops and

(17:50):
the heavy rainstorm that descended upon the city that same day,
forcing many indoors, served to finally bring the riot to
an end. Ultimately, even though the papers reported fifteen p
people having died during the violence, his stories will leave
the actual number to be two to three times higher.
Now a scene here in in Tulsa, accusations of rape
ray common spark for race rides and lynchings as whites

(18:11):
and an irrational fear of black men raping white women.
This was due to a combination of factors, and part
of his base in the fear of the mixing of
races and ideas of white purity, a belief that made
any interaction between a black man and a white woman,
regardless of consent, almost by definition rape. Meanwhile, some have
also suggested that the fear of black men going around

(18:33):
in raping white women was born out of a fear
of a kind of revenge being soft for the rampant
rape of enslaved black women by whites, ideas that were
then supported by reared racial pseudoscience that stated that black
men found white women to be particularly seductive, to the
point that Virginia aristocrat Philip A. Brews in eighteen eighty
nine would in his book The Plantation Negres a freedman,

(18:55):
write that quote, they are aroused and stimulated by the
farness to their experience of sexual pleasures, and it moves
them their gratify their lust and any cost, and in
spite of every obstacle, adding further that these black men
are quote not content merely with the consummation of his purpose,
but takes a fingish to light in the degradation of
his victim, which he always shows when he can rik

(19:17):
his vengeance upon one whom he has hitherto been compelled
to feel weird. Made a bullshit aside, and addition to
accusations are raped like the one against Sick Rowland. Another
common motivating factor in these riots tend to be economic insecurity,
as when times get tough, like they were in Tulsa
due to the downturning the oil business and the fact

(19:37):
that the oil copies had not been taking care of
their workers by any means, the poor whites, instead of
focusing on the actual problem, tend to turn their anger
on people who simply look different than they did. This
problem is not only seen in Tulsa, as poor and
out of work oil workers looked on in jealousy at
the thriving downtown Greenwood, but also in East Saint Louis
in nineteen seventeen, as was here where the Aluminum Ore

(20:01):
Company looked to replace in striking white labors with black workers.
This then led to resembment not of their bosses, but
of the black workers. So when in May, rumors abound
it that a black man had attempted to rob a
white man, that was all the excuse that the white
population of East Saint Louis needed to do something about
their so called black problem. Mobs informed and took to

(20:23):
the streets to beat up any African Americans they could find.
For example, at least one mob took to stopping trolleys
and ordering passengers to stick their hands out the windows,
ass to allow the mob to identify the black passengers,
who they then pulled out of these street cars so
they could be beaten in the streets. This outbreak of violence, however,
is just a brief chapter in the East Saint Louis riot,

(20:44):
as while the National Guard would be called in to
put a stop to the carnage, they wouldn't be gone
within a few weeks, leaving East Saint Louis's African American
communities once again unprotected. Things would then kick off again
on the first of July when a group of white
men and a four into a black neighborhood and began
shooting into the homes there. The members of this community

(21:05):
then responded by arming themselves and preparing defenses should the
gunmen return. So, when another Ford car approached the same
neighborhood filled with white men, the defenders naturally assumed that
this was the perpetrators returning to finish what they had started.
They then responded, as you might expect, by opening fire
on the ford before the men inside could shoot again. Unfortunately,

(21:26):
though this wasn't the gunmen returning. Instead, these were plain
closed detectives had been dispatched to investigate the earlier shooting.
The white population of East Saint Louis would then ignore
the larger contacts of this incident and instead decide to
make the entire African American community pay for this incident.
White mobs and once again took to the streets to
beat any African Americans they could find with guns, rocks,

(21:49):
and pipes. This, however, was only the beginning, as over
the course of the next three days, about ten blocks
if African American homes were burnt to the ground. This, though,
was still not enough for the riders, as after setting
fire to their homes, the residents, including women and children,
were often shot as they ran away. It's also notable
that while much of the violence was done by white

(22:11):
male laborers, the white women of the town participated as
well as According to the Saint Louis Clobe Democrat, one
woman wanted to quote cut out the heart of a
black man who had been paralyzed from a bullet wound. Meanwhile,
anyone who tried to stop the violence or help booted
African Americans were intimidated and run off by the mob,
regardless of the color of their skin, all of which

(22:32):
the police and National Guard forces were complicit in, as
they often stood by watching the violence take place, and
were even witnessed laughing with the armed white mobs that
they were supposed to be disarming. This violence would last
for three days, during which time a minimum of thirty
nine African Americans were killed, with other estimates putting their
number closer to one hundred, with many of the victims

(22:54):
being burned alive. Meanwhile, another six thousand blacks were also
driven from the city. Now, these incidents are massive and widespread,
white violence were not unique. Indeed, the reason why civil
rights activist James Waldon Johnson would term the summer of
nineteen nineteen the Red Summer was because there had been
incidents of large scale racial violence in some three dozen cities.

(23:16):
The thing was, though, these events were also notable because
African Americans made serious efforts to defend themselves and their communities,
all of which was largely a byproduct of the First
World War, as black soldiers would return home from that
conflict with an even clearer understanding of how their country
viewed and treated them. As you see some three hundred
and sixty seven thousand black men had enlisted any armed

(23:38):
forces during that conflict, with two hundred thousand being sent
to France and fifty thousand of them actually seeing combat.
The thing was, even though they had signed up in
the hope that they would be able to prove themselves
just as American as anyone else and would be treated better.
As a result, these men would be forced to serve
in segregated units and were regularly subjected to various racist
insults and accusations. Indeed, many who had sign up to

(24:02):
demonstrate their worth on the battlefield were instead tasked with
doing support work for other units. Yet, even as they
carried out the hard training and monotonous labor they kept
the army running, they would still be called lazy, with
the army's owned newspaper, these Stars and Stripes reinforcing this
perception by printing racist jokes that made fun of black soldiers,
will also portray them as being lazy. That being said,

(24:25):
what seems to have been especially eye opening to these
black soldiers was for as bad as their own countrymen
treated them, they were not treated the same way by
people from other countries. Indeed, the wide residents of France
and other European countries treated them far better than their
fellow Americans ever had. In fact, high level American military
officials would even go so far as to try and

(24:46):
pressure their French allies do not treat black soldiers as
their equals. Army leadership would even bar their own black
troops from marching in an Allied parade in Paris for
Bastille Day, despite the fact that both England and France
allowed black troops from them our colonies to margin said parade.
The experiences of the black soldiers during the war, whether
they saw conflict or not, then led to a shift

(25:07):
and attitude back at home, as it had seemly done
everything to try and earn the respect and acceptance of
their white countrymen, even willingly volunteering to go off and
fight and die in their war, and yet still they
were demaned and treated like garbage, all the while also
seeing that was not the case in other countries, meaning
that America was uniquely terrible these returning soldiers and were

(25:29):
less inclined to accept these same cruel treatment. Plus, he
had also received training and now had the confidence that
they knew how to fight and defend themselves. This shifting
attitude was illustrated in the pages of the End Double
ACP's Crisis, as it went from urging African Americans to
support their country during the First World War to printing W. E. B.
Du Boyce's comments following the events of the Red Summer

(25:51):
that quote, today we race a terrible weapon of self defense.
When the murderer comes, he shall no longer strike us
in the back. When the arts gather, we too must
gather armed. When the mob moves, we proposed to meet
it with bricks and clubs and guns. When America had
long used the threat and terror of violence to control

(26:11):
its African American population, both free and enslaved. Now, though
at least some within the black community had had enough
and were prepared to meet violence with violence. To this point,
it should be noted that Tulsa had its fair share
of black World War One veterans, with some of them
even being among those who had participated in the fighting
in France. The Tulsa riot then, was in some ways

(26:34):
the last major race ride in this outbreak of violence
that had really kicked off in the summer of nineteen nineteen,
violence which by and large was simply a response to
African Americans trying to carve out a place for themselves
in American society, just like everyone else. When last we

(27:16):
left off in Tulsa, a little after ten pm on
the night of the thirty first May, seventy five armed
black men headed down to the courthouse in the white
set of town, doing so in response to rumors that
the mob of fifteen hundred whites outside the courthouse were
ready to lynch the young black men currently held in
the county jail on the top floor of that building.
Upon rhyming, though, they would be met by Sheriff McCullough,

(27:38):
who would assure the residents of Greenwood that Dick Roland
was safe. In fact, he claimed that the young men
would be released the following morning due to the woman
who he had been accused of assaulting the previous day,
changing her story and stating that she did not want
to press charges. So they grew from Greenwood, turned and left. However,
as they did, several members of the white mob interceded

(27:59):
in their path, with one man in particular Es McQueen,
a former investigator for the county attorney who had run
for sheriff in nineteen twenty before being sally defeated by
McCullough making a point of demanding that a black man
named John Cole hand over the army revolver that he
was carrying, with the fact that mister Cole was carrying
an army revolver strongly suggesting that he was one of

(28:19):
the aforementioned World War One vets. Yet, regardless of whether
he was or not, Cole was not about to hand
over his gun to some random white guy who had
no actual authority. McQueen, though, refused to take no for
an answer and then attempted to forcedly take the gun
from the other man. This then led to a struggle
for the weapon, during which time the gun went off

(28:39):
while reportedly aimed up into the air. Everything then seemed
to pause for a moment before, to quote Sheriff McCullough,
all hell broke loose as this was you see the
thing the angry racist mob had been waiting for all night,
a reason and excuse to let loose all their resentment
and frustrations on an easy target. They, after all, had

(28:59):
gathered there un likely intended to work themselves up into lynching.
Dick Rowland bought the sheriff's defenses had made such a
move less appealing, Plus nobody had been able to stir
them up to the point where they could justify to
themselves going on a murderous rampage. The sound of the gunshot, however,
seemed to have been what at long last gave them
the excuse, as following the sound of that single gunshot,

(29:20):
the armed members of the white mob opened fire. Now
the arm black vigilantes likely responded in kind, taking down
a few members of the mob in the process. However,
the fact in the matter was the men from Greenwood
were vastly outnumbered, so while at least twenty people both
black and white, were soon left dead, dying, or severely
wounded on the ground, the survivors from Greenwood had no

(29:42):
choice but to scatter, heading down nearby streets and alleyways
as they looked to flee back to the presumed safety
of their part of town, as there they would have reinforcements,
and at the very least they would have the advantage
of being on familiar ground. Still, though getting back there
would mean having to survive these seven blocks that lay
between the court in Greenwood. While a mob of angry

(30:02):
whites with guns were in hot pursuit, with more arriving
every moment. The group who had come downtown and pround
to find some white supremacy as they looked to prevent
a lynching, now suddenly found themselves hunted like animals. Among
them was a black man who ended up fleeing into
the Royal Theater on Main Street, who, as he fled
for his life into the darkened interior, found himself momentarily

(30:23):
blinded by the light coming from the projector's booth. Still
though he would manage to find these steps leaning past
the orchestra pit as he continued his flight. Yet just
as he loaned to make good as escape, one of
the men who pursued him inside spotted him and opened
fire with a shotgun, killing the poor unfortunate soul on
the spot and causing the audience to flee the theater
in fear, an incident which some residents of Tulsa would

(30:45):
be overheard laughing about hours later as a joke that
seeing a black man gun down would have been worth
the price of a ticket. Meanwhile, another black man fled
into an alley with a group of whites write behind him.
Yet as one of them raised a rafful to shoot
the fleeing man in his bad Another member of the
mob actually pulled the barrel of the gun down because
the black man was running east toward Main Street, and

(31:07):
this person had enough sense that should the shot and miss,
it could hit some random, innocent person in the center
of town. Meanwhile, as the black man continued fleeing from
the group in the alleyway, a catallac would come roaring
down the street in his direction, its horn blaring, as
a woman lean out the passenger window, shotgun in hand.
As the car then drew within twenty feet in the
fleeing man, the woman pulled the trigger. The car would

(31:29):
then continue speeding along its way while the fleeing man
crashed the ground. The other members of the growing mob, however,
would continue shooting the fallen man, even as he laid
on the ground, bleeding profusely. Indeed, as a crowd gathered
around the fallen man's body, according to one Winn's quote,
he was bleeding so badly that if it had not
been for his hands, and would have been impossible to

(31:49):
tell if he was black or white. Now, an ambulance
would soon arrive on the scene. Yet, as the attendants
trying approaching the badly wounded black man, a large white
man stepped in front of him. There are a lot
of people who've been heart who need you go help them,
to which one of the ambulance attendants as quote, why
not in this one? He needs us too, doesn't he?

(32:10):
The large white man, though, answered, as you might expect,
as he told them callously quote mcaalusy's an inward and
he was up here haunt in trouble. Maybe he shot
some of the white men. Yeah, To their credit, the
ambulance attendants still did not move to leave, at which
point the white man, who had picked up the dying
black man's rifle, aimed it at the attendant and told
him to get going or he would shoot him in

(32:31):
the gut. The mom meanwhile, was not content with just
preventing this man from receiving any kind of medical assistance,
as a physician would also come upon the scene Hope
and help would later report that quote. The crown was
getting more and more belligerent. The negro had been shot
so many times in his chest, and men from the
onlookers were slashing him with knives. Meanwhile, the white riders,

(32:52):
after a long last being let loose, now set about
looking for more guns. To that end, they started breaking
into pawnshop's, hardware stores and sporting good stores so as
to add to their arsenal. Strangely enough, though, these writers,
who would claim that they were only trying to preserve
law and order and who were only protecting themselves from
an armed black mob, did not stop it just stealing
automatic pistol, shotguns and rifles, as they also stole clothes,

(33:15):
various leather goods, and jewelry, among other items and their looting. Now,
to be clear, the statement about protecting themselves from an
armed black mob was not just a throwaway line on
my part. Indeed, much of what would happen in the
coming hours was seemingly the result of the white residents
of Tulsa convincing themselves that the black residents of Greenwood
were revolting and invading White Tulsa. In their minds, they

(33:38):
were in the midst of a black uprising and insurrection,
and they had to defend themselves and their city, a
lie that would not only guide their actions this night,
but would be continually used to justify what happened for
years to come. Indeed, Major Charles w daily of the
National Guard. Upon driving into Tulsa at one forty five
this night, would be stopped by several men who told

(34:00):
him that the blacks were trying to take over the city. Additionally,
one rumor making its way around Tulsa headed that a
white messenger boy who had been dispatched to Greenwood to
delivery a telegram, had been snatched up by a mob
of thirty African Americans who had beat him and tied
him to a post, where they then proceeded to whip
him with a length of wire before finally letting the
messenger boy go with orders to quote, tell them this

(34:22):
is what happens to white people who come into our town,
A story which I shouldn't have to tell you had
absolutely no basis in reality. Meanwhile, the Tulsa police were
not helping matters whatsoever, as instead of trying to put
a stop to the white mom's actions, there were opted
to deputize random groups of white men with automobiles so
as to quote patrol the streets that separate the white

(34:43):
and Negro sections of town because they wanted to be
quote certain that a lot of black men don't sneak
over and rape and kill a lot of white women
during the night, as they again were just living in
an imaginary racist world where African Americans were like some
evil race in a fantasy setting. This salver was especially
bad because this added a whole new layer of vigetlantism

(35:04):
the Tulsa as the police were now actively legitimatizing these
vigilante efforts, where in the past they had at least
pretended to be against such actions. In fact, it would
later be estimated by Captain Bell the National Guard that
the Tulsa Police had deputized some five hundred men, men who,
in the Captain's opinion, were quote the most dangerous part
of the mob due to their new found status. In fact,

(35:27):
the people who were being deputized by the Tulsa Police
upon receiving the special status, were given explicit orders to
go out and quote, get busy, and get an n word,
with both a twenty six year old bricklayer from Tulsa
and Walter White, the assistant secretary of the NUBACP, both
testifying to this fact. As Walter White, you see, due
to whiz LED's skin color and blue eyes, could pass

(35:48):
as white. So after hearing about what was going on
in Tulsa. He came to town and was in deputized along
with fifty other individuals who had not been vetted in
any way whatsoever outside of Big asked their name, agent address,
with White, noting that he could have been a criminal,
a murderer, or an escaped convict for all they knew,
as the only thing that mattered was that, quote, my

(36:10):
skin was apparently white, and that was enough. Indeed, one
of his fellow deputies would make the situation clear, as
the man in question told him, quote, now you can
go out and shoot any N word you see and
the law be behind you. Mean wal Tulsa Police Chief
Gustafson was hesitant to call upon the National Guard for aid,
as he did not want to appear helpless in the

(36:31):
face of the first crisis he was being asked to
deal with. Gustofson, you see, was a former private detective
who had notably been fired by the Tulsa Police Department
five years earlier, and had only recently received this appointment. However,
as soon as the shooting started, he folded and asked
the National Guard for help. In doing so, though he
was apparently unconcerned with the actions on the white mob

(36:52):
as Instead, he specifically asked the National Guard's help to
quote clear the streets of negroes. As again, what they
were telling themselves was that they were being invaded and
almost necessary lie as otherwise he might have to deal
with the troubling thought that he and the other civil
authorities had sat back and done nothing to deal with
the angry mob that had formed outside the courthouse, and

(37:14):
that it was their own inaction. Then it led to
these small number of blacks crossing over from Greenwood out
of fear that they were going to allow a lynching
to happen. Plus rumor had it if Chief Gustafson wasn't
a klansman himself, he certainly sympathized with the group. So
the armed white mob murdering random black folks in the
street and looting stores downtown were of no concern to

(37:34):
the authorities, and if anything, they were seeing to it
they were actively working together. The National Guarden, mean while,
weren't any better, as after sending out small detachments to
protect the wider works, power plants, and other vital points
that might come under attack if there was an actual
armed uprising, the rest took to the streets where since
their stated target were rebelling African Americans, they did nothing

(37:56):
about the armed and violent white mobs who were actually
roaming the streets. In fact, they would select elements of
these mobs to work with in quote unquote maintaining order
to this, and they formed the mob into patrols consisting
of twelve to twenty men, with each one being led
by military veteran and given instructions to quote gather up
all the Negroes, although they would make sure to caution

(38:18):
the angry mob members do not fire first unless it
was necessary to protect life, instructions which I'm sure they
listened to. So once again, the fact that the matter
was the angry, armed white mob was given legitimacy for
their actions, with the National Guard doing so in part
because they were acting under the idea that this was
a quote unquote Negro uprising, which then, by definition made

(38:41):
African Americans the quote unquote enemy, an idea that only
found fertile ground, mind you, because of their own already
established racist tendencies. That being said, while the National Guard
lending further legitimacy to the writers certainly didn't help matters.
The fact that the matter was even if they hadn't
done so, there was realistically little they could have done,
as while there were maybe two hundred and twenty guardsmen

(39:03):
on site, there were at least an estimated five thousand
armed whites in these streets of Tulsa that night. They
would then have needed more guardsmen from elsewhere in Oklahoma
to put a stop to these white riders, but no
Tulsa official ever put such a call out. The call
for assistance would instead ontimately be made by Major Kirkpatrick
of the National Guard, who said they telegrammed to the
Governor of Oklahoma that read quote, racewre had developed here,

(39:27):
several killed unable to handle situation requests and National Guard
forces be sent by special train situation series, with the
telegram arriving at one forty six in the morning and
the Governor officially calling out the Guard half an hour later. Now,
while the men who had gone into Tulsa intending to
stop what they feared to be all lynching were being
hunted down by angry mobs, and an additional two hundred

(39:49):
or so black servants who had living quarters entered near
their employers' homes were being rounded up and brought down
to the police station. The residents of Greenwood were not
necessarily as alarmed as you might expect them to be.
A number. In fact, despite the reports of violence in
the shooting taking place on the other side of the tracks,
actually went to bed as the way they figured it,
the evans would remain contained over there on the other

(40:11):
side of the tracks, plussed away some saw things. Those
who had made the decision to head over there, despite
being counseled otherwise, could deal with the consequences of their actions.
Among those who took this attitude was sixty year old J. B. Strafford, who,
after being assured by Sheriff McCullough that he would not
allow a lynching to happen, had then tried to talk

(40:31):
others from going downtown to the courthouse. As such, when
he was now asked to take part in an effort
to cross the tracks to try and rescue those who
had gone downtown to the courthouse, Strafford responded that while
he was willing to act to prevent a lynching, he
was not about to take part in street fighting. Which
is all to say that for all the fears of
a black invasion, there actually wasn't one. Outside of the

(40:53):
relatively small group of seven or so who had gone
down to the courthouse for one very specific reason, a
group that had that been dissolved immediately as they scattered
and fled for their lives. In many ways, and this
was not all that dissimilar to Nan Turner's rebellion and
the general fear of slavey vaults in the ante Bellum South,
and that the fear of African Americans rising up after

(41:14):
years of oppression and cruelty field a violent crackdown on
the local black population that was ultimately designed as a
kind of lasting lesson to never think of rising up,
as this was the kind of violence that would result.
As such, there was no way that this kind of
violence was not going to spread, as even those who
had nothing to do with the quote unquote instigating incident

(41:36):
would fall victim to the repressive backlash, as those who
were responsible for this violence had no interest in guilt
or innocence. They just wanted to punish. Meanwhile, as for
the survivors of the initial clash down at the courthouse,
they would orderly flee across the tracks into Greenwood where
they would make their stand, a move which would unintentionally

(41:56):
learn the white forces pursuing them into the little haven
they had met to carve out for themselves. Although again,
even without this, it was only a matter of time
before the white mobs grew bored and turned their attention
toward Greenwood. Yet, before we leave the goings on and
waite Tulsa and focus fully on the fate of Greenwood
aka black Wall Street, there are a couple pieces of

(42:18):
business that they want to make note of. First up
as the fate of Dick Roland, who would actually be
spared unlike so many other residents of Greenwood, as while
around midnight a small crowd would gather outside the courthouse
again do shut about getting a rope and getting the
n word inside. The reality was they didn't have the
numbers to make good on their threats, as those who

(42:38):
would have gladly participated in this lynching were already too
busy elsewhere. Dick then would make it safely through the
night and would be taken out of Tulsa the following morning,
likely never returning to the city. Ever. Again, our other
piece of business, meanwhile, actually takes place the following morning,
and I just want to include it to fully illustrate

(42:59):
exactly what these white mobs were alike. Our story starts
often on the morning of the first of June as
a swan was when an old black man, who was
missing both of his legs and thus got about on
a small wheeled wooden platform, headed out like he normally did.
As you see, while the old man had heard the
shooting and shouting on the previous night, he was not
fully aware of what had happened or what was still

(43:21):
happening elsewhere, as by this time the theater of action
had shifted from downtown Tulsa to Greenwood. So, thinking that
the trouble from the previous night had passed, the old
man wheeled himself down to his normal spot on Main
Street at eight a m. As it was here where
he normally spent his days singing, selling pencils, and just
generally counting on the kindness of people to survive. Yet,

(43:43):
on this morning, instead of being given a few coins
from sympathetic whites, the old blindgless man was spotted by
a group of four whites. These heartless schools then proceeded
a ton of the man stumps in the back of
their car. All the wild bystanders watched on doing nothing.
The four monsters and tore away in their car, dragging
the pleating man behind them, all the while howling in

(44:04):
the light as the old man's body was dragged across
rough cobblestones and his head bounced off the railroad tracks.

(44:39):
Round about midnight, the activity in downtown White Tulsa began
to wind down as the focus shifted more towards the
region around the railroad tracks that separated the white part
of town from Greenwood. Here, Whites and Blacks fired one
another from their respective sides of the tracks, with the
residents of Greenwood more than anything, simply defending themselves and
their community from these invader forces. This exchange of fire, though,

(45:02):
was such that when a train arrived in town during
this time, the passengers on board were forced to dive
to the forest was to avoid the incoming bullets. Among
those only front lines in the fence of Greenwood was
one peg Leg Tailor, a World War One vet who
had lost his leg in that conflict, and who would
go down in Greenwood legend first efforts fighting off the
White mob this night. Indeed, the White Mob would find

(45:25):
themselves stymy for some time because a defensive battle on
their own turf favored the black residents of Greenwood, as
they knew the area and thus could take up easily
defended positions to then pick off any Whites who tried
to advance from cover. The defenders then took up positions
any various buildings that lined the tracks, from where they
effectively acted as snipers. The complexion of this battle, though,

(45:47):
would begin the change when several white men were able
to stealthy crawl up to these buildings and thorrow lit
oil rags inside. The buildings of defenders at Chelterdam were
then soon ablaze, thereby forced them to flee from these
positions or otherwise burned a death trapped inside while the
white mob listened to their death cries from the outside. Meanwhile,
nature was not helping matters, as he win helped the

(46:09):
fire to spread to other buildings. Still, for the most part,
these initial fires would be contained. Indeed, there would be
no full scale invasion at this point. Even though the
first line of defense had been bridged to some degree
mass the defenders were able to for the most part,
still hold their ground. Among these defenders was an army

(46:29):
vet turned high school teacher named Seymour Williams, who only
utilizing his Army Revolver was able to defend one of
Greenwood's intersections throughout the night. However, as it became increasingly
apparent that the white mob's focus had turned to Greenwood,
some would opt to simply flee the district any city entirely.
For example, in the waning hours of the thirty first

(46:50):
of May, a dozen or so black women had gathered
that the just recently finished Mountain Zion Baptist Church to
discuss community matters. Among them was Mabel Little, who whose
husband Presley Little, would without warning, burst through the church door,
shutting quote, maybe there's a riote starting. They're shooting at
the courthouse now. Before this night, Mabel and Presley were

(47:10):
living examples of the kind of success it was possible
for African Americans and Tulsa's Greenwood District. Mabel, for example,
had moved to town just eight years earlier, having come
from the small black community of Bowley, Oklahoma. Mabel had
been just seventeen years old at the time and only
had a dollar and twenty five cents to her name,
meaning she was taking quite the gamble packing up and

(47:31):
moving to Greenwood. Indeed, her own mother had predicted she
would end up as a prostitute. Mabel, though in spite
of her mother's predictions, would find work as a maid
in a hotel where she earned twenty dollars a month
plus meals. She would then go on to meet Presley
and the pair would marry in nineteen fourteen. Eventually, the
couple would save up enough money to buy a three
room house, out of which Presley would run a shoeshine

(47:52):
parlor and Mabel would run a beauty's lawn. By nineteen eighteen,
Mabel's business was good enough that she was able to
hire her first and employee, and in fact, business proved
to be so successful that she was able to set
up her Little Rose Beatis Lawn in the very center
of the Black business district. Mabel salon would then attract
customers from as far as fifty miles away, as everyone

(48:13):
from mothers and their babies, two prostitutes, and theater stars
would frequent the Little Rose Beaty's Lawn. Meanwhile, as Mabel's
business was booming, her husband, Presley, opened the Little Bell Cafe,
which was a success in its own right. The pair's
business ventures were so successful, in fact, that just eighteen
days before these events, they had been able to construct
eight duplex the first floor which would be the new

(48:35):
home for Mabel's Lawn, while upstairs would be three rooms
they could rent out. The couple that had gone from
having just four dollars between them when they were first
married to now operating two successful businesses, owning a newly
constructed home, and driving their new Model Tee forward. Unfortunately,
though for all their property, the couple at the time
of the riot only had fifty dollars in cash, meaning

(48:58):
virtually all their wealth was tied up in properties that
were about to be destroyed. Now, everyone in the church
to night, upon hearing Presley Little's warnings, would flee to
their homes afraid of what would come next. Meanwhile, Greenwood's
booker t watched it in his high school. Promised scheduled
to take place in the Strafford Hotel's ballroom that very night.
Among the hopeful attendees with sixteen year old Vinnie Simms,

(49:20):
who had been looking forward to this event for quite
some time as it was a chance to get away
from her controlling father, who worked as a mechanic for
a bus company. As her father disapproved of anything that
was in church music and had banned Venice from dancing
in the living room, as he told her not to
quote shaker shimmy. This night, then, was an opportunity to
not only dance with her roll room date, Verbie Ellison,

(49:43):
but also a chance to the jazz and blues loving
sixteen year old to experience something other than the church
music which represented all that her father allowed to be
played on the family of Victrola, at least while he
was around. As young, Venice had a copy of Mamie
Smith's Crazy Blues that she liked to put on when
he wasn't around. Dreams of a care free knight out
in her brand new blue silk dress, silver slippers, and

(50:04):
pearl necklace would be dashed, however, by these sounds of
gunshots and street lights being shattered. Her father was quick
to respond to these sounds as he grabbed his gun
and ran outside, only to return a few moments later
to tell his daughter, quote, there's a race ride, It's
time to go. Venise understood instantly what I stark wanning
this was so for as much as she was loath

(50:25):
to leave behind her beautiful new gown and pearl necklace,
that's exactly what she did. As She quickly started aiding
her father and gathering up her five younger siblings and
putting them in the family forward. Venise never would see
that dress again, as their home would be ransacked and
burned down. So even if the dress hadn't been stolen
or destroyed by the mob, it was certainly destroyed by

(50:46):
the subsequent blaze. By two am. Though, while some like
Venice's family had fled fearingly spread of the ride, it
seemed at this moment like most of the attacks on
Greenwood had petered out. Some then began to think that
the ride was over and that they had six cicely
defended their community. What they did not know, however, was
that while in Sawmis the action was quieting down, the
white mob was, if anything, growing larger and possibly drunker

(51:09):
as well. They were just simply without purpose for the moment.
As you see. In downtown Tulsa in particular, things had
quieted down largely because there were no more African Americans
there in the Houn down and they had already looted
all the stores they could realistically loot. While maintaining the narrative,
which is to say that there wasn't much excitement left
to be had. Yet, just as if still sizable and

(51:31):
potentially growing white mob was losing direction, some of the
city decided to marshal the various aimless, drunken racist mobs.
As around two am, a man would stand atop of
cars was to address the crowd on Second Street, declaring
that quote, we are going in at daybreak meanings like
this are taking place all over town and across the
river in West Tulsa. Be ready to go at daybreak.

(51:53):
Othersn would add to this message as they may clear
exactly what they were going to do come daybreak, with
one man declaring quote, they came looking for trouble by
coming into town with guns and trying to take over.
It was that in this man's mind and any minds
of his fellows, that it was only right that they
now quote rite the finish so they will never forget
this night. Then, as if that wasn't clear enough, another

(52:17):
man would shout quote, be ready to go to Enward Town.
We're going over there and burn it at daybreak and
will tease the trouble hunters a lesson. They won't forget.
So there you haven't stated as plain as day So
even the most stupid and drunken racist in the crowd
could understand it. As a result of meetings like this one,
thousands of armed, resentful, racist, and oftentimes drunken whites would

(52:38):
gather together in three groups in downtown Tulsa, opposite of Greenwood,
with later estimates placing their total number between five and
ten thousand. Then, as dawn was breaking over Tulsa, the
sound of a siren or whistle would echo through the
streets of the city. Now where exactly the siren or
whistle originated, no one seems to know for sure, but

(52:59):
many reported hearing it and that it seemed to be
the signal to begin the invasion of Greenwood. Five men
in a green car then led the charge. However, since
the defenders were still very much in place at this moment,
and since these men drove well ahead of the others,
they simply made themselves a target. As a result, the
men in the cars soon encountered a hail of bullets
that put a stop to their charge and ended their lives. Unfortunately, though,

(53:22):
these five men were not alone, as thousands more armed
whites were right behind them, some letting out rebel yells
and the like as they rushed over the railroad tracks
in the Greenwood. Their numbers alone would have likely been
enough to overwhelm the scattered defenders, but this charge would
also be backed up by a machine gun that had
been placed atop a green elevator, while additional cars filled

(53:44):
with armed men also raised into the neighborhood. Successfully Now
that they weren't the only target. Upon breaching the district,
the mob then largely split into smaller groups of four
or five. These groups and proceeded to break into the
various homes and businesses they came across, typically with one
member using their gun to blow off the lock so
that they and their fellows could begin looting. They would

(54:04):
then steal whatever valuables they could find and carry away
while smashing everything that remained. Then, as if that wasn't enough,
they would pile up all the flammable materials like betting
clothes and furniture, spread kerosene all over the structure, and
then set it on fire. Doing all this not because
they feared an uprising light they would claim to justify
these events, but because they resented black prosperity and wealth.

(54:27):
Some though, would attempt to justify their actions by claiming
that this wealth had been accumulated through some kind of unexplained,
unterhanded trickery, when the reality was any kind of black
prosperity struck at the very heart of Wood supremacy and
the society which had been built upon it. Doctor rt.
Bridgewitter would later describe what he found upon returning home
to Greenwood when all was set and done, quote, my

(54:48):
safe had been broken into, all the money stolen, also
my silverware, cut glass, all the family clothing and everything
of value hadn't been removed, even my family bible. My
electric light fixers were broken. All the windows, lights and glass,
and the doors were broken. The dishes that were not
stolen were broken. The floors were covered literally speaking with glass.
Even the phone was torn from the wall. In the

(55:11):
basement we gathered two tubs of broken glass from the floor.
My car was stolen, and most of my large rugs
were taken. Meanwhile, in the Monroe Homie will get a
first hand account on the way the mom went about
their business. The Monroes, you see, were the family that
owned and operated the local Ruller rank in Greenwood at
the time of the ride. Though both parents were out
of the house, which meant their four children were all

(55:33):
alone when some white riders bearing torches approached their home.
Seeing this, the children quickly hid under a bed, with
the youngest, five year old George, barely squeezing in before
four men broke in and started walking through their home.
After not finding anyone inside, the flour turned to leave,
but as they did, they mature to light the bed
curtains of flame. Now as they left, one of the

(55:55):
men happened to step on little George's hand, but before
he could let on a scream of pain, his older sister, Lottie,
fearing for all their lives should they be found, covered
her little brother's mouth, silencing him until the men at
all storm back outside. Mimon wrote, children, then, even as
her house was going up in flames all around them,
then had to wait until the men left, and which

(56:15):
point they all fled outside, only to find that everywhere
they looked, their neighborhood, their entire community, everything that they knew,
was a flame, leaving little George to ask, quote, is
the world on fire? For the residents of Greenwood, the
world might as well have been on fire, because as
the invading mob moved through town, the fire spread along
with them. As they traveled to the north and east. Soon,

(56:38):
so many structures were on fire that the entire district's
temperature went up, causing men to sweat profusely and gardens
to wild. Meanwhile, a massive cloud of smoke hung heavy
over the district, through which flew airplanes throughout the morning
of the first of June. Now what exactly these airplanes
were doing is not entirely clear. Mass police officials would
claim that the planes were just there to monitor the

(57:00):
fires and locate refugees. Walter What in the NAAZP, however,
would note that quote eight aeroplanes were employed to spot
on the movement of the Negroes, and according to some,
were used in bombing the colored section. Indeed, some would
assert that these planes were dropping incendiary devices like turpentine
balls or dynamite on the neighborhood. For example, on twenty
five year old Mabel White, who owned and operated the

(57:23):
Little Cafe, would state that quote airplanes dropped in scendiary
bombs to enhance the burning of the Mount Sound Baptist
Church and business building, an account echoed by W. I. Brown,
who worked as a porter Fhrey Train as you would
similarly stay quote two airplanes were doing most of the work,
they would every few seconds drop something, and every time
they did there was a loud explosion and the sky

(57:44):
would be filled with fine debris. Now, some would claim
that such statements are unreliable, a product of the very
understandable fear and panic generated by this terrible, unfolding massacre. Indeed,
they would claim that it's too early for people to
be dropping explosives out of planes. For me, though, none
of this sounds at all unreasonable, as planes were employed
in dropping primitive explosives during the Battle of Blair Mountain

(58:06):
in West Virginia just a few months after this in
September nineteen twenty one, which I also covered in my
series on the West Virginia mine Wers. Yet, regardless of
what rolls the planes actually played in this ride, it
seems that their presence was a straw that broke the
camel's back for even these staunches defenders in Greenwood, as
there are multiple counts of individuals who kept the fight up,

(58:27):
shooting the invaders from secure locations until they saw on
the planes flying through their neighborhood and realized they didn't
stand a chance. Meanwhile, to their credit, the Tulsa Fire
Department actually attempted to intervene and put us stop through
these roaring blazes. However, they soon realized that doing so
would draw the ire of the mob. Indeed, according to
one firefighter quote, it would mean a fireman's left attorney

(58:49):
stream of water on one of those Negro buildings. They
shot at us all morning when we were trying to
do something, but none of my men were hit. There
is not a chance in the world to get through
that mob into the Negro disc while another would testify
that when they attempted to put out a fire, quote,
they told us to get away from that house or
someone would be killed, at which point they returned to
their station, and when the alarm set it again, they

(59:11):
made no attempt to head out, as a quote had
orders not to respond. That being said, the toss of
firefighters around seven am that morning would make a difference
by putting out the fire that then to consume the
Frism Memorial Hospital in Greenwood. However, no sooner than they
had managed to extinguish that fire, than a house nearby
was ignited. Yet as the firefighters turned their attention to

(59:32):
this new blaze, the hospital would be deliberately set on
fire again. The fire department then obviously made the hospital
of their priority again, but seemingly as soon as they
put out this latest fire, the hospital was set ablaze
for the third time. It would then be this third
fire that finally destroyed the hospital. Meanwhile, for another personal
on the ground look at these events, we now turn

(59:53):
our attention to the Williams family, the owners of a
successful garage, confectionery and theater in Greenwood. In the evening
of the thirty first to May, sixteen year old Bill
Williams had been helping some of his classmates from the
Booker T. Washington High School set up for the senior
problem when they were all told to go home because
it look like there might be some racial troubles anything
as again, the threatened lynching of dick Orland was the

(01:00:15):
talk of the town. In fact, sixteen year old Bill
wanted to, if not take part in the mission to
stop the lynching, at least tag along to see what
was happening. His mother, Wila, however, would insist that he
returned with her to their apartment over the confectionery. His father, John, though,
would take part in the mission down to the courthouse
around nine pm, meaning he wasn't among the group that
ultimately got into the fight with the white mob, but

(01:00:37):
had been among those who were more than willing to
put their lives on the line to stop me lynching.
John then would return home around midnight after the shooting
had started across the railroad tracks. However, unlike others who
urged their families to flee at the first on the trouble,
John would tell his family to go to bed. As
they did, he stood guard throughout the night, taking position
any window overlooking the west and south side of the building,

(01:00:59):
from where he, armed with a rifle, would shoot any
whites that he saw invading their town. John, you see,
having come from Mississippi, had long had to swallow his
anger when dealing with hate filled whites this and was
at long last his opportunity to stand up to such
people and to defend himself, his family, his neighborhood, and
his people, which was true of many of those who
defended Greenwood from attack any nighttime. In pre dawn hours,

(01:01:22):
everything started to change though with the dawn, as he
shared number of invaders was too much, so between seeing
the airplanes flying over their community and participating in the
destruction and the fact that some members of the mob
had figured out where the deadly rifle shots were coming from,
John would tell his family to get ready to leave,
sending his wife, Bill's mother Lula, off to her mother's
house so she could try and get her to safety

(01:01:44):
before the mob reached that location. Meanwhile, John, Bill, and Osaia,
the young man who stayed with the family, would run
to the north, dodging gunfire as they did before eventually
taking shelter in an undertaker's parlor eight buildings away. Inside,
they found some ten other men already hiding there. Yet
soon as he white mob continued to close in on
their location, they and all the rest had to flee,

(01:02:06):
with Bill, his father, John, and one of the men
from the funeral parlor all taking positions on the second
floor of a nearby pool hall. John and the man
from the funeral parlor would then make use of John's
rifle and a repeating shotgun to keep the angry mob
at bay for a time. This, however, could only last
for so long, so again, as his situation grew more untenable,
the three evacuated the building, with Bill and his father

(01:02:28):
sputting up for the moment. As Bill was worried about
what had happened to Hosea, who they had gotten separated
from somewhere along the way. Meanwhile, John, realizing what was
likely to happen to any black man found with a
gun in their possession, had Bill joined him in ditching
any weapons and ammunition they were carrying before splitting up,
telling Bill before he left to meet up with him
down on Pine Street. Bill, though, would only make it

(01:02:50):
two bucks before he was found by a group of
three armed whites who called out, quote hold your hands
up inward. Bill immediately did as he was told, and
since he didn't have a gun on him, he wasn't
murdered on the spot for being one of those quote
unquote bad inwards who the whites were blaming for all
of this trouble. Now captured, Bill was taken to where
a bunch of other African American men and boys had

(01:03:11):
been gathered, recognizing many of their faces, although not the
looks of fear on their faces. This group, then, much
like many others, were then eventually let out of Greenwood
and into downtown Tulsa. Along the way, Bill would winnis
the white mom blooming all of Greenwood's downtown missesses, including
his family's Dreamland Theater and the Williams Building, which contained

(01:03:31):
both his mother's confectionery and their residence. It was here
then where young Bill Whinns, a short white man with
a dark mustache, walking out of the building wearing his
mother's slipper coat while carrying the matching leopard belt and
matching leopard handbag draped over his shoulder. Yet, for as
much as this scene filled him with rage, Bill knew
there was nothing he could do other than memorize he

(01:03:51):
faced the man who so delighted in stealing from his mother.
Sixteen year old Bill Williams, and along with all the
others taken from Greenwood that day, would be brought down
to the Convention Hall before being taken over to the ballpark,
which was being used to hold refugees in the now
destroyed district. It was here then where Bell was found
by Henry Sowders, the projectionist who worked at his family's
Dreamland Theater. Now, Henry had been at work in Greenwood

(01:04:15):
the night before when all the trouble was getting started,
which was a strange experience for the young white projectionist,
as he never had a problem or worry working in
Greenwood that night, however, the mood had been different. Indeed,
when the theater shut down in response to words spreading through
the district about attempts to lynch Dick Roland, Henry went outside,
intending to leave, only to find that a group of

(01:04:35):
local African Americans had more or less commandeered his car,
intending to take it downtown to the courthouse. Not doing
a good job of reading the room, Henry had approached
the men to mending they get out of his car,
only get several guns pointed at him for his efforts.
It was at this point, though, that O. B. Man,
a massive six foot four black man who owned the
local grocery store, intervened. Man then made sure that Sowders

(01:04:57):
was escorted safely to the other side of the track,
as Greenwood was quote no place for a man of
his color now. However, upon reaching the other side of
the tracks, Henry would find nothing but bloodshed and fighting,
as by that point things had already kicked off, and
so he had to run from building to building and
the laws in between shootings. As he attempted to get
back home. Along the way, he would encounter one of

(01:05:19):
the moms looting a sporting goods store for its weapons,
and which point the projectionists could not help but note
how the whites here were even more frenzied than the
people he had left back in Greenwood. Henry, though, was
eventually able to make his way back home, and later
that day he found young Bill Williams down at the
ballpark where he had been taken along with many of
the other refugees from Greenwood. Henry then took Bill back

(01:05:42):
to his place to give him a warm meal and
a place to sleep for the night. The following day,
Bone work a shift at some local spot cleaning dishes,
just so he could get some money in his pocket,
and which point Bill was faced with the problem of
what to do next, with his main idea being heading
down to Greenwood to see if he might find his parents, who,
mind you, he did not know if they had survived

(01:06:03):
or not yet. Just as he was contemplating this, Bill
happened to run into his mother, who was on her
way to her lawyer's office downtown to see what she
could do about finding Bill. The two who had feared
the worst had happened to the other then wept openly
as he embraced in the street as le Tonder son
that both his father and Hosea were safe. They were
all staying with some relatives whose home hadn't been burned

(01:06:24):
down in the fires. Now, Henry Sowders had not been
alone in acting like a human being amidst all this evil,
as not all the white residents of Tulsa took part
in this depravity. Indeed, addition to the fireman who had
at least attempted to put out the fires in Greenwood,
there were also others who provided first aid to the victims. Also,
when the mob and Tulsa looked to drag away the

(01:06:45):
black domestic workers who lived in town, so many families
that employed them stood up to the mob, or alternatively
had or escorted their servants out of town to keep
them safe. Then there was Mary joe Erhardt, a young
white stenographer who was staying at the YWCA, the Young
Woman's Christian Association. Mary, you see, on the morning the ride,
had come downstairs from her room to find that Jack,

(01:07:06):
a black porter who worked at the YWCA, was at
the front door begging to be let inside as a
white mob was chasing after him. Realizing the danger that
he was in. Mary quickly ushered Jackin's side and guided
him into the center's walk in refrigerator, where she hid
him behind some sides of beef, doing so just as
a mob or ride at the front door. Mary then
met them and denied letting anyone into the YWCA and

(01:07:28):
refusing them entrance as well, acts which more than likely
saved Jack's life. Yet, for as brave of an act
as it was to stand up to the white mob
on that morning, Mary says that she was not afraid. Instead, quote, strangely,
those guns frightened me, not at all. I was so
angry I could have torn those ruffians apart. Three armed
white men chasing one lone helpless Negro. I cannot recall

(01:07:50):
in all my life feeling hatred toward any person. Until then.
Elsewhere in the city, Mexican immigrant Maria Morales Gutierres saved
a pair of young black children, not once, but twice,
doing so first when airplanes were swooping down upon them
in the street, and then a second time when a
group of white men demand that she hand the children over,
but she refused. Then there were these Zaros, a Jewish

(01:08:12):
family who owned a grocery store in Tulsa who would
hide multiple people in their basement that day. Be Henry Zarra,
remembering his mother even hiding some children under her skirts
to save them from the violent moms in the same vein.
The Holy Family Catholic Church had taken some four hundred
refugees during the riot, including twenty five babies, while also
giving any who came to them clothes and food. The

(01:08:32):
First Presbyterian Church would also step up as they used
her basement to shelter women and children fleeing the disaster,
while the First Baptist Church took in so many wounded
that they didn't have cotts enough for all of them,
leaving some to lie on benches and even the floor.
Then there was Lucille Kittle, who was just fifteen years
old when the riodte happened, but who illustrated that basic
human empathy was not dead. As you see, the teenager

(01:08:55):
lived in Sand Springs, one of the communities bordering Tulsa,
which the refugees from Green would fled to during the riot.
According to Lucille, decades later in nineteen eighty quote, there
must have been children blacks from Tulsa, mostly women and
children who walked that north road out to Sand Springs.
I felt so sorry for those people. All they could
do was cry, but they were crying too, so that

(01:09:16):
didn't help anyone. But they were terrified, and I was appalled.
I'm not sure I even knew what appalled met at
age fifteen, but I was appalled at how horrible it was.
There was no complaining, no griping, no doing, no nothing.
They simply were shocked and stunted. The silence children, little
kids walk those nine miles. Now. While Lucille was in

(01:09:36):
no position to help the refugees, others were and did.
For example, teachers Merrill and Ruth Films would take it
in shelter least twenty black refugees from Greenwood in the
basement of their new home would sad about a day's
walk outside of the city. The two would then shelter
the refugees who were arrived in groups in their basement
during the day so as to keep them safe from
whomever might be pursuing them. Ruth would then make extra

(01:09:58):
food to feed them all before sending them off to
the o Sage Hillscombe nightfall, when they could travel with
less fear of being haunted down by the murderers who
had destroyed their homes and their community. This routine would
actually go on for a week following the riot, as
every day a new group would show up, and without fail,
the couple took them in and shouted them until it
was safe to move on. Now, a number of those

(01:10:19):
who had fled in the days to come would be
brought back to Tulsa by Red Cross volunteers and others,
including one black pastor who found and convinced seventy five
members of his congregation to return to the camps that
had been set up in the city, camps where they
were more or less treated like prisoners of war. However,
not all would return, as some just kept on going.

(01:10:39):
Thousands in fact, in the wake of the riot would
move to places like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and
Los Angeles. Meanwhile, for all of these instances of people
doing the right thing, it does not seem like the
Tulsa comps by and large were among them, as the
Tulsa police, from all accounts, seemed more interested in helping
the mob than trying to stop them or even trying
to present. For example, John Oliphan, a white judge would

(01:11:03):
testify after the ride that the police force quote were
the chief fellows starting the fires. They were not in uniform,
but they had stars on them, they had badges on
Several black officers would also testify to this, with one
stating that one of his fellow officers, after driving him
and his wife from their home, quote, poured oil on
the floor instead a leaded match to it. Police Chief Gustafson, however,

(01:11:25):
would claim that none of these activities had been done
by actual officers, but instead by the random civilians that
they had deputized and let loose on the city, which
I guess is supposed to make it better. As for
the National Guardsmen, they would not be deployed with orders
to stop the riders and the destruction of Greenwood. Instead,
they were set against the entrenched black forces who were
purportedly firing into white Tulsa, but who were more than

(01:11:48):
likely simply trying to defend their community from the out
of control mob. Then, or was what happened to the
Mountain Zion Baptist Church? As you see, the recently completed structure,
which was the pride enjoy of its congregation, had thick
and sturdy walls which provided some of the best defensive
residents of Greenwood had, which meant that any attacks on
the structure were invariably driven back by the gunmen sheltering inside. Now,

(01:12:11):
one would think to just leave such a set alone,
as these gunmen were clearly not hurting anyone other than
those clearly intent on destroying the church and its neighboring buildings. However,
rumor headed per the Daily Oklahoma that the church quote
was said to have been the rendezvous of the Bolshevik
element of the Negroes who are responsible for the outbreak. Indeed,

(01:12:32):
it was claimed that some twenty caskets, all filled with
high powered rifles had been taken into the church, which
were the people who worshiped There was an insane accusation
it was a church, and one that had notably been
built to be the equal of any white church in Tulsa. Plus,
if there were that many high power guns in Greenwood
prior to the start of the riot, why had they

(01:12:53):
not been deployed against the mob. Yet, regardless of facts
and logic, after numerous failed attempts to bring down this
church that dared to rival the granteur of a white church,
the white mob been called for the aid of the
National Guardsmen, who, rather than doing anything about the white mob,
instead arrived ready to help on the back of a
flatbed truck, which, in addition to carrying these soldiers, also

(01:13:15):
carried a machine gun mounted on a tripod. The weapon
of war was downloaded and aimed at the church. As
the guardsmen opened fire, these stained glass windows would be
shuttered while chunks of brick and mortar were torn away
from the structure. This overwhelming force was enough to silence
the scattered gunfire that had been coming from inside, at
which point the white riders took this opportunity to get

(01:13:36):
closer and to add their firepower to this destruction, killing
an estimated seven to eight African Americans who had sheltered inside.
Soon then, not even the structure itself could withstand such punishment,
as the belfry collapsed, while the surrounding buildings and the
church itself were set ablaze. The building that its worshippers
had spent seven years saving up enough money to construct,

(01:13:57):
which they had just been able to move into six
months earlier, was now suffering untold damage, while a white
mob cheered another building in Greenwood that had been specifically
designed to rival any structure in white talso was the
Stratford Hotel. Now as the rite was going on, the
building's owner, J. B. Strafford himself personally stood guard outside
until that is, he was approached by National Guardsmen, who

(01:14:19):
declared they had come there to take him to a
place of safety, as was not safe for him to
be there. Stratford, though, had no interest in leaving unless
the guard guaranteed than his hotel would be projected, to
which the guardsmen reportedly responded, quote, your hotel won't be burned,
it will be used as a place of refuge. Trossing
the word of this guardsman, Strafford allowed himself to be

(01:14:40):
led away. However, as he was being escorted to a
winning car, Strafford noticed that a mob of white riders
were breaking into a nearby drunk store. These men, whose
shirts were already stopped with stolen items from previous stops
like fancy socks and silk handkerchiefs, proceeded to steal cigars
and splash themselves with expensive perfume while they robbed the rights.
As he watched the scene play, hound, Strafford recognized that

(01:15:03):
this was an ominous sign for his hotel, as the
guardsmen were making no attempt to put his stop to
the mob's activities, and in fact, despite the National Guard's promises,
the Strafford Hotel would be destroyed. That being said, even
when the National Guard did try to put a stop
to the white mob's violence, they found no success. For example,
when forty five year old guardsmen and veteran of the

(01:15:24):
Spanish American at First World War, Edward Wheeler pleaded with
some Whites in Greenwood to stop their shooting, a man
from the crowd would step forward and press his gun
against Wheeler's audemen. The man would then say something about
the guardsmen trying to protect negroes before pulling the trigger
on his gun. Wheeler then would be seriously injured just
for trying to stop the mob violence. Buddy would survive

(01:15:44):
his wounds as he bullet passed through his right side
before alterly breaking his arm. Passed for the Gurly Hotel,
its owner own W. Gurley. After morning, other residents of
Greenwood the previous night to not go down to the courthouse,
he adopted to shelter inside on the top four of
his hotel with his wife Emma. Yet, even as they
remained safe inside, they couldn't exactly ignore the smell of
smoke that increasingly enveloped the district past the morning progressed.

(01:16:08):
Then Gurley headed out to the street to get a
look at the encroaching flames and get a better idea
of just how much dangerous prize structure was in. As
he did so, Gurley was approached by six men in
khaki uniforms. Now whether they were National guardsmen or World
War One vets who had put on their old uniforms,
he could not tell, but each man was carrying a gun,
a torch, and a five gallon container. Uniform men then

(01:16:30):
told Gurley that he'd better get himself and all of
his guests out of his hotel because they were quote,
I'm gonna burn all of this goddamn stuff. This was
a stark lesson for Gurley, as it proved once and
for all that it did not matter how much money
he had. All that mattered was he was black, and
so the whites are going to burn everything he owned,
just like everything else in Greenwood. Indeed, Gurley would soon

(01:16:52):
receive repeated reminders of just how little protection his wealth
actually brought him. Gurley and Emma, you see upon leaving
their hotel, opted to head toward Way Tulsa, which was
the opposite direction that most of the Greenwood refugees were
headed in, as most simply wanted to get as far
away from the white mob and where they came from
as possible. But Gurley still seemed to think that his
wealth made him different. However, as the couple were walking

(01:17:14):
up the street, two white men would step out onto
the thoroughfare and start firing at the pair with their pistols.
As the smoky air was suddenly filled with bullets from
these men's guns, Emma went down, moaning as she fell.
Girling then was a meanly on the ground beside his wife,
Yet as he searched for the wound, Emma urged him
to run and not worry about her. The fifty three

(01:17:34):
year old, who had been one of the richest men
in Greenwood, then got to his feet and pursed wife's instructions,
joined with the other refugees and fleeing to the north,
away from white Tulsa. During this fine Girling would see
a young man gunned down right before his eyes as
he bullet caught the fleeing man in the back for
his barred Gurley would soon discover that he could not
keep pace with the others, so he opted to duck

(01:17:57):
into the recently constructed Dunbar Elementary School, seeking shelter as
he hid in a cross space to catch his breath
and weep for Emma. His escape, however, had apparently been
spotted by a white teenager who directed others to the
spot where he claimed to have seen a black man
crawl underneath the school. One of the teens companions and
stocked their rifle into the entrance and proceeded to fire
a couple shots into the cross space. Luckily for Gurley,

(01:18:20):
though none of these shots actually managed to hit him
as he frantically scrambled away, all the while managing to
keep himself from screaming in sheer terror. The men outside, meanwhile,
figuring that he must have escaped, then satisfied their destructive
impulses by setting the wooden skull building on fire. Realizing
them that he could no longer stay where he was,
Curley crawled out the other side of the building, where

(01:18:40):
luckily there was no white mob waiting for him. The
fifty three year old then ended up walking for another
block until he encountered an old white man with an
equally old shotgun who was holding some fifteen black men captive.
Seeing this girly, a protey old man with his hands
up surrounding himself then and there, rather than risk another
encounter with individuals like these who had just burned down

(01:19:01):
a school, Gurley, like young Bill Williams, would then be
escorted down to the convention hall, only to be moved
in the local bomb park when the hall grew overcrowded
with refugees. Here O W. Gurley would be reminded once
again how little his wealth actually meant, as he was
just the same as every other black resident of Greenwood
and the eyes of the whites. That being said, not

(01:19:22):
all was lost, because while he sat there, crushed in grieving,
he happened to hear a voice that he thought he
would never hear again. It was that of his wife, Emma,
who had not in fact been shot, but who had
simply momentarily fainted. As for the ridedself, Adjutant, General Charles
Barrett of the Oklahoma National Guard would arrive for reenforcements
around nine point fifteen and pretty much instantly realized that

(01:19:44):
the local officials were incapable of restoring order. Time, however,
would be wasted, as he had to get into contact
with set officials to get them to declare martial law,
which would officially be declared at eleven forty nine that morning,
and which point the guardsman actually started forcing the White
Riders out of Greenwood. However, during that delaying numerous buildings
and homes in Greenwood continue to be destroyed unabated. Indeed,

(01:20:08):
by the time that martial law was finally declared, the
ride was more or less over. In the midst of

(01:20:57):
all the murder and destruction that was Tulsa Race massacre.
Some residents of Greenwood had continued to fight, while others,
realizing that they had no chance, sought to either flee
or hide, with some hiding in places like ice boxes
and hog pens, while one person tried to flee through
an underground sewing line. Others meanwhile simply left on foot,
walking for miles under the hot sun to outlying communities.

(01:21:20):
For those who did not get out in time, however,
anyone who resisted or was found to have guns on
their person or even in their homes were likely to
be executed. Many others meanwhile surrendered peacefully to the guardsmen,
but even that did not guarantee their lives would be spared.
Doctor Andrew Jackson, one of the most prominent black surgeons
in the country, for example, would be shot while exiting

(01:21:41):
from his house with his hands raised in the air
and declaring his intentions to go peacefully with the men outside. Indeed,
John Oliphant, a way judge who lived the block away,
would call to the armed white men, quote, that's doctor Jackson,
don't hurt him. Oliphant, you see, had built his house
on the spot even before greenwood had become a thing.
The judge then was initially put out when African Americans

(01:22:03):
started building their homes near his. However, as he eventually
got to know his neighbors, who were doctor's school teachers
and newspaper man Andrew Smithman, he found them to be
educated in properly respectable sorts that he found himself liking
more than some of the whites that they knew. Yet still,
even with the judge's words hanging in the air and
doctor Jackson clearly holding his hands above his head, the

(01:22:24):
two men out signed us home opened fire, with at
least one of their bullets striking him in the chest.
The now likely mortally wounded. Doctor was thrown to the ground.
Still not satisfied. However, one of the men took the
time to shoot him again, breaking the doctor's legs with
another bullet before walking off and leaving him to die. Now,
Oliphant would not be able to identify those responsible for

(01:22:45):
this murder mass. In the moments leading up to the shooting,
his attention had been split between what was happening with
doctor Jackson and his attempts to stop the mob from
sending fire to his own home, which involved trying to
get the cops to actually intercede and put a stop
to the mob's action, something which he only subsequently came
to realize was never going to happen. All Oliphant could

(01:23:05):
say there was that the two who had johnt doctor
Jackson had been dressed like civilians. However, he would note
that several others that he winnessed participating in the violence
sad Day had been wearing khaki uniforms. Ultimately, though for
as much murder and death was brought to Greenwood, the
true goal all the riot was to send a message. Indeed,
one white rider would stop his fellows from shooting a
defensives Greenwood residents simply so the many spirit could tell

(01:23:29):
others quote what happens to Edward to hunt trouble, a
message that would later be put on postcards that bore
the images of the burned out and destroyed Greenwood. So
for his nine marriages. All this was for the residents
of Greenwood. For many members of the white mob, this
turned into a bit of a celebration as they reasserted
their dominance and reclaimed what they saw us their rightful plays. Indeed,

(01:23:51):
according to Judge Oliphant quote, some were singing, some were
playing pianos that were taken out of the building, Some
were running Victrolla's antsing a jig, and just having a rollicking,
easy good time in a business which they thought they
were doing what was upright. As for the surviving African
American residents of Greenwood who had not fled, they would
be lined up in the street with their hands held

(01:24:12):
up above their heads as they were marched out of town.
Among them was one of the most respected men in Greenwood,
Booker T. Washington High School principal E. W. Wood, who
would leave Greenwood with one arm held up in the
air while he clutched his three month old child and
his other others, meanwhile, would carry with them the few
possessions they had managed to safe, and were allowed to
keep objects like photographs or clothes, while others carried food

(01:24:36):
and children clutched a prize toy. James West, a teacher
at Booker T Washington High School, would describe his experience quote,
after lenning up some thirty or fifty of us men,
they ran us through the streets to Convention Hall, forcing
us to keep our hands in the air all the while.
While we were running, some of the ruffians would shoot
at our heels and swore at those who had difficulty
keeping up. They actually drove a car to the bunch

(01:24:59):
and knocked down to there were three men. West then,
along with all the others captured in Greenwood, were brought
to the Tulsa Convention Hall, where they were to be
held now that the city jail was full. Meanwhile, angry
white crowds gathered outside the convention Hall to shot at
the refugees as they passed by. Now these crowds were
held back by armed guards, but this did not stop

(01:25:19):
one man from Greenwood from being shot at the very
door of the convention Hall while his hands were held
above his head. Inside the hall, the residents of Greenwood
were treated more like prisoners or war than refugees. Men
and women were kept separate, unable to comfort one another,
while wooded survivors moaned in pain as they had been
brought to the convention hall instead of a hospital to
be treated. Meanwhile, as the hall grew to crowded, some

(01:25:42):
were taken to other places, like McNulty Park. Indeed, by
the second of June, some six thousand African Americans found
themselves now residing in the fair Grounds, a mile northeast
of Greenwood, which for all intents and purposes, was no
more as the scope of the disaster was nightmarish. Evidence
all the destruction was everywhere where one looked. Broken and
shattered objects littered the streets, as did electric and telephone lines,

(01:26:05):
while charge chimneys were the only proof that houses had
existed in some places, as everything else was just ashes
and embers. A half dozen churches, a public library, a hospital,
the Junior High school. In most of the one hundred
and ninety one businesses in Greenwood, including Babel Little's Beauty Salon,
the Dreamland and Dixie Theaters, were all gone. Meanwhile, according

(01:26:25):
to the Red Cross, one thousand, two hundred and fifty
six homes had been burned, with an additional two hundred
and fifteen being looted but not set on fire. As
for the number who had lost their lives, Walter weywould concluded,
when all was said and done, some two hundred to
two hundred and fifty individuals had died during the riot,
with anywhere between seventy five to eighty percent of those
desks being African Americans, an estimate that puts the number

(01:26:49):
of black desks and anywhere from one hundred and fifty
to two hundred, numbers which were roughly equal to those
coming from wet observers like Ot Johnson, the head of
these Salvation Army and Tulsa, who said that at least
one one hundred and fifty African Americans had been killed,
while Marie Willows, the director of the Red Cross's relief efforts,
would admit that the true count was impossible to know
because quote the bodies were hurriedly rushed to burial, and

(01:27:11):
the records of many burials are not to be found. Indeed,
many victims of Greenwood were denied funerals by Tulsa authorities.
As a result, rumors about it that the bodies of
many Greenwood residents were driven out of town to be
dumped into mass graves or thrown into incinerator's coal mines
or the river. Supporting such claims or the remembrances of
those like Ruth Avery, who in nineteen eighty would recall

(01:27:33):
what she had seen as a white first grader. In
nineteen twenty one, according to Ruth, she'd personally witnessed two
truckloads of black bodies being carted down the streets. In particular,
she could never forget the side of the quote boy
on top of the bodies. He was wearing brown pants
and a blue shirt. When the chaluk and a pothole,
his head flipped over and his mouth was open and
his eyes were open, and it looked like he was frightened

(01:27:55):
to death. I screamed, Now, what was he? Ultimate faded?
These bodies we don't know, but at the very least
it's known that many were simply buried in unmark graves
in places like Oaklawn Cemetery, New Block Park, Sand Springs Road,
and the Booker T. Washington Cemetery. Meanwhile, the response among
the white elite. Following the riot was mixed, as some

(01:28:15):
wanted to pursue charges against the African American instigators, who
they blamed for all the death and destruction, while others
were seemly ashamed of what had happened and just wanted
to rebuild. The Tulsa world would express this feeling of
disgrace in an editorial that ran only second of June,
which stated that quote, proud, matchless Tulsa comes before the
bar of Christian civilization this day, and with head bowed

(01:28:38):
the mantle shame upon her cheek, and we sincerely hope,
with deep regret in our heart, asked that she be
part of the great offense some of her citizens committed hell.
Even Tossa Tribune editor Richard Lloyd Jones, Who's inflammatory coverage
of the accident in the Drexel Building and subsequent editorial
reportedly helped to spark this devastation, would express sympathy for
the quote thousands of colored peace, most of whom are

(01:29:01):
innocent mean, while Judge J. Martiny, former Tulsa mayor, would
declare that quote Tulsa can only redeem herself from the
country wide shame and humiliation into which he is today
plunged by complete restitution and rehabilitation of the destroyed black Belt.
The rest of the United States must know that the
real citizenship of Tulsa weeps at this unspeakable crime and

(01:29:23):
will make good the damage so far as it can
be done. Meanwhile, in the years and decades to come,
some who were initially proud of their actions would come
to regret them. This apparently included two KKK members who
admitted decades later that they were ashamed of what they
had done that day and the lives they had taken.
Such feelings of shame and regret, however, were either not
wildely felt or were quickly squashed, as many who felt

(01:29:45):
that way could not deal with the guilt in fact
and conscious. To the two previously mentioned clan members who
regretted the murder and destruction, another Tulsa Clan member fifty
years later would probably proclaim, quote, I would do it again. Meanwhile,
even the world would describe the riders as members of
the superior race, while depicting the residents of Greenwood as
infantile in nature. Additionally, the paper that actually gave voice

(01:30:09):
to the guilt and shame the resulted from the ride
would also describe Greenwood as almost a foreign country, writing quote,
these streets were unnamed, the houses unnumbered. Barnes were built
in the streets in the same line with houses, and
general confusion instead of order was a predominant characteristic of
the district before the flames reduced most of it to
charge ruins, a description which, in addition of being wildly inaccurate,

(01:30:32):
also served to make the destruction seem less bad. As
the district, per their description was already a mess, so
wasn't such a big deal that it had been destroyed?
Being mall Richard Lloyd Jones and as Tulsa Tribune after
one appeared to be a brief moment of empathy for
the victims. Within days of the ride, was back on
his bullshit, as he wrote stuff like quote, such a
district as the old N word town must never be

(01:30:54):
allowed in Tulsa. Again, it was accessible of inequity and corruption.
Then there was it's a question of who knew blame
for what had happened, namely, will the white residents of
Tulsa or their officials shoulder the blame for a white
mob blameing wasted the black community of Greenwood well, mayor
Evans would provide the answer to that question as a
declared quote, let them blame for this Negro uprising lie

(01:31:16):
right where it belongs, on those armed Negroes and their
followers who started this trouble and who instigated it. Any
person who seeks to put half the blame on the
white people are wrong and should be told so unknown
certain terms. Similarly, Claireins Douglas, the secretary of Tulsa's Chamber
of Commerce, would blame the residents of Greenwood for what
had happened, and would further claim, without proof, that the

(01:31:38):
black population had quote been worked upon by a lawless
element of white agitators, Reds and Bolsheviks. Yet, regardless if
this was simply rebellious blacks acting on their own or
once ha been trecked by Reds and communists, the fact
of the matter was they were clearly choosing a stick
to their guiding assertion that there had been some kind
of uprising, and thus no fault fell on them for

(01:31:59):
doing no not to control the white mob both before
and during the riot. To further support this distortion of reality,
the varying estimates of the number killed during the riot
were pointed to as proof of how duplicitisty people of
Greenwood were the thing, whilst the greatest allyer in terms
of numbers killed came from the Oklahoma Department of Health,
whose official count had only ten whites and twenty six

(01:32:21):
African Americans dying during the course of the riot, with
that number being seen by most as a major underestimate,
with most others sinning towards three hundred losing their lives.
This narrative would then be formalized following a twelve day
investigation carried out by an all white grand jury, who
you'll be surprised to learn blame black mobs for the riot,
as they claimed that quote, there was no mob spirit

(01:32:43):
among the whites, no talk of lynching, and no arms.
The assembly was quiet until the arrival of arms Negroes,
which precipitated and worse, an direct cause in the entire affair,
a conclusion that had no basis in reality, but was
also exactly what you would expect from an all white
jury and Tulsa, especially with Oklahoma Attorney General Freeling guiding
the proceedings, a man who had even before starting the

(01:33:05):
investigation had told Tulsa business leaders quote the cause of
the riot was not Tulsa. Instead, he asserted that it
was down to the fact that, quote, the negro is
not the same man he was thirty years ago when
he was content to plod along his own road, excepting
the white man as his benefactor. But the years of
past and the negro has been educated, and the race

(01:33:26):
papers of broadcast thoughts of equality. That's right. If are
not for ridiculous thoughts of equality, this never would have happened.
Which is all to say that not a single white
individual would ever be charged for any of the theft, destruction,
and murder that happened over the course of the riot.
The city, however, would attempt to charge the likes of
black newspaper man A. J. Smitherman, among others, for starting

(01:33:49):
the riot. Smitherman would then flee from Tulsa and Oklahoma altogether,
as he had no faith in the legal system treating
him fairly. Smitherman would then ultimately end up in Buffalo,
New York, where he founded The Buffalo Star. Meanwhile, Tulsa
and its white residents remained incredibly racist. With the second
version of the klu Klux Klan, which will be covering
in more detail later, This year, finding especially fertile ground

(01:34:12):
in the city. In fact, the clan was so popular that,
in addition to the normal KKK, they also created special
chapters in Tulsa just for women and for boys twelve
to eighteen years old. Indeed, Tulsa had one of the
few chapters of the Junior klu Klux Klan. As you
might expect them. The elections for Tulsa County and Sheriff
in nineteen twenty two featured Republican and Democratic candidates who

(01:34:32):
were both clansmen. Now, as for the question of what
to do about Greenwood, Tassa leaders, in the name of
taking responsibility for what had happened, made opponent, rejecting the
foot of donations that came pouring in to assess in
the rebuilding process, insisting as they did, that the city
of Tulsa would take care of it themselves. However, they
seem to have just as much interest in rebuilding Greenwood

(01:34:54):
as they had in taking actual responsibility for what had happened. Indeed,
white businessmen, even while Greenwood still smoldering, had attempted to
buy and plan in the district from its black owners
for pennies on the dollar offers, which the African American
property owners by and large refused undaunted. The city then
pass a new fire code that required all new buildings
in the now burned out region to be constructed out

(01:35:16):
of concrete, brick, or steel, and furthermore, they all had
to be at least two stories high, a ludicrous thing
to do, as is not like what The buildings were
constructed out of cost the spread of the fire, as
was obviously the white torch and accelerant carrying mobs who
were the rison why so many structures burned. This, however,
was a calculated move, as these new regulations basically eliminated

(01:35:37):
the possibility of building new wooden residences in the district. Basically,
they were just trying to make it too expensive for
the residents of Greenwood to rebuild, and thus they would
have no choice but to sell their land for cheap.
The Black residents of Greenwood, however, would respond by simply
ignoring this new ordinance and rebuilding as they saw a fit,
all the while suing the city, with the court ultimately

(01:35:58):
signing with the residents of green Would, thereby allowing them
to rebuild without interference from city officials. Although it has
to be said that they also received no assistance either.
As a result, some of the refugees from Greenwood would
find themselves living intents for over a year following the riot,
during which time they were regularly plagued by general malnutrition, pneumonia, typhoid,

(01:36:18):
and smallpox, which, in addition to everything else, including the
overwhelming grief and stress they had experience, served to take
even more lives than those who had died during the riot. Eventually, then,
the neighborhood would be rebuilt without any help from city authorities.
The Williams family, for example, would rebuild their confectionery, their
Dreamland theater, and John's garage. Yet, even as the neighborhood

(01:36:40):
was rebuilt and people saw in some sense of normalcy
after everything they had been through, the reality was on
some level, things would never be the same, as all
would bear scars from what had happened. For example, Mabel
Little would eventually rebuild her little Rose Beats Lawn. That, however,
did not change the fact that her husband, Presley, had
contracted to Burkulos's while working outside clearing debris and rebuilding

(01:37:03):
after the riot. Mabel would then blame her husband's death
on the riot and would understandably hold something of a
grudge for the rest of her days. Still, the woman
who would adopt twelve children over the years would not
speak to them of the riot, as she feared the
impact it would have on them. In particular, she feared
them learning about what had happened might under minor message
to them that they could do and be anything that

(01:37:25):
they wanted. Other residents of Greenwood would also choose not
to talk about what had happened openly because they feared
what their white neighbors might do. Why. Tulsa, meanwhile, also
really didn't like talking about the riot too much either,
as the coverage of the event had left a bit
of a black guy on the city. In fact, the
Tulsa Tribune would not even mention the riot on its
fifteenth or twentieth anniversaries in their fifteen years ago or

(01:37:48):
twenty years ago today sections of the paper nineteen seventy one, though,
once again presented the city with a chance to acknowledge
what had happened. However, when the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce
and local Tulsa papers reviewed the matter yeals provided to
them by one Ed Wheeler, they all refused to publish
anything about it, instead opting to try and bury the past.
In fact, Wheeler would suffer a campaign of harassment, including

(01:38:10):
threats against his life, simply for daring to take up
this bit of the past. Wheeler's story then would only
be published in the black publication Impact magazine. Meanwhile, an
actual government investigation into the Rite would not happen until
nineteen ninety seven, following state Representative Don Ross introducing a
bill demanding five million dollars in reparations for Greenwood's burning,

(01:38:32):
a bill that was as much as anything else, designed
to bring attention to what had happened nearly eighty years earlier,
an event that had long been buried and purposely forgotten.
The resulting investigation then dunk up all unpleasant feelings among some,
but it would ultimately lead to a one hundred and
seventy eight page report that was released in two thousand
and one. This report would strongly recommend reparation initiatives, including

(01:38:55):
payments to survivors and descendants, the creation of a scholarship
fund for affected students, and the establishment of an economic
development zone in the historic Greenwood District, recommendations which were
largely ignored in two thousand and three, those survivors and
descendants of those affected by the riot attempted to sue
the city of Tulsa for the massacre. Their suit, however,

(01:39:15):
would be rejected by a federal district court, which claimed
that they had waited too long, which was just another
and a long line of ridiculous statements, as it ignored
the active cover up of the ride by city officials
that haid information which confirmed the involvement of the police
and other city officials in the massacre. The plaintiffs then
tried to appeal this decision, but ultimately, in two thousand
and five, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

(01:39:39):
So that is where things stand now. No longer are
the events of the Tulsa massacre some buried secret. Indeed,
details from the event would be used in a pair
of HBO series Watchmen and Lovecraft Country, while Oklahoma in
twenty twenty officially made the events of the Tulsa Race
massacre part of their school curriculum. As for US, next time,
we returned to the age of manifest hostesity with the

(01:40:01):
story of William Walker, a man who look to conquer
parts of Mexico and Central America in the name of
spreading American slave power, or at least does the popular
take on him today. The thing is, as I'm discovering
during my research, the story seems a bit more complex
than that. However, like always, then we'll have to for
now remain a story for another time. Thank you for

(01:40:27):
listening to Distorted History. If you would like to help out,
please rate and review the podcasts and tell your friends
if you think they'll be interested. If you would like
ad free in early episodes, I set up such a
feed over at patreon dot com slash Distorted History. By
paying ten bucks a month, you will gain access to
the special ad free feed available on Spotify or likely
through your podcast app as long as it uses an

(01:40:48):
RSS feed. I will continue to post sources on koffee
and Twitter, though, as it's just a convenient place to
go to access that information. Regardless, once again, thank you
for listening and until next time,

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Tulsa Race Massacre Part 2 The Burning of Greenwood

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