Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 124. The Tulsa Race Massacre

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124. The Tulsa Race Massacre · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

0:00
Speaker 1: You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello delicious friends,
0:19
Speaker 1: and welcome to Who Died What Now? The history podcast
0:22
Speaker 1: That's not Your History class? With me your host Katie Charlewood,
0:26
Speaker 1: history harlot and reader of books. Speaking of books, I'm
0:33
Speaker 1: going to be at the Redline Book Festival in Taala,
0:37
Speaker 1: so the Civic Theater in Taala, where I'm going to
0:41
Speaker 1: be debuting reading Between the Lines, the Dark side of
0:46
Speaker 1: the authors you love now, being a history person, these
0:50
Speaker 1: are going to be dead people, of course, But yeah,
0:54
Speaker 1: we all know how I feel about Charles Dickens. He
0:57
Speaker 1: can go choke on a bag of Dickens, to be honest.
1:00
Speaker 1: And of course there are other authors throughout history who
1:03
Speaker 1: we may have a perception of, especially regarding the way
1:08
Speaker 1: and manner in which they write, but we don't know
1:11
Speaker 1: that much about them. And I'm going to ruin everybody's
1:15
Speaker 1: day by telling you the truth about them. And I'm
1:18
Speaker 1: really excited. So like it's a wee thing. I thought,
1:21
Speaker 1: if I'm going to do a book festival, why don't
1:23
Speaker 1: I talk about authors? It just seems fun, It just
1:26
Speaker 1: seems right, It just seems like a good thing to do.
1:29
Speaker 1: And so that's what I'm going to be doing this Saturday,
1:33
Speaker 1: which is the nineteenth of October. It's the nineteenth, and
1:37
Speaker 1: then I think I might be doing something at the
1:39
Speaker 1: Dublin Horror Club for the afternoon, showing that the evening joint,
1:42
Speaker 1: because I've got to get back home because i haven't
1:44
Speaker 1: done a gall and it's a bit of a trick
1:48
Speaker 1: to be honest, but it is spooky month. And of
1:53
Speaker 1: course I promised you more dark and horrible history and
1:58
Speaker 1: this week is no exception. But I know what you're thinking.
2:02
Speaker 1: You're thinking, Kerry quite el jibbljabba, in fact me, in
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Speaker 1: fact you, I will. But first we've got to get
2:09
Speaker 1: our source on l sources are death and a Promised Land.
2:14
Speaker 1: The Tulsa Race Riot of nineteen twenty one by Scott Ellsworth,
2:20
Speaker 1: Tulsa Race War of nineteen twenty one by Rudia H. Halliburton,
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Speaker 1: Black Wall Street from Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's historic
2:30
Speaker 1: Greenwood District by Hannibal B. Johnson, The Burning, massacre, destruction
2:37
Speaker 1: and the Tulsa Race Riot of nineteen twenty one by
2:40
Speaker 1: Tim Marrigan. US Ethnic cleansing. The nineteen twenty one Tulsa
2:45
Speaker 1: Massacre by Monica Murehead Remembrance, Responsibility and Reparations, the use
2:52
Speaker 1: of emotions, and talk about the nineteen twenty one Tulsa
2:55
Speaker 1: Race Riot by Ronnie Michel Greenwood Constructing the Dreamland. And
3:00
Speaker 1: of course we have our old favorites History dot com
3:03
Speaker 1: and biography dot com. I also didn't coomfortably good. Then
3:09
Speaker 1: let's begin at the time of recording. It is October,
3:14
Speaker 1: and I promised you all horrible, horrible history for the
3:18
Speaker 1: entirety of Spooky month, and this week is no different.
3:23
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting to do the US two weeks in
3:26
Speaker 1: a row. It wasn't intentional like that. It just kind
3:29
Speaker 1: of happened. You know. Sometimes places do a lot of
3:33
Speaker 1: bad stuff and they try to bury it literally, which
3:38
Speaker 1: brings us to the nineteen twenty one Tulsa Race Riots,
3:42
Speaker 1: which is like the sanitized title. It's kind of like
3:46
Speaker 1: how the Irish War of Independence is also known as
3:49
Speaker 1: the Anglo Irish War because it just sounds neater, it
3:54
Speaker 1: sounds cleaner in a way, and the Tulsa Race Riots
4:00
Speaker 1: it gives a very specific image, like when you hear that,
4:06
Speaker 1: you kind of have an idea in your head of
4:08
Speaker 1: what that's going to look like. But when you hear
4:11
Speaker 1: the other names, it tilts that perception somewhat because it
4:18
Speaker 1: is also known as the black Wall Street Massacre and
4:22
Speaker 1: the Greenwood Massacre. And this was a race riot that
4:26
Speaker 1: broke out over a century ago, lasting from May thirty
4:30
Speaker 1: first to June first, nineteen twenty, so not a huge
4:36
Speaker 1: period of time, but long enough for it to be
4:39
Speaker 1: effectively buried by the city of Tulsa. And for about
4:43
Speaker 1: eighty years, practically no one had any idea that this
4:48
Speaker 1: had all happened, and it wasn't until a two thousand
4:52
Speaker 1: and one report by the Oklahoma Commission that this sort
4:56
Speaker 1: of came into the public sphere. And even with this report,
5:01
Speaker 1: because of the time that had passed, a lot of
5:06
Speaker 1: the details of what happened, when the exact events that
5:10
Speaker 1: led to these riots, it's hard to get the specifics
5:14
Speaker 1: on it. And unless we find a diary entry or
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Speaker 1: someone's recording on a gramophone, chances are those details are
5:22
Speaker 1: going to be lost to history. Unsurprisingly, we do know
5:27
Speaker 1: the general idea of how this came to pass, and
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Speaker 1: it starts way before the nineteen twenties. So let's take
5:36
Speaker 1: a moment to slip into some context, shall we. So
5:41
Speaker 1: if you go back about sixty years to eighteen sixty five,
5:45
Speaker 1: for those of you who may not be up and
5:46
Speaker 1: the up. An amendment in this scenario is a change
5:52
Speaker 1: to the constitution. So in this it is a change
5:56
Speaker 1: to the US Constitution. And this amendment is supposed to,
6:01
Speaker 1: in theory make slavery as dead as the Confederacy in theory. Okay, sidebarb,
6:09
Speaker 1: because it's going to bother me if I don't say it.
6:12
Speaker 1: You see, it states that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
6:18
Speaker 1: except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall
6:21
Speaker 1: have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.
6:26
Speaker 1: And what that means is slavery is abolished in the
6:29
Speaker 1: United States of America unless you're in prison, if you
6:35
Speaker 1: have been convicted of a crime, you are allowed to
6:38
Speaker 1: be used as slave labor. What a disproportionate amount of
6:44
Speaker 1: people of color are in prisons, which is also a
6:48
Speaker 1: money making system in the capitalist cog Why slavery in
6:54
Speaker 1: my prisons? No? Okay, ran over back to the terrible tale.
7:00
Speaker 1: So the thirteen Amendment is passed, slavery is abolished. Cough,
7:06
Speaker 1: and in the South black people formally enslaved found themselves free,
7:14
Speaker 1: actually free for the first time in their lives. However,
7:20
Speaker 1: of course, this isn't going to be easy. I promised
7:22
Speaker 1: your horrible history. It's horrible. So they're emancipated and they're free,
7:31
Speaker 1: but they have nothing. So according to the constitution, you know,
7:36
Speaker 1: these people had to be free, and they were just
7:39
Speaker 1: with no land, no education, no money, and like a
7:46
Speaker 1: tiny minority were able to like be socially mobile, right
7:52
Speaker 1: and use skills to build businesses or move themselves like
7:57
Speaker 1: up the ranks. But that's like a tiny, tiny amount.
8:02
Speaker 1: So the majority of these newly freed people, they were
8:08
Speaker 1: set free without a plan. And because the you know,
8:12
Speaker 1: the federal government had created this but hadn't put anything
8:15
Speaker 1: in place, any supports that they were just kind of
8:18
Speaker 1: left offend for themselves. And because then states have their
8:23
Speaker 1: own individual laws, it gave some places the opportunity to
8:28
Speaker 1: just fuck with people because you know, racism, because there's
8:33
Speaker 1: a lot of people who have had this ingrained in
8:37
Speaker 1: them that they are conditioned to believe that they are superior.
8:42
Speaker 1: A lot of white people are conditioned to believe that
8:45
Speaker 1: they are superior to black people. Even today, even today
8:49
Speaker 1: you see it. There is this good second coming of
8:53
Speaker 1: the Aryan race like belief, and it's just bollocks and
8:57
Speaker 1: stupid and I'm not going to get into it because
8:58
Speaker 1: if I start ranting about this then I won't get
9:00
Speaker 1: through this. So you have all these newly freed people
9:05
Speaker 1: trying to figure it a way to build lives themselves
9:09
Speaker 1: in a country that is doing absolutely everything to prevent
9:14
Speaker 1: them from being able to bod lives themselves, to feed
9:17
Speaker 1: their families, to support themselves, like just to survive. Because
9:23
Speaker 1: here is something you should always have in the back
9:25
Speaker 1: of your mind whenever you are reading something. I know
9:28
Speaker 1: we talk about the who what when we're right, those
9:32
Speaker 1: are always the big ones, but you always have to
9:35
Speaker 1: consider why, why is this happening? Why at this time?
9:41
Speaker 1: Like why? Because the reasoning behind something is just as
9:47
Speaker 1: important as the something happening. And something that people do
9:53
Speaker 1: not take into account quite a lot is the fact
9:56
Speaker 1: that slavery was abolished not because because of it being
10:01
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, because you know, human beings
10:05
Speaker 1: should have basic human rights. That's not the case. The
10:10
Speaker 1: reason slavery was abolished was because it was too expensive
10:14
Speaker 1: to run. Like you think it's free labor, but there
10:18
Speaker 1: are all these different parts and cogs in the machine
10:22
Speaker 1: which are costly. You have travel, you have food, like
10:27
Speaker 1: if you have to transport slaves in and that's why,
10:30
Speaker 1: you know, I hate to say breeding them, like that's
10:33
Speaker 1: why that was so important. But you have rebellions, you
10:38
Speaker 1: have all these things that are coming into play, and
10:41
Speaker 1: it was too expensive. That's why the British Empire transferred
10:45
Speaker 1: from slavery to indentured servitude. And then you know, it
10:51
Speaker 1: was it's the whole thing and I will do it
10:53
Speaker 1: another time, but that's how that did it, and that's
10:58
Speaker 1: why this happened. And when you had abolitionists, you had people,
11:02
Speaker 1: you know, fighting for the greater good, but there are
11:05
Speaker 1: people qunching the numbers. And it was very clear that
11:09
Speaker 1: this just wasn't going to continue, like it wasn't feasible economically.
11:16
Speaker 1: But yes, one slavery is abolished, there's this transition period
11:21
Speaker 1: and so they were all these ways. They basically they
11:25
Speaker 1: basically weaseled in a lot of labor which now would
11:29
Speaker 1: be deemed as slavery, but back then wasn't just because
11:35
Speaker 1: of the transition from chattel to things like indentured servitude, sharecropping,
11:40
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. So with sharecropping, it's this
11:44
Speaker 1: system in which the landlord, usually white. The white landlord
11:50
Speaker 1: would typically have a black tenant who they would allowed
11:52
Speaker 1: to use some of their land and their equipment in
11:55
Speaker 1: exchange for a share of the crop that they grew.
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Speaker 1: So sharecroppers would have to endure backbreaking labor to ensure
12:04
Speaker 1: that they had the biggest harvest they could, because if
12:07
Speaker 1: they don't have a big enough harvest, then they're not
12:10
Speaker 1: going to get a decent share of the crop because
12:13
Speaker 1: they need this food to survive, and they would be
12:17
Speaker 1: reliant on this landlord this piece of land, and it's
12:21
Speaker 1: a vicious cycle because they would never earn enough really
12:24
Speaker 1: to sell to kind of move on up in the world.
12:27
Speaker 1: And a lot of people realized that the system was broken. Well,
12:32
Speaker 1: the system wasn't broken. It works exactly the way it
12:36
Speaker 1: was designed to to keep them down, and being aware
12:41
Speaker 1: of the situation they were in, they wanted to break
12:44
Speaker 1: the cycle, which brings us to O. W. Gurley, who
12:49
Speaker 1: basically said fuck that for a game of soldiers. Now,
12:52
Speaker 1: he did have a fairly decent job in the US
12:54
Speaker 1: Postal Service, but he was like, not all about that,
12:58
Speaker 1: to be honest, he thought, he did, they have more
13:00
Speaker 1: in life, and you know what he did. So when
13:03
Speaker 1: the great Oklahoma land rush hits, Gurley is out there
13:07
Speaker 1: with two hands ready to grab his plot. So effectively,
13:12
Speaker 1: there was this unassigned land in Oklahoma which was, you know,
13:17
Speaker 1: up for grabs, and it was up for grabs for anybody.
13:20
Speaker 1: And Gurley was one of the people who saw Oklahoma
13:23
Speaker 1: as this land of opportunity for black Americans, specifically because
13:28
Speaker 1: here was an area where they could be free and
13:31
Speaker 1: they could own land and start something for themselves, build
13:36
Speaker 1: a community. And that's something that he is just full into.
13:42
Speaker 1: Like he starts working his way up the wrongs of
13:44
Speaker 1: the ladder. He runs for county treasurer, he becomes principal
13:48
Speaker 1: of the local school, and he opens a general store.
13:53
Speaker 1: And by the turn of the century, the turn of
13:55
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, he hears about these oil fields over
13:59
Speaker 1: until which is like ding ding ding ding ding for him,
14:04
Speaker 1: and he leaves Perry. So he sells his land, he
14:08
Speaker 1: sells his store, and he upsticks the eighty miles over
14:12
Speaker 1: to Tulsa, where he buys huge tracks of land on
14:15
Speaker 1: the north side of the train tracks. So Gurley has
14:19
Speaker 1: bought this land. There's nothing there, there's nothing on it
14:23
Speaker 1: that this man has a dream, he has a plan,
14:27
Speaker 1: he's got goals. And remember he's got huge tracks of land,
14:32
Speaker 1: and so he's splitting it up into commercial and residential lots.
14:37
Speaker 1: And naturally he sets up a general store in this
14:40
Speaker 1: way avenue that he calls Greenwood. Now, as we know,
14:44
Speaker 1: good news travels fast, and it's not long before sharecroppers,
14:48
Speaker 1: like all across the South, start making their way towards Tulsa.
14:54
Speaker 1: And slowly but surely, Greenwood becomes this community. And not
14:58
Speaker 1: only that is thriving because lest we forget what's over
15:03
Speaker 1: there in Tulsa, oil, there's oil. And so it is building,
15:09
Speaker 1: it is growing, and it starts rivaling some of the
15:12
Speaker 1: biggest US cities because it has like thirty five blocks
15:16
Speaker 1: more than actually and like Greenwood ends up becoming this
15:20
Speaker 1: town sort of inside of town, and it's got hundreds
15:25
Speaker 1: of black owned businesses, services, community spots, there's public transportation
15:30
Speaker 1: in theaters, it's got everything. And when you think about it,
15:34
Speaker 1: it's only a few decades and people who wear or
15:37
Speaker 1: would have been sharecroppers like that would have been their
15:40
Speaker 1: only option. Now they can become lawyers, doctors, scientists, and
15:45
Speaker 1: even millionaires. And so Greenwood is basically seen as this mecca,
15:51
Speaker 1: this emerald city of the South, a place where black
15:54
Speaker 1: people cannot only escape political, social, and economic oppression, but
15:58
Speaker 1: actually thrive in the Deep South, because remember we're still
16:04
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the twentieth century in Oklahoma, which
16:08
Speaker 1: out with this prosperous poc paradise was a racist hellscaphere
16:13
Speaker 1: discrimination was completely legal and lynchings were a family, fun,
16:17
Speaker 1: community event. They would have picnics and children would have
16:21
Speaker 1: their photos taken eating ice cream while standing next to
16:25
Speaker 1: a hanging corpse. Unless we forget the KKK have seeped
16:30
Speaker 1: into every angle of society. They have infiltrated every position
16:36
Speaker 1: of power. Okay, that's out with Greenwood. And the irony
16:41
Speaker 1: is Greenwood is flourishing because it's an economy born out
16:46
Speaker 1: of necessity. It's the direct result of the Jim Crow Laws. So,
16:51
Speaker 1: for those of you who are not to up on
16:53
Speaker 1: your old timey US legislation, the Jim Crow Laws were
16:58
Speaker 1: effectively legalized racism. So they are this collection of statutes
17:05
Speaker 1: both at a local level, at a state level, and
17:07
Speaker 1: they are so named after a black minstrel character, which
17:12
Speaker 1: is a white person in blackface performing as an African
17:16
Speaker 1: American stereotype. And the Jim Crow Laws, the Black Codes,
17:20
Speaker 1: they enforced racial segregation, which did everything from creating barriers
17:26
Speaker 1: to just fuel out stopping Black Americans from being able
17:30
Speaker 1: to participate properly in the white dominated economy. African Americans
17:36
Speaker 1: couldn't spend their money over there, so they spent it
17:40
Speaker 1: over here. I cannot emphasize enough just how successful Greenwood is,
17:48
Speaker 1: especially in Tulsa. It is one of the most successful
17:53
Speaker 1: black economies in the entire history of the USA, like
17:58
Speaker 1: the entire and that's why it gets the nickname Black
18:02
Speaker 1: Wall Street. Like it is full of money, like it's everywhere,
18:08
Speaker 1: and not just like a wee bit, like there's not
18:10
Speaker 1: just some people who are doing a wee bit better
18:12
Speaker 1: for themselves. People are not just comfortable. They are loaded,
18:17
Speaker 1: like they have money coming at the wazoo. Like they
18:21
Speaker 1: have luxury shops, they've got department stores. They've got the
18:25
Speaker 1: most gorgeous churches, because of course they do. They have
18:28
Speaker 1: these fabulous grand mansions, they've got their own hospitals, the hotels,
18:34
Speaker 1: they've got polls because of course they can't share polls
18:38
Speaker 1: with white folk, which is completely off the fault of
18:41
Speaker 1: the white folk. But yeah, they've got their own banks,
18:45
Speaker 1: they've got newspapers, they've got their own transportation systems, like
18:50
Speaker 1: some of the people who are living here had private planes.
18:54
Speaker 1: Like I said, these people are doing well. People are
18:58
Speaker 1: investing in their own economy, like, not just because they
19:01
Speaker 1: want to, but because they have to because of the
19:04
Speaker 1: segregation laws. They're simply not allowed to spend their money
19:09
Speaker 1: in the white side of town. They can't put their
19:11
Speaker 1: money into these white businesses. They have to put their
19:14
Speaker 1: money into these black owned businesses in their own neighborhood.
19:17
Speaker 1: And it gets to the point like it is just
19:20
Speaker 1: building and building and building that by the time nineteen
19:24
Speaker 1: twenty one rolls around, there is over ten thousand African
19:29
Speaker 1: Americans living in Greenwood, which brings us to nineteen year
19:34
Speaker 1: old Dick Rowland, a black shoe shiner who's working over
19:38
Speaker 1: in the white side of town on the other side
19:40
Speaker 1: of the tracks. If you're wondering where the wrong side
19:44
Speaker 1: of the tracks comes from, Yeah, you thought it was
19:47
Speaker 1: to do with poverty. No, it's just racist facts. So Dick.
19:54
Speaker 1: He's a shoe shiner out on Main Street, and like
19:56
Speaker 1: most human beings, he has a bladder. Naturally, that bladder
20:00
Speaker 1: needs to be emptied every now and again, and because
20:03
Speaker 1: of those aforementioned Jim Crow segregation laws, he had to
20:07
Speaker 1: make sure that he used a toilet that was specifically
20:10
Speaker 1: assigned for black people, and of course those toilets are
20:14
Speaker 1: always in the most awkward of places. And his nearest
20:17
Speaker 1: lavatory was at the very very top floor of the
20:20
Speaker 1: Drexel building on three one nine Main Street. And it's
20:23
Speaker 1: the thirtieth of May nineteen twenty one, its Memorial Day,
20:27
Speaker 1: which is a national holiday. So typically he wouldn't have
20:31
Speaker 1: been working, and also neither would seventeen year old Sarah Page,
20:36
Speaker 1: a white elevator operator in the Drexel building. So Dick Rowland,
20:41
Speaker 1: desperate for the loo, gets in the lift Sarah Page.
20:45
Speaker 1: She brings the lift up to the top floor. Now,
20:48
Speaker 1: the problem with this particular lift is is when it
20:50
Speaker 1: hits the top floor, it's not quite level, so there's
20:54
Speaker 1: a bit of a ledge, so there's basically this lip in.
20:59
Speaker 1: So when Dick goes to exit the elevator, he trips
21:02
Speaker 1: and he either falls into Sarah, or stands on her foot,
21:06
Speaker 1: or he accidentally grabs her like one of those things,
21:11
Speaker 1: which is you know, something that happens and you could
21:13
Speaker 1: bush off and be like okay, but again, racist hellscape,
21:18
Speaker 1: because a black man having a physical interaction with a
21:20
Speaker 1: white woman is the kind of thing that would get
21:23
Speaker 1: the black man lynched. So when he hits into her
21:26
Speaker 1: in whatever way, Sarah screams because remember she's seventeen years
21:30
Speaker 1: old in an enclosed space and someone is physically touching
21:34
Speaker 1: her in some way. Is scream which is overheard by
21:37
Speaker 1: a clerk at a clothing store in the building. So
21:40
Speaker 1: she hears the scream and she sees Dick Roland absolutely legget.
21:45
Speaker 1: So white woman screams, black man is running like this.
21:50
Speaker 1: Clerk just goes stretcherboards it to the police, right, and
21:53
Speaker 1: Dick is probably shitting himself at this point because he
21:57
Speaker 1: is all too aware of what the consequence says if
22:00
Speaker 1: this can be So the clerk reports it. The police
22:04
Speaker 1: end up questioning Sarah, who makes it clear that she
22:07
Speaker 1: doesn't think this was like malicious in any way or intentional.
22:11
Speaker 1: She doesn't want to press charges. She's like, no, thank you, right,
22:15
Speaker 1: But because this is Oklahoma in the nineteen twenties. The
22:20
Speaker 1: very next morning, Dick Rowland is arrested. Anyway, remember how
22:24
Speaker 1: I said good news travels fast? Will you know what
22:27
Speaker 1: travels faster? Room us? And gossip spreads like wildfire, like
22:33
Speaker 1: the worst game of telephone. What starts off as a
22:36
Speaker 1: trip where a bump or a grays turns into a
22:39
Speaker 1: full on assault. And even the Tulsa Tribune, the local newspaper,
22:46
Speaker 1: without any evidence whatsoever, runs an article on its front
22:50
Speaker 1: page accusing Dick Rowland of brandishing his way into the lift,
22:55
Speaker 1: attacking Sarah Page, scratching her hands in face, and ripping
23:00
Speaker 1: of her clothes, none of which happened, not a shred
23:05
Speaker 1: of truth, all apart from he entered the elevator. Mm hm,
23:09
Speaker 1: that's it. That is the truest part of this whole thing.
23:13
Speaker 1: But they don't care if it's true because bad news
23:15
Speaker 1: sells papers and also seeds discontent. And apparently, now I
23:21
Speaker 1: would say take this with a grain of salt, but
23:24
Speaker 1: given what they published in papers at the time, we
23:27
Speaker 1: can assume that it's probably true. The newspaper also had
23:31
Speaker 1: an additional article literally giving people orders to go and
23:37
Speaker 1: lynch Dick Rowland. Now there are pages missing from the
23:42
Speaker 1: microfilm in the newspaper, like it's just gone, so we
23:46
Speaker 1: don't know if it actually was there. Part of me
23:50
Speaker 1: thinks that it was removed, because I'm suspicious like that,
23:55
Speaker 1: considering what I know about historical sensationalism and propaganda. Just
24:00
Speaker 1: feels like it's deliberately removed, That's what I'm saying. Just
24:03
Speaker 1: feels like that. And so the afternoon edition of the
24:07
Speaker 1: Tulsa Tribune rolls off the presses by three pm on
24:13
Speaker 1: the thirty first of May, and within hours, whispers spread
24:18
Speaker 1: through both the white and black communities that a lynching
24:23
Speaker 1: was happening that very evening. And with that, I think
24:28
Speaker 1: it's about time to have a break, meaning you'll either
24:32
Speaker 1: hear a word from our sponsors or perhaps just enjoy
24:35
Speaker 1: a moment of silence. HMM arrested for assaulting a white
24:43
Speaker 1: teenager on the white side of town, even though she
24:47
Speaker 1: said he didn't do it, she didn't press charges, and
24:49
Speaker 1: there was absolutely zero evidence to suggest this actually happened.
24:54
Speaker 1: But of course the newspaper prints whatever story they want,
24:58
Speaker 1: and it's not long before white people start showing up
25:01
Speaker 1: outside the courthouse, and by sunset, there are hundreds of
25:06
Speaker 1: angry white people gathering outside the courthouse. At twenty past
25:11
Speaker 1: eight in the evening, that is twenty twenty hours for
25:17
Speaker 1: those of you in military time, three white men storm
25:22
Speaker 1: into the courthouse and demand that Dick Rowland be handed
25:25
Speaker 1: over to them, and the authorities say no, They just
25:32
Speaker 1: flat out refuse to hand him over. Meanwhile, while the
25:36
Speaker 1: crowd is rabbling outside, the black community over in Greenwood
25:41
Speaker 1: are trying to figure out the best way to protect
25:44
Speaker 1: Dick and prevent him from being lynched by an angry mob.
25:48
Speaker 1: And of course they're not just about to sit back
25:50
Speaker 1: and let this teenager be modeled. No, So at nine
25:54
Speaker 1: o'clock that night, a group of black men twenty five
25:57
Speaker 1: strong arrive at the courthouse fully armed. They offer their
26:02
Speaker 1: assistance to the police at the courthouse, you know, in
26:04
Speaker 1: case the angry white mob attack and the authorities turn
26:09
Speaker 1: them away. They say that Dick Rowland is safe, there's
26:12
Speaker 1: no need to worry, and he isn't going to be
26:14
Speaker 1: turned over to the angry mob. And in a move
26:18
Speaker 1: that will surprise absolutely no one, the appearance of twenty
26:23
Speaker 1: five armed black men at the courthouse only made the
26:27
Speaker 1: angry white men even angrier. They're like foaming at the
26:31
Speaker 1: mouth at this point, and so they decide to arm themselves,
26:35
Speaker 1: as if some weren't packing already. But there's even this
26:39
Speaker 1: one group of white fellas who try to break into
26:43
Speaker 1: the National Guard Armory in order to get like into
26:48
Speaker 1: the stash, the Whippon stash, but like they don't make
26:52
Speaker 1: it and they have to just like abandon that plan.
26:54
Speaker 1: But like they try to break into the National Guard Armory.
26:59
Speaker 1: Now on a scale of one to invading Russia in
27:02
Speaker 1: the winter, that is squarely in the going to war
27:05
Speaker 1: with amuse section. But this whole situation is not settling down.
27:12
Speaker 1: It just keeps escalating and escalating. Like there's this crowd
27:18
Speaker 1: of white people who are absolutely livid or because this
27:22
Speaker 1: newspaper pushed this false narrative that this young black man
27:27
Speaker 1: assaulted this young white woman even though she said it
27:31
Speaker 1: didn't happen, and the mob just keeps multiplying like a
27:35
Speaker 1: fucking virus. Because it's not just men. You've got women
27:40
Speaker 1: and children. And at one point there's like nearly two
27:42
Speaker 1: thousand white people there in this just rabble, and you've
27:47
Speaker 1: got the police chief and the sheriff just trying to
27:52
Speaker 1: talk sense into the crowd, trying to get them to disperse,
27:55
Speaker 1: but they are bying for blood. So the sheriff, Willed mcculloor,
28:00
Speaker 1: goes into a crystal maze level of protection. He has
28:04
Speaker 1: deputies on the roof with the rifles. He disables the
28:07
Speaker 1: lift inside the building, and he has deputies armed standing
28:13
Speaker 1: around Dick Rowland in a circle on the very top
28:17
Speaker 1: floor of the courthouse. He even commanded the deputies to
28:21
Speaker 1: shoot any intruders on site because if anybody got in there,
28:26
Speaker 1: Dick Rowland was ending up dead. And it's good the
28:30
Speaker 1: sheriff was actually doing his job because the police chief,
28:33
Speaker 1: John A. Gustafson, he says, they told them mob to
28:37
Speaker 1: go home, but he didn't actually dispatch any of his
28:41
Speaker 1: police force and bring any of them in to assist
28:43
Speaker 1: the sheriff or you know, help the situation in any way.
28:47
Speaker 1: He just sends up sodd and back off to police
28:49
Speaker 1: headquarters and tells the sheriff just to deal with it.
28:52
Speaker 1: By ten PM, a group of around fifty to sixty
28:56
Speaker 1: black men from Green would arrive, all armed with shotguns
29:00
Speaker 1: and rifles. These guys they go over to the courthouse
29:03
Speaker 1: and they offer to support the sheriff's department, and they
29:07
Speaker 1: refused again. And this was too much for some white sensibilities.
29:14
Speaker 1: And as these black men are leaving the courthouse, they
29:17
Speaker 1: were attacked by this white fella who was like attempting
29:21
Speaker 1: to disarm one of them. Of course, a struggle ensues,
29:24
Speaker 1: and in that struggle, a gunshot rings out, and that
29:28
Speaker 1: was exactly Now. We don't know whether that first shot
29:31
Speaker 1: was deliberate or accidental, but it is all the angry
29:35
Speaker 1: crowd needed. That one shot was the signal they needed
29:40
Speaker 1: to start shooting. Almost immediately, the angry white mob just
29:45
Speaker 1: starts firing indiscriminately at the black men, who of course
29:50
Speaker 1: returned fire, and in a matter of seconds seconds twenty
29:55
Speaker 1: people lay on the ground dead, both black and white.
30:01
Speaker 1: Don't worry, it gets worse. The African Americans are quite
30:06
Speaker 1: simply outnumbered, like there was what fifty sixty of them
30:10
Speaker 1: to start, and hundreds hundreds of angry white people. The
30:17
Speaker 1: group of black men retreat towards Greenwood, exchanging gunfire with
30:22
Speaker 1: this ever growing angry white avalanche, chasing them as they
30:26
Speaker 1: were treated back over the railway tracks into Greenwood. The
30:29
Speaker 1: hate mob followed, looting stores as they passed in search
30:32
Speaker 1: of additional weapons, ammunition, and murder supplies. Over at the
30:37
Speaker 1: police headquarters on Second Street, which is not part of
30:40
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office of the courthouse, around five hundred white
30:45
Speaker 1: men were sworn in as special deputies to control the situation.
30:50
Speaker 1: This deputized mob were instructed by the police to go
30:53
Speaker 1: get guns and start shooting inwards, and there are reports
30:58
Speaker 1: of the police force just handing out guns to white
31:01
Speaker 1: people instructing them to go fight the blacks. By eleven o'clock,
31:07
Speaker 1: the situation is so severe that the National Guard assembles
31:11
Speaker 1: at the armory trying to figure out how to just
31:13
Speaker 1: subdue the situation because the rioters are out on the
31:18
Speaker 1: streets in droves. White men are literally roaming the streets
31:23
Speaker 1: shooting black men on site, and the rioting continued through
31:27
Speaker 1: the night from the thirty first of May to the
31:29
Speaker 1: first of Gin and Dick Rowland was no longer the
31:32
Speaker 1: target of white rage. No, this had been bubbling for
31:36
Speaker 1: a long time and they finally allowed it to erupt
31:40
Speaker 1: to the surface because Greenwood was a thriving black community,
31:44
Speaker 1: it had money, it was doing well, and this was
31:48
Speaker 1: a group of people, a minority who white people saw
31:52
Speaker 1: as being less than themselves, and they were jealous, jealous
31:57
Speaker 1: that these black people were successful, that they were doing
31:59
Speaker 1: better than them. You see, it's hard to claim that
32:02
Speaker 1: you're superior when the very people you're actively oppressing are
32:06
Speaker 1: doing better than you. Yeah, before they even get into Greenwood,
32:11
Speaker 1: any areas, any neighborhoods where they knew black people lived,
32:15
Speaker 1: they were just shooting indiscriminately into their homes. At one point,
32:20
Speaker 1: they just chase a random black dude down the street
32:23
Speaker 1: into a theater and shut him down on the stage.
32:27
Speaker 1: So infueled was their bloodlust that they didn't care who
32:32
Speaker 1: they killed as long as they were Black men, women,
32:36
Speaker 1: children didn't fucking matter. An elderly black couple were even
32:40
Speaker 1: shot in their home, execution style, right in the back
32:44
Speaker 1: of the head. By one o'clock in the morning, the
32:47
Speaker 1: angry rioters crossed the tracks and that's when the fire started.
32:52
Speaker 1: They targeted black homes and businesses all over Greenwood, and
32:56
Speaker 1: when the fire department arrived on the scene in an
32:59
Speaker 1: attempt to unit extinguish the blaze, as is their job,
33:03
Speaker 1: they are instead shot at by bigots who are intent
33:07
Speaker 1: on making sure Greenwood burned. By four o'clock in the
33:11
Speaker 1: morning on June Fust, over twenty four homes in businesses
33:16
Speaker 1: had been turned to ash. At this point, the Tulsa
33:20
Speaker 1: National Guard had been officially called out to help the
33:23
Speaker 1: National Guard, which was incidentally all white. These fifty men
33:28
Speaker 1: were dispatched to Greenwood and given a machine gun which
33:32
Speaker 1: was broken, so we could only fire one bullet at
33:35
Speaker 1: a time, which is a very lucky happenstance, because otherwise
33:39
Speaker 1: a lot more people would have ended up dead. The
33:41
Speaker 1: National Guard set up a skirmish line facing the Black
33:46
Speaker 1: district who start rounding up black people and handing them
33:49
Speaker 1: over to the police. At five am, a train carrying
33:54
Speaker 1: one hundred National Guard soldiers heads for Tulsa from Oklahoma
33:59
Speaker 1: City at request of the governor JBA Robertson, who was
34:03
Speaker 1: really hoping that by daybreak this whole thing will have
34:06
Speaker 1: settled down. Spoiler alert, it had not settled down, because
34:14
Speaker 1: it wasn't until around five o'clock in the morning that
34:17
Speaker 1: the mob really begins to invade Greenwood. Like before this,
34:22
Speaker 1: black people and their families actually had some chance to flee,
34:27
Speaker 1: dodging bullets as they ran, or like defend themselves. But
34:32
Speaker 1: now the angry white mob was just swarming in annihilating
34:37
Speaker 1: everything in its path. In the ground, they broke into
34:40
Speaker 1: black homes and businesses, forcing anybody inside out, who were
34:45
Speaker 1: all marched off to convention haul at gunpoint, and anyone
34:49
Speaker 1: who resisted was shopped. Homes were being looted and then
34:54
Speaker 1: set ablaze. Entire streets in neighborhoods were on fire. Meanwhile, overhead,
35:03
Speaker 1: about a dozen planes that had been launched from a
35:05
Speaker 1: nearby airfield, all manned by white people, were circling above
35:10
Speaker 1: Greenwood and dropping burning turpentine balls onto businesses to quote
35:17
Speaker 1: finish the job. And at this point most of the
35:20
Speaker 1: city's black residents had fled because they had no other choice,
35:27
Speaker 1: because any attempt that the black community made to try
35:30
Speaker 1: and protect their businesses or their homes was undercut by
35:35
Speaker 1: the National Guard and the police who were just marching
35:39
Speaker 1: them off to be imprisoned. And the white people involved
35:43
Speaker 1: in this riot, the actual rioters, they weren't being punished,
35:48
Speaker 1: they weren't even being disarmed. They tried to say that
35:52
Speaker 1: they were rounding up black folks for their safety, but like, well, no,
35:56
Speaker 1: that's not true. It was to make it easier to
35:59
Speaker 1: just this community. At eleven thirty a m. On the
36:03
Speaker 1: first of June nineteen twenty one, the governor declares martial law.
36:10
Speaker 1: But at that point the rioting had pretty much fizzled
36:15
Speaker 1: out because you know, destroying neighborhoods is tiring stuff, and
36:19
Speaker 1: they've been up all night, so they were they were done.
36:22
Speaker 1: A lot of them were done, you know. Now, of
36:24
Speaker 1: course some people continued, because of course they did, because
36:27
Speaker 1: our souls be arsehole in. Now, because martial law had
36:31
Speaker 1: been enacted, the National Guard starts to actually disarm the
36:34
Speaker 1: white rioters and send them home. Now, they do arrest
36:40
Speaker 1: thirty white men for pillaging that afternoon, not you know,
36:46
Speaker 1: murder or arson pillaging. By eight o'clock that night, on
36:53
Speaker 1: June the first, it is declared that order has been restored.
36:59
Speaker 1: Order has been restored in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But the damage
37:05
Speaker 1: was done and lives were changed forever. Over the course
37:10
Speaker 1: of that one night, over twelve hundred homes and two
37:14
Speaker 1: hundred businesses had been torched. Around six thousand of Tulsa's
37:19
Speaker 1: black residents had been rounded up illegally and imprisoned. More
37:24
Speaker 1: than eight hundred people were treated for injuries, and thirty
37:28
Speaker 1: five blocks of the city had been destroyed. Now, the
37:32
Speaker 1: Oklahoma Bureau of Vito Statistics reported that the death toll
37:38
Speaker 1: was thirty six people. Now, any historian or archaeologist worth
37:43
Speaker 1: their salt, I'll tell you that that number is undeniably false.
37:49
Speaker 1: That is a pretend number, a number that was pulled
37:53
Speaker 1: out of somebody's ass, so that the city of Tulsa
37:57
Speaker 1: and the state of Oklahoma have to admit the true
38:02
Speaker 1: extent of this massacre. Now, we will never know how
38:06
Speaker 1: many people actually lost their lives during the Tulsa race riots,
38:11
Speaker 1: because in the days following the riots, loads of people
38:14
Speaker 1: were buried without proper documentation. When the black people who
38:18
Speaker 1: were not detained tried to return to their homes in Greenwood,
38:22
Speaker 1: they had no idea if they were returning to just
38:25
Speaker 1: a shell of a house or whether their home had
38:28
Speaker 1: been completely totaled any home that was still standing had
38:34
Speaker 1: been completely looted. And then, of course we have those
38:38
Speaker 1: who were detained. Thousands of black people were marched through
38:41
Speaker 1: the streets and taken to McNulty Park or Convention Hall,
38:45
Speaker 1: and some were transported to the fear grounds at Admiral
38:48
Speaker 1: Boulevard and Lewis Avenue and even the very next day,
38:53
Speaker 1: instead of you know, protecting these people, the National Guard
38:57
Speaker 1: was out patrolling the countryside to see if they could
39:00
Speaker 1: find any Greenwood residents. And quite a lot of these
39:04
Speaker 1: people required medical attention, so they had to just make
39:08
Speaker 1: this makeshift clinic at the National Guard Armory, like specifically
39:13
Speaker 1: for black people. And there were so many people that
39:16
Speaker 1: needed aid. They actually had to use some of the
39:20
Speaker 1: beds in the White hospital for people who had the
39:24
Speaker 1: worst injuries. Because along with the homes and the businesses,
39:30
Speaker 1: they also torched the hospital. Tulsa's Black Hospital was turned
39:35
Speaker 1: to ash. Around five thousand people were detained in the
39:40
Speaker 1: Fairground camp and the majority of these were held for days,
39:45
Speaker 1: and some were even kept there for weeks, and a
39:49
Speaker 1: lot of them were just kept there until a white
39:52
Speaker 1: person came and vouched for them, and they had to
39:55
Speaker 1: get like a special pass to let them like come
39:57
Speaker 1: in and out with a fairground because you know, if
39:59
Speaker 1: they wanted to go to work or whatever, that was
40:02
Speaker 1: something they could do. But you know, they couldn't go
40:04
Speaker 1: home because their home had been destroyed, so they'd have
40:07
Speaker 1: to come back to the camp. Also, in addition, furthermore,
40:12
Speaker 1: it's not the National Guard that's providing aid and assistance
40:16
Speaker 1: in the fairground camp. It's the Red Cross. Now, the
40:21
Speaker 1: Red Cross doesn't usually conduct relief efforts in man made disasters,
40:26
Speaker 1: except in times of war, but it showed up here.
40:31
Speaker 1: What does that tell you? They stay for months just
40:35
Speaker 1: providing healthcare and support and aid for these people. Meanwhile,
40:41
Speaker 1: it doesn't take long for the officials, the higher up
40:44
Speaker 1: the government in Tulsa to start a twisting their own
40:49
Speaker 1: narrative and blaming the Greenwood residents for this whole situation happening.
40:54
Speaker 1: A grand jury is assembled to investigate, and they were
40:58
Speaker 1: told that the crowd said the courthouse, we're not an
41:01
Speaker 1: angry mob, but we're simply curiosity seekers, spectators. And the
41:09
Speaker 1: next thing you know, a bunch of angry black men
41:13
Speaker 1: showed up with guns and every single white man involved
41:20
Speaker 1: in this riot was given immunity. That's right. The state
41:24
Speaker 1: and the city covered it up, and they covered it
41:28
Speaker 1: up for years. They pushed this false narrative. They blamed
41:32
Speaker 1: black people for being attacked by white people because of
41:37
Speaker 1: their own racial bias and false sense of superiority. And
41:43
Speaker 1: the officials do everything they can to remove this information,
41:46
Speaker 1: like you can't find microfilms on it. You're lucky if
41:50
Speaker 1: you find a newspaper, Like a lot of this information
41:54
Speaker 1: was just removed, destroyed, hidden, and that is the case
41:58
Speaker 1: for a long time. And to just rub salt in
42:03
Speaker 1: the wind. The officials say they want to help the
42:06
Speaker 1: Greenwood residents like rebuild their area, you know, rebuild the neighborhood,
42:10
Speaker 1: so on and so forth, and the Red Cross they
42:14
Speaker 1: actually like advise the residents like not to sell their land,
42:18
Speaker 1: like don't sell it because like alarm bells. This is
42:21
Speaker 1: dodgy as fuck, right, because the officials the government they say, oh, no,
42:26
Speaker 1: you can't like build homes there. We want it to
42:28
Speaker 1: be used for industry instead, because they create all of
42:33
Speaker 1: these like wild fire codes in the area which make
42:37
Speaker 1: it virtually impossible or like it's crazy expensive to actually
42:43
Speaker 1: build homes there. And the Red Cross is like trying
42:47
Speaker 1: to convince them to do this, to like just rebuild
42:49
Speaker 1: your homes. But if they rebuilt homes in the area,
42:54
Speaker 1: like they could be arrested, Like it was this whole
42:58
Speaker 1: just a robberous of villainy. And so these activists get
43:03
Speaker 1: involved and they try and help the black community like
43:05
Speaker 1: rebuild Greenwood, and you know, their lawyers pay bail to
43:09
Speaker 1: get them out, and then another hurdle, another block because
43:16
Speaker 1: insurance companies are refusing to pay out because they're like, hmm,
43:20
Speaker 1: it's an exemption because of this, because of that, like
43:23
Speaker 1: every excuse in the book, because again they're blaming these
43:26
Speaker 1: people for their homes being destroyed. But what about our
43:30
Speaker 1: two initial players in this, I hear you ask, Well,
43:34
Speaker 1: the charges are dropped against Dick Rowland at the request
43:37
Speaker 1: of Sarah Page, and then they both just kind of disappear,
43:43
Speaker 1: like they leave Tulsa and after that there's like little
43:46
Speaker 1: to no record of them, and so they're gone, which
43:50
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't blame them for because it's reported
43:55
Speaker 1: that three hundred people died during this massacre. And you know,
44:00
Speaker 1: you've got all these different whispers and reports and theories
44:05
Speaker 1: about what happened to all these bodies. Some reports say
44:09
Speaker 1: that the corpses were placed on trains and just like
44:14
Speaker 1: couriled out of Tulsa to be dumped somewhere else. Other
44:17
Speaker 1: reports suggest they were cremated or chucked into the Arkansas River.
44:23
Speaker 1: And of course one of the most prevailing theories is
44:28
Speaker 1: that of a mass grave or graves and they think
44:33
Speaker 1: they might have actually discovered at least one of them,
44:37
Speaker 1: but we're still waiting on testing to see. Tulsa tried
44:41
Speaker 1: so hard to cover this up for years, for almost
44:46
Speaker 1: a century, they tried to keep this hidden, but the
44:50
Speaker 1: truth will always out. Secrets don't stay buried forever. And
44:56
Speaker 1: now I know for some of you, you listen to
44:58
Speaker 1: this and you just want to hear the dark, terrible
45:01
Speaker 1: tales from history. But history is real. It's real people,
45:06
Speaker 1: real lives, real lived experiences, and it's our duty as
45:15
Speaker 1: fucking humans to not hide from the hard trips, to
45:22
Speaker 1: tell these stories honestly and truthfully, and to call out
45:26
Speaker 1: the bullshit, and to like actively try to make sure
45:30
Speaker 1: this shit doesn't happen again. Because in Tulsa, it wasn't
45:34
Speaker 1: a minority that was attacking people. It was a minority
45:38
Speaker 1: that was helping them. The majority was the mob. We're attacking,
45:44
Speaker 1: we're destroying because these people had more than they had
45:51
Speaker 1: and they felt justified. And so ends the tale of
45:57
Speaker 1: the Tulsa race massacre. Typically, this is the part of
46:02
Speaker 1: the episode where I would ask you to rate and
46:04
Speaker 1: review five stars, which honestly great, I would love you too,
46:10
Speaker 1: But it also feels really weird to do so when
46:13
Speaker 1: I'm talking about something so awful, and I understand it
46:17
Speaker 1: can be a bit weird hearing this kind of history
46:20
Speaker 1: from someone like me whose foundations shared is Victorian ghost.
46:25
Speaker 1: But the truth of the matter is, I'm a historian.
46:29
Speaker 1: I talk about history. I talk about history that's been hidden,
46:32
Speaker 1: stuff that's been twisted, propaganda, push through, or just sensationalized.
46:39
Speaker 1: And this is all of it. It's all here. And
46:44
Speaker 1: if my voice helps even a little bit, provides that information,
46:48
Speaker 1: shares this story even a smidge more, and I'll fucking
46:54
Speaker 1: shout from the rooftops because history is important, the good
46:58
Speaker 1: and the fucking horrific. But yes, you can follow me
47:03
Speaker 1: on socials. I interact more on Instagram than anywhere else,
47:06
Speaker 1: although people are watching more of TikTok, which is interesting.
47:10
Speaker 1: That's kind of been dead for a while, but it
47:12
Speaker 1: seems to be doing its thing. Anyway, Come see me
47:17
Speaker 1: at Redline. It'll be more optimistic than this, at least
47:21
Speaker 1: a teeny winy tiny bit. But it is recommendation time,
47:25
Speaker 1: So before I go, I'm going to recommend for reading
47:31
Speaker 1: a deadly inside scoop. For watching, I'm going to suggest
47:36
Speaker 1: something that's just you know, a little bit lighthearted, a
47:39
Speaker 1: little bit easier to digest, abit elementary and for listening,
47:47
Speaker 1: and for listening, I'm thinking affirmative murder. Okay, So with that,
47:56
Speaker 1: I shall bid you good night, Adios revoir. If we
48:01
Speaker 1: design my friends, Bye bye,