Death in a Promised Land (20 page)

NOTES

PRELUDE
In the Promised Land

1
. For a discussion of the contents of the May 31, 1921, issue of the Tulsa
Tribune,
see pages 47–48, herein.

2
. The primary source for this Prelude is an interview with W. D. Williams—“Bill” Williams—on June 7, 1978, in Tulsa.

3
. A tabulation of racial violence in America which includes race riots is to be found in Richard Maxwell Brown,
Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 320–26.

4
. William Tuttle,
Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919
(New York: Atheneum, 1972), 268.

Chapter 1: Boom Cities

1
. United States Bureau of the Census,
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 1
(Washington D. C: Government Printing Office, 1975), 24–37; Simon Kuznets and Dorothy Swaine Thomas,
Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States, 1870–1950, Vol. I
(Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1957), 92.

2
. William Butler, Tulsa 75:
A History of Tulsa
(Tulsa: Metropolitan Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, 1974), 27, 155; James Monroe Hall,
The Beginning of Tulsa
(Tulsa: Scott-Rice Company, 1928), 3;
1929 Consolidated Building Directory with City Map of Tulsa, Oklahoma
(n.p., n.p., n.d.), 1;
Tulsa City Directory, 1921
(Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1921), 8.

3
. A. V. Bourque, “The Story of Tulsa Is the Story of Oil,”
Tulsa Spirit,
October, 1924, p. 16; C. Vann Woodward,
Origins of the New South, 1877–1913
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951), 302–303; Butler,
Tulsa
75, 41.

4
. Hall,
Beginning of Tulsa,
3; Butler,
Tulsa 75,
41, 45, 47.

5. Butler,
Tulsa 75,
47, 49; Bourque, “The Story of Tulsa Is the Story of Oil,” 16; Angie Debo,
Tulsa: From Creek Town to Oil Capital
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943), 98.

6
. In 1909, the city government purchased the bridge which spanned the Arkansas River and established it as a “toll free route,” thus further facilitating travel between Tulsa and the nearby oil fields. Butler,
Tulsa 75,
49, 156.

7
.
Tulsa and West Tulsa, Oklahoma, Directory for 1909
(Tulsa: Burkhart Printing and Stationary Company, 1909), 16–22; Butler,
Tulsa 75,
51–53.

8
. Kuznets and Thomas,
Population Redistribution and Economic Growth,
I, 617, and III, 200.

9
. Tulsa
World,
September 5, 1920, p. A2.

10
. Debo, Tulsa, 44, 56–57. See also Arthur L. Tolson,
The Black Oklahomans: A History, 1541–1972
(New Orleans: Edwards Printing Company, 1972).

11
.
Tulsa City Directory, 1916
(Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1916), 34; Tulsa
City Directory, 1922
(Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1922), 15. See Appendix I.

12
.
Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900,
manuscript schedules for Tulsa, Creek County, Indian Territory, Vol. XV, 78A-89A, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

13
. Oklahoma
Eagle,
September 9, 1968, p. 14; Tulsa
World,
February 13, 1972, p. A8; Tulsa
Guide,
September 8,1906, pp. 1–2; Tulsa
City Directory, 1907
(Tulsa: Tulsa OK Press, 1907), 17–24.

14
.
Tulsa City Directories
for 1910, 1911, and 1913 (Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1910–1913). Tulsa County’s illiteracy rate for all blacks ten years old and older in 1910 was 8.3 percent, whereas the state and national rates for the same group were 17.7 percent and 30.4 percent, respectively. United States Bureau of the Census,
Negro Population, 1790–1915
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918), 102, 404, 826–27; Tulsa
Weekly Planet,
July 18, 1912, p. 3. See Appendix II.

15
. Henry Whitlow, “The History of the Greenwood Era in Tulsa,” a paper presented to the Tulsa County Historical Society, March 29, 1973, p. 5. Greenwood Avenue most likely was named after Greenwood, Mississippi. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa.

16
.
Tulsa City Directories
for 1919 and 1921 (Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1919 and 1921); United States Bureau of the Census,
Negroes in the United States, 1920–1932
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1935), 797; “The Lesson of Tulsa,”
Outlook,
CXXVIII (June 15, 1921), 281; Walter F. White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,”
Nation,
CXII (June 29, 1921), 909–910.

17
. “Take Me Back to Tulsa,” melody by Bob Wills, words by Tommy Duncan, copyright 1941 by Peer International; copyright renewed 1968 by Mrs. Tommy [Ardith Marie] Duncan. Charles R. Townsend,
San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), 207–208.

18
. Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa; and V. H. Hodge, June 12, 1978, Tulsa;
Tulsa City Directory, 1921
(Tulsa: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1921); Mary E. Jones Parrish,
Events of the Tulsa Disaster
(n.p., n.p., n.d.), 7; Norman L. Crockett,
The Black Towns
(Lawrence, Kansas: Regents Press of Kansas, 1979), 35.

19
. Interviews with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa; and B. E. Caruthers, July 21,1978, Tulsa County. It may be of interest to note that whites were sometimes found in “choc” joints in black Tulsa when such places were raided by the police. Miscellaneous “Statement of Barney Cleaver” [TS], Civil Case 1062, Oklahoma State Attorney Generals Collection, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma City.

The scientific name for Choctaw root is
Apocynum cannabium
. Mitford M. Mathews (ed.),
A Dictionary of Americanisms: On Historical Principles
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 319. I am indebted to Dr. James R. Estes, curator of the Robert Bebb Herbarium at the University of Oklahoma, for explaining the distinction between
Apocynum cannabium
and
Cannibus sativa
(marijuana).

20
. Interviews with Seymour Williams, June 2,1978, Tulsa, and W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; Tulsa
City Directory, 1921;
Parrish,
Events of the Tulsa Disaster,
98–106; White, “The Eruption of Tulsa,” 910.

21
.
Tulsa City Directory, 1921;
Interviews with Henry Whitlow, June 6, 1978, Tulsa; W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa; and Robert Fairchild, June 8, 1978, Tulsa.

22
. Interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa;
Tulsa City Directory, 1921
.

Chapter 2: Race Relations and Local Violence

1
. John Hope Franklin,
From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans
(4th ed.; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974], 357; Richard Maxwell Brown,
Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 324–25.

2
. Of the sixty-four persons lynched in 1921, at least four were burned alive, seventeen were shot, and two were drowned. Monroe N. Work to Walter F. White, July 18, 1921, and, “Lynching Record for 1921,” Administrative Files, Box C-338, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Monroe N. Work (ed.),
Negro Year Book: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1925–1926
(Tuskegee Institute, Alabama: Negro Year Book Publishing Company, 1925), 52–53.

3
. Quoted in Theodore G. Vincent (ed.),
Voices of a Black Nation: Political Journalism of the Harlem Renaissance
(San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1973), 52–53.

4
. C. Vann Woodward,
The Strange Career of Jim Crow
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), 100–101; Marc Karson and Ronald Radosh, “The American Federation of Labor and the Negro Worker,” in Julius Jacobson (ed.),
The Negro and the American Labor Movement
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1968], 159–60; August Meier and Elliott Rudwick,
From Plantation to Ghetto
(Rev. ed.; New York: Hill and Wang, 1970), 218.

5
. Sigmund Sameth, “Creek Indians: A Study of Race Relations” (M.A. thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1940), 56; Kay M. Teall (ed.),
Black History in Oklahoma: A Resource Book
(Oklahoma City: Oklahoma City Public Schools, 1971), 167–73; Edwin S. Redkey,
Black Exodus: Black Nationalist and Back-to-Africa Movements, 1890–1910
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 99–100; Nell Irvin Painter,
Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), 153, 259.

6
. Teall,
Black History in Oklahoma, 172,
202–204; William Bittle and Gilbert L. Geis, “Racial Self-Fulfillment and the Rise of an All-Negro Community in Oklahoma,” in August Meier and Elliott Rudwick (eds.),
The Making of Black America
(New York: Atheneum, 1969), II, 109; interview with W. D. Williams, June 7, 1978, Tulsa.