The Difference A Day Made I (a “missing” post, that is also very timely) July 29, 2021

[This is the “seriously missing” post for Memorial Day, May 31^st, that is also timely. You can request an audio recording of either practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email me at myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

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“Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs.”

– Walt Whitman writing about the new game, baseball, in the Brooklyn Eagle (07/23/1846)

Those are the words of Walt Whitman. Born May 31, 1819, the “Bard of Democracy” who is also known as the father of “free verse,” was inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson to be the voice of America – and he endeavored to do so, to speak for and about all who crossed this land, your land, regardless of ethnicity, race, sex, gender, or  anything else. In the preface to Leaves of Grass he wrote, “… read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book…”

Following Whitman’s advice can be a tricky thing, because no one has the same experience on the same day every year; time forces us to overlap experiences. So, while some consider Memorial Day a time “to get better air in our lungs” and a time for holiday sales; others are remembering, memorializing, veterans who were lost during wars and conflicts here and abroad. But, time is tricky, and the fact that Memorial Day doesn’t happen on the exact same date every year, means that (this year) some people were remembering George Floyd – as well as the protests and riots that erupted after he was killed. Still others were remembering a Memorial Day 100 years (and a day) ago – Memorial Day 1921, when a 19-year old shoe shine boy known as Dick Rowland got on an elevator operated by a girl known as Sarah Page (who was reported as being 17 years old, but may have actually been 21) and what happened next set-off a riot and massacre the ramifications of which people are still experiencing today. As we move through the practice, I will endeavor – as Walt Whitman did – to speak for and of those who no longer speak.

Going back as far as the 1800’s, people in the South had regular communion with the dead. You can read more about how those traditions evolved into our modern day observation of Memorial Day here.

No one knows for sure what happened that day, other than that on a holiday when they were both working, “Diamond Dick Rowland” took his only means of transportation to go to a segregated bathroom and something startled Sara, making her scream and him run – after all, she was white, he was Black and they were in an enclosed area.

No one knows for sure what happened but, by all accounts, there was no assault – sexual or otherwise – committed by Dick (who was Black) and Sara (who was white) never claimed that there was. However, there were rumors and innuendo, and “Diamond Dick” was arrested. A front page story in the Tulsa Tribune stated that he was arrested for sexual assault and – as was a common occurrence at the time, when a Black man or boy was arrested (especially if it was related to the harming of a white woman or girl) – a lynch party gathered at the jail. In this case, the sheriff (Willard McCullough) told the group to go home that their presence was unnecessary. He even moved the young man in order to protect him (and possibly kept him hidden even after the riots).

Another thing that was different was the presence, in segregated Tulsa, of a prominent Black community – a thriving community of businesses and residences that, in some ways, was independent of the white community. Established in 1906 by O. W. Gurley (who relocated during the 1889 Land Rush), the area was called the Greenwood District and it sat in Indian Territory. Today, we remember it is as “Black Wall Street.” Some members of this Black community, including some World War I veterans newly returned from the war, showed up to support and protect one of their own. Of course, conflict arose, a shot was fired, someone died, and in a matter of hours – from May 31^st to June 1^st – a whole community was destroyed.

Ted Turner’s CNN (Cable News Network) premiered Sunday, June 1, 1980, at 5 PM EST; making it the first 24-hour news channel and the first all-news television in the United States. While other news channels made fun of the new outlet, CNN stayed focused (with the slogan “Go live, stay with it, and make it important.”) and changed the way government made and addressed policy and also the way people interacted with each other and the news. There was no such thing back in 1921, but you can read more about the CNN Effect here.

Martial law was declared. The National Guard came in to squash the violence, but it was too late to save the Greenwood District; too late to save those who had died and too late to save the homes of those who were displaced. The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics and a 2001 Oklahoma state commission both recorded 36 confirmed deaths (26 Black and 10 white) as a result of the Tulsa Massacre. However, historians have offered a wide range of estimated deaths and injuries, estimates that go all the up to 300. The Red Cross repeatedly stated “there was no reliable way of accounting for people that died” and indicated that, because of the ensuing cover-up and mass burials, any recorded numbers were sheer conjecture. However, the Red Cross officially documented and offered estimates of damages: approximately 1,256 houses were burned (some by firebombs dropped by airplanes); 215 others were looted (but not torched); 2 newspapers, a school, and a number of churches, hotels, stores, and black-owned business destroyed or damaged by fire.

Because Tulsa was segregated and the Black Frissell Memorial Hospital (established in 1918) was one of the places that burned down, very few Blacks were actually taken to the hospital. This just added to the confusion. Some people were treated in the basement Morningside Hospital, which had also been established in 1918 (because of the influenza pandemic) and the Red Cross registered 8,624 people (about 2,480 families) as being affected. Of that number, “183 people were hospitalized [see above]; 531 required first aid or surgical treatment;” and 19 people died from their injuries by the end of the year. Additionally, eight miscarriages were attributed to the massacre.

The National Guard helped put out fires, but a lot of their energy was dedicated to rounding up and “capturing” Black Tulsans. By June 2^nd, approximately 6,000 Black people were under guard at the fairgrounds and convention hall. An all-white jury blamed the “riot” on “Black mobs” and indicted over 85 individuals, however no one was convicted of anything. Just as happened after public lynchings, photographs of corpses, Black Tulsans being captured, and Black people attempting to recover their belongings from their ravaged homes were turned into postcards.

“When the bullets stopped flying and the fires ceased on June 2, Tulsa Mayor T. D. Evans sent a short communication to the Red Cross Society:

‘To the Red Cross Society:

Please establish headquarters for all relief work and bring all organizations who can assist you to your aid. The responsibility is placed in your hands entirely.

T. D. Evans, Mayor’

Director of Disaster Relief Maurice Willows arrived in Tulsa with the stated purpose of ‘picking up the fragments – the relief of human suffering – the care of the sick and wounded, and bringing order out of the chaos.”

– quoted from the Rediscovering Black History article “‘The Responsibility is Placed in Your Hands Entirely’ – Red Cross Relief after the Tulsa Race Massacre” by Netisha Currie, archives specialist at the National Archives in College Park (which also appeared in The National Council of Social Studies’ Social Education (volume 85, no. 1)

The white citizens who actually carried out the destruction were not arrested, as most of them (approximately 400) had been deputized by Police Commissioner J. M. Adkison and Chief of Police John A. Gustafson. Over half of those deputized (at least 250) were also armed by the chief – who would later be investigated for a plethora of corruption violations. The chief of police was ultimately indicted (on five counts) and, on July 30, 1921, found guilty of two counts: failing to stop and conspiracy and fraud/embezzlement in a different situation. He went to jail for the latter count. Since “Diamond Dick” reappears on the jail rosters after John Gustafson’s conviction, some believe the young Black man was kept hidden because of the chief’s corruption (and his part in a previous lynching).

All charges and indictments against “Diamond Dick” were eventually dropped. It is believed that he fled Tulsa after his release at the end of September 1921, possibly with assistance from the Sheriff Willard McCullough and his deputy Barney Cleaver (who had been Tulsa’s first African-American police office – until he was fired by police chief Gustafson). Although no one seemed certain about what happened to “Diamond Dick,” sightings were reported in Kansas City, Missouri; South Omaha, Nebraska; back in Tulsa; and – as late as the 1960’s – in Oregon. Some of the confusion about what happened to the man at the center of the events that lead to the destruction of Black Wall Street may be due to a name change. It has been reported (by several sources, including by Tulsa-based This Land Press in May 2013) that the shoe shining teenager may have actually been named James Jones and that people called him “Jimmie” Jones until he changed his surname to Roland, to honor the adopted grandparents who helped raise him. He appears in the police custody logs as “Dick Rolland” (with an exta “L”), but Dick Roland is the name which appears on his sworn affidavit from September 1921. At some point, he decided he liked Dick more than James or Jimmie – although one classmate said that he also went by “Johnny.” According to This Land Press, the extra “w” in the young man’s name was a mistake made by reporters.

Reports about Sarah Page were just as convoluted – especially after she refused to press charges against “Diamond Dick” (who, again, by all legitimate accounts, didn’t do anything illegal). According to the Tulsa-based Center for Public Secrets, records show a Sarah “Sarie” Elizabeth Beaver born in Arkansas on July 27, 1899, who married and divorced twice – first married to Robert H. Fisk in March 1918 (divorced by January 1920) and then married to Raymond M. Page in Missouri in February 1920. The Pages divorced after a 1-year waiting period, in 1921, and Sarah’s divorce petition was served by Tulsa County Sheriff Willard McCullough (yes, the one and only), who would falsely malign her character. Her second divorce was decreed on June 4, 1921 at which point she returned to Missouri and the name “Sarah Bever.” After testifying as a witness during the grand jury investigation into the Tulsa massacre, returned to Tulsa in September 1921 and eventually married Fred E. Voorhies (who had also testified during the grand jury). The 1940 census shows a couple fitting their stats living in California, and having a daughter named Sue. Additional records indicate that lived out their remaining days together.

“On Thursday morning, June 2, 1921, one of Tulsa’s many problems was that of optics. A large chunk of the city had been obliterated in a matter of hours and an embarrassingly large portion of the city’s population had a hand in the obliterating. How this was going to look to outsiders was far from an irrelevant concern for many Tulsans, especially the city’s elite for whom pride in the city’s accomplishments was keen…. Would businesses go elsewhere? Would other ‘better citizens’ from other places look down their noses?”

– quoted from The Center for Public Secrets Journal article entitled, “Mask of Atonement: The Plan to Rebuild the Homes of Greenwood” by Randy Hopkins

Efforts to rebuild Black Wall Street were hampered by trauma, a lack of resources, a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, and the fact that many of the 35 blocks previously designated as the Greenwood District were co-opted by the city. Some Black survivors fled Tulsa and never returned. Those that stayed lived in tents as they tried to rebuild and, subsequently, were referred to as “destitute.” Meanwhile, national news outlets immediately started running front page headlines stating that Tulsa would rebuild the homes, in a way that served as “an atonement for the harm done,” and that Tulsa would serve as an example for other cities in the country. Public fundraising efforts kicked off immediately, but barely any of the funds made it to the Greenwood residents and, by June 4^th, the Associated Press was telling major news outlets not to donate. A committee of seven, which would eventually name itself the Board of Public Welfare, was referred to as the “reparations committee” – knowing good and well there were no reparations, because they were not only telling people not to donate, they were returning some of the donations.

While city officials were publicly applauded for assisting the impoverished, white developers (with the backing of the mayor) attempted to enact city (fire) ordinances and get new zoning in place that would have prevented Blacks from rebuilding in what was considered prime real estate. The Oklahoma Supreme Court deemed the primary ordinance unconstitutional; but, constantly battling restrictions in how and what residents could build created more and more setbacks. It was also demoralizing. Even though they were backed and supported by their “angels of mercy” (as the called the Red Cross), Black residents found themselves up against the interests (and substantial efforts) of the mayor and the all-white reconstructing committee that wanted a larger “industrial” separation between the races.

The committee wanted Black residents to sign over their land to a holding company so that the land could be appraised by a white appraisal committee, which would then pay the Black citizens at the lower industrial-zoned value – even though the property was residentially zoned. Naturally, the Black citizens balked; but, to little avail. By the time the Red Cross pulled out of Tulsa, 700 “semi-permanent buildings and homes” had been constructed, but 49 families were still living in “tent-homes.” Over the next decade, a smaller, less elegant Black Wall Street emerged. The difference in size was partially due to the fact that city officials expanded earlier plans for a small rail hub. They used the destruction of Black Wall Street as an excuse to construct Tulsa Union Depot, a large rail hub connecting three major railroads traveling through Oklahoma and onward to Missouri, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and California.

The construction of Tulsa Union Depot cost $3.5 million dollars, which was paid by a bond passed in 1927. (And trust me when I tell you don’t want me to get into Tulsa’s history with bonds right now.) The Depot was hailed as “the single best [Public Works Administration] symbol of hope for economic recovery during the bleak days of the depression” and opened in 1931 to crowd of at least 60,000 people. It operated as a train station until 1967; was purchased by a private company in 1980; and was renovated (by the same contractor company that built it). In 1983, it re-opened as a privately held office complex. In 2004, the county purchased the building for $2.2 million and used $4 million for renovations. After an internal transfer (between different divisions within the county), the Tulsa County Industrial Authority (TCIA) signed a 99-year lease with the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. The Jazz Hall’s lease was for $1, with the stipulation that they would pay (the city) for operating expenses. As of 2020, the space was in the middle of a legal dispute that will ultimately cost millions to resolve.

I don’t know if you’re keeping track, but that last paragraph detailed almost $10 million that was spent on something other than rebuilding the Greenwood District – and it does not account for any revenue earned by the city because of the depot. In many ways, you could say the initiative to build the Depot was the very opposite of Ujamaa (“Cooperative Economics”), the fourth principle of Kwanzaa.

“The extent of aid and relief, as in many aspects of the Red Cross work, stopped short of a supportive hand. Survivors of the massacre were only supplied the lumber to rebuild their homes; for labor they had only themselves to rely on and any other able-bodied friends who could pitch in. Greenwood, once lined with homes ranging from fancy mansions to modest well-kept abodes, resembled a shantytown emerging from a way.”

– quoted from the Rediscovering Black History article “‘The Responsibility is Placed in Your Hands Entirely’ – Red Cross Relief after the Tulsa Race Massacre” by Netisha Currie, archives specialist at the National Archives in College Park (which also appeared in The National Council of Social Studies’ Social Education (volume 85, no. 1)

Ujamma is in practice when people within a community buy locally, support local businesses and each other – that’s what Black people were doing in the Greenwood District before it was destroyed. That’s what Black people were doing all around the segregated South. Think about it for a moment and it’s easy to see that it’s what’s happening in most ethnic-minority communities around the country. But that local rallying doesn’t happen so much, any more, in African American communities (comprised of the descendants of emancipated Africans) – and the reason why comes back to what happened to Black Wall Street.

But, people’s hesitancy is not just about the devastation that happened in Tulsa in 1921. It’s also about the devastation that happened in Colfax, Louisiana in April of 1873 (when at least 150 Black men were murdered). It’s about the fact that after Black officials were elected in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898, white supremacists decided to overthrow the Wilmington government and destroy the press – somewhere between 60 – 300 Black people were killed (Again, exact numbers are hard to ascertain when there’s a cover-up that lasts over 100 years.) It’s also about the Atlanta Massacre in 1906 (when at least 100 people were killed) – as well as what happened in Chicago, Illinois; Knoxville, TN; Washington, D.C.; Omaha, Nebraska; and several dozen cities during the “red summer” of 1919.

The “red summer” included what happened in Elaine, Arkansas in 1919 when Black sharecroppers (who outnumbered their white peers) created a union and white people showed up to riot. One white man was shot and killed at the meeting (at least 4 others were killed as things unfolded); anywhere between 50 to 200+ Black people – including veterans and children were also killed. Many of the Black workers were arrested and tortured until they “confessed” to an insurrection that never happened. The imaginary insurrection that never happened was reported by major news outlets, including the New York Times and Arkansas Gazette. Sixty-seven Black men were convicted by an all-white jury and received sentences from 20 years to life. The trial for twelve additional men lasted about 1 hour; at the conclusion of which, the man had been given the death penalty. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took the case all the way to the Supreme Court and ensured the exoneration of the “Elaine 12” – exonerations which were partially based on the 14^th Amendment.

There was also Rosewood, Florida in 1923 – the history of which sounds a lot like Tulsa, plus 102 years. About 150 Black people were killed, but a grand jury and special prosecutor decided there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute any white men that might have been involved in the murders. If you add it up, just using the minimum of the estimates, over 700 people were killed just because they had Black skin and were creating their own little piece of the American dream. Again, that’s the bare minimum and it doesn’t take into account any individuals who were murdered outside of these incidents nor does it include anyone killed during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s.

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

– quoted from the preface to Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

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### PEACE IN, PEACE OUT ###