Class War, USA by Weber Brandon;

Author:Weber, Brandon;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2018-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

Note on photo reads: “All that was left of his home after ‘Tulsa Race Riot’ 6-1-1921”

WHY TULSA?

Oklahoma, rich in oil deposits, became a state in 1907. It offered a promise of a better life for many formerly enslaved African Americans looking for a chance to start over and get away from the still repressive Southern states.

In Tulsa, the Frisco railroad tracks divided the “white” part of town from the Greenwood District, called “Little Africa.” Laws prevented both whites and Blacks from living in neighborhoods that were 75 percent Black or white, respectively, so segregation “naturally” fell into place.

Red brick buildings sprang up along Greenwood Avenue, occupied by businesses owned by a thriving Black middle class that continued to grow during an oil boom in the 1910s. Theaters, nightclubs, churches, and grocery stores thrived in the Greenwood District. The schools were superior to those of the white areas, and many of the houses had indoor plumbing before those in the white areas did.

Because African Americans couldn’t shop in areas that were predominantly white, a lot of money spent in Greenwood went right back into the community. By the time of the attacks on the citizens of Black Wall Street, there were more than ten thousand African Americans living in the area. The community supported two of its own newspapers, the Tulsa Star and the Oklahoma Sun—the latter covering state and national news and politics as well.

But as the community flourished, so did disgruntlement and hatred. The country was still reeling from the defeat of the post–Civil War Reconstruction, and states were furiously enacting Jim Crow laws, which enforced white supremacy and stripped rights from Black Americans. African American men in other parts of the United States had been falsely accused of sexual attacks on white women, and were subsequently put to death—usually at the hands of a lynch mob. The Ku Klux Klan had approximately two thousand members in the Tulsa area by the end of 1921. With veterans returning from World War I and jobs becoming more scarce, envy and racial tension grew among some white citizens of Tulsa.

This all came to a terrifying head on May 31 and June 1, 1921. Over the course of sixteen hours, almost every business—each hotel, both hospitals, libraries, the newspapers, and doctors’ offices—was burned to the ground. Police detained and arrested six thousand of the ten thousand African Americans who lived in the Greenwood District. Nine thousand of them were left homeless. Thirty-five city blocks, comprising 1,256 residences, were razed. In today’s dollars, it was the equivalent of $30 million in damage; family fortunes vanished overnight.

Estimates of the dead vary, from fifty-five to three hundred. Several prominent Black businessmen and doctors were killed, including A. C. Jackson, recognized as one of the best surgeons of his time by the Mayo brothers, two of Tulsa’s most important pioneers. Jackson was shot after he had surrendered to some of the mob to protect his family and was being taken to the jail. Nobody was ever found guilty of his murder.

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