Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District Read online

  IMAGES

  of America

  TULSA’S HISTORIC

  GREENWOOD DISTRICT

  ON THE COVER: This c. 1940s photograph shows an unidentified store in the Greenwood District. Entrepreneurship flourished in the Greenwood District, with small shops and professional service providers leading the charge. (Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center.)

  IMAGES

  of America

  TULSA’S HISTORIC

  GREENWOOD DISTRICT

  Hannibal B. Johnson

  Copyright © 2014 by Hannibal B. Johnson

  ISBN 978-1-4671-1128-7

  Ebook ISBN 9781439644560

  Published by Arcadia Publishing

  Charleston, South Carolina

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013942833

  For all general information, please contact Arcadia Publishing:

  Telephone 843-853-2070

  Fax 843-853-0044

  E-mail [email protected]

  For customer service and orders:

  Toll-Free 1-888-313-2665

  Visit us on the Internet at www.arcadiapublishing.com

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Tulsa’s Greenwood District pioneers, whose vision, resourcefulness, and resilience earned them national renown. Their lives and their legacy will never be forgotten.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  1. Roots

  2. Riot

  3. Regeneration

  4. Renaissance

  In Their Own Words: Riot Survivor Stories

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author wishes to extend a special thanks to I. Marc Carlson, librarian of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Tulsa, for lending his considerable photographic and archival talents to this book. Thanks also to the following individuals and institutions: Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa; Tulsa City-County Library; Dana Birkes; Mechelle Brown, Frances Fleming, and Frances Jordan, Greenwood Cultural Center; Tom Gilbert, chief photographer, Tulsa World; Vanessa Adams-Harris; Wes Johnson; Jean Neal, John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation; Ian D. Swart, archivist and curator of collections, Tulsa Historical Society; Steve Wood; and Joe Worley, executive editor, Tulsa World.

  INTRODUCTION

  Tulsa, Oklahoma, “The Oil Capital of the World,” shone brightly at the dawn of the 20th century. Black gold oozed from Indian Territory soil, land once set aside for Native American resettlement. J. Paul Getty, Thomas Gilcrease, and Waite Phillips were among the men extracting fabulous fortunes from Oklahoma crude and living on Tulsa time.

  As Tulsa’s wealth and stature grew, so, too, did its political, economic, and, in particular, race-based tensions. The formative years of this segregated city coincided with a period of marked violence against African Americans. In 1919 alone, more than two dozen race riots erupted in towns and cities throughout the country. That same year, vigilantes lynched at least 83 African Americans.

  The Greenwood District in Tulsa blossomed even amidst this “blacklash.” African Americans engaged one another in commerce, creating a nationally renowned hotbed of black business and entrepreneurial activity known as “Negro Wall Street.” Greenwood Avenue, just north of the Frisco Railroad tracks, became the hub of Tulsa’s original African American community. Eclectic and electric, this artery drew favorable comparisons to legendary thoroughfares such as Beale Street in Memphis and State Street in Chicago.

  This parallel black city existed just beyond downtown, separated physically from white Tulsa by the Frisco tracks and psychologically by layers of social stratification. In it, African American businesspersons and professionals mingled with day laborers, musicians, and maids. African American educators molded young minds. African American clergy nurtured spirits and soothed souls.

  The success of the Greenwood District ran counter to the prevailing notion in that era of black inferiority. Fear and jealousy swelled over time. The economic prowess of Tulsa’s African American citizens, including home, business, and land ownership, caused increasing tension. Black World War I veterans, having tasted true freedom on foreign soil, came back to America with heightened expectations. Valor and sacrifice in battle had earned them the basic respect and human dignity so long denied at home—or so they thought. But America had not yet changed. Oklahoma had not changed. Tulsa had not changed.

  A seemingly random encounter between two teenagers lit the fuse that set the Greenwood District alight. The alleged assault on a 17-year-old white girl, Sarah Page, by a 19-year-old black boy, Dick Rowland, in the elevator of a downtown building triggered unprecedented civil unrest. Deep social fissures, however, lay at the roots of the riot, which included white angst over African American prosperity, land lust, and a racially hostile climate in general.

  A local newspaper stoked the embers of Tulsa’s emerging firestorm. The Tulsa Tribune framed the elevator incident in black and white: “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in an Elevator.” Authorities arrested Rowland. A white mob vowed to lynch him.

  A small group of African American men marched to the courthouse to protect Rowland. Upon their arrival, law enforcement authorities implored them to retreat, assuring them of the teen’s safety. They left, but the lynch talk persisted. Jarred by these persistent threats and increasingly concerned for Rowland’s safety, more African American men assembled. Several dozen strong, these men, some bearing arms, trekked to the courthouse. There, they met and verbally engaged with the throngs of white men already massed. Two men struggled over a gun. The gun discharged. Chaos erupted.

  Soon, thousands of weapon-wielding white men invaded the Greenwood District, seizing upon the “Negro quarter” with seismic fury. Some law enforcement officers stood idly by while others placed themselves squarely along the racial fault lines, even deputizing the white hoodlums who would set ablaze the area derogated as “Little Africa.” As flames raged and smoke billowed, roving gangs prevented firefighters from taking action.

  In a 16-hour span, people, property, hopes, and dreams vanished. The Greenwood District lay in utter ruin. The State of Oklahoma declared martial law in Tulsa. The Oklahoma National Guard eventually restored order.

  Authorities herded African American men into internment camps around the city, ostensibly for their own protection. Camp staff released detainees only upon presentation of green cards countersigned by white guarantors.

  Property damage ran into the millions. Casualties numbered in the hundreds. Some African Americans fled Tulsa, never to return. Local courts failed to convict even a single white person of a crime associated with the riot. Prosecutors charged dozens of African American men with inciting it.

  Even as the fires still smoldered, Greenwood District pioneers pledged to rebuild their community from the ashes. Official Tulsa leadership touted cooperation and collaboration, but hindered post-riot reconstruction. The Tulsa City Commission blamed African American citizens for their own plight. City officials turned away outside donations earmarked for the rebuilding. Attorney Buck Colbert Franklin rebuffed Tulsa’s attempt to enact a more stringent fire code that would have made post-riot rebuilding cost-prohibitive for many.

  In the midst of the devastation, white allies surfaced. First Presbyterian Church and Holy Family Cathedral helped shelter and feed fleeing victims of the racial violence. The American Red Cross, heralded as “Angels of Mercy,” offered medical care, food, shelter, and clothing, and even established tent cities for the hordes left homeless by the riot.

  African Americans shouldered their share of the load, too. Spear
s, Franklin & Chappelle litigated claims against the City of Tulsa and insurance companies and made urgent appeals to African Americans nationwide for assistance. Black builders secured lumber and supplies from surrounding states so reconstruction could commence. Entrepreneurs vowed to reestablish their businesses. Black churches rallied their parishioners. For Tulsa’s early African American denizens, the Greenwood District was much more than a business venue. It was home. Their determination and persistence ensured the survival of the community they knew and loved.

  Tulsa’s African American community proved remarkably resilient. In 1925, just four years removed from the riot, the community hosted the annual conference of the National Negro Business League. By the early 1940s, scores of businesses once again called the Greenwood District home. Integration, urban renewal, a new business climate, and the aging of the early Greenwood District pioneers precipitated a pronounced economic decline beginning in the 1960s. The emergence of the Greenwood Cultural Center in 1983 signaled a new beginning.

  The modern Greenwood District is still emerging. In addition to the Greenwood Cultural Center, the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce and a smattering of small enterprises dot the 100 block of Greenwood Avenue. Two historic riot-era churches remain in the heart of the Greenwood District: Mount Zion Baptist Church and Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church. A mixed-use property called Greenarch occupies the intersection of Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street. Oklahoma State University–Tulsa sits on the site of the original 1913 Booker T. Washington High School. Langston University–Tulsa and Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) Tulsa, a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service, are located to the north. ONEOK Field, named for Tulsa-based energy company, ONEOK, and home of the Tulsa Drillers minor league baseball team, occupies a block on the east end, while John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park sits on the western boundary.

  The story of the Greenwood District speaks to the triumph of the human spirit. Now, a new chapter has begun. The Greenwood District, that black entrepreneurial center of old, has long since faded. In its stead is a new incarnation: an emerging arts, cultural, educational, and entertainment complex. This book explores, principally through pictures, the four central phases in the life of Tulsa’s historic Greenwood District: its roots, riot, regeneration, and renaissance.

  One

  ROOTS

  A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.

  —Marcus Garvey

  Tulsa, “The Magic City,” beckoned multiple souls in the early 1900s. These seekers, white and African American alike, shared a vintage American optimism. They sought a better life in oil-rich Tulsa. The African American community, situated in the Greenwood District, emerged amidst rigid racial separation. With growth came the need for commerce, education, and entertainment. A class of African American entrepreneurs filled the void.

  Segregation propelled prosperity. The community’s insular service economy rested on a foundation of necessity. Dollars circulated within constricted geographic boundaries. Dubbed the “Negro Wall Street” by Booker T. Washington, it became the talk of the nation.

  The Greenwood District nurtured entrepreneurship and industriousness. Simon Berry started a nickel-a-ride jitney service, ran a bus line later purchased by the city, owned the Royal Hotel, and shuttled wealthy oil barons on his charter airline. Berry reportedly earned as much as $500 a day in his prime.

  Dr. Andrew C. Jackson, a prominent surgeon, managed to breach the color line. Called the most able Negro surgeon in America by the Mayo brothers (of Mayo Clinic fame), Dr. Jackson treated both black and white patients. But his pedigree and reputation could not save him from the horrors of the riot. A teenager shot and mortally wounded Jackson as he exited his residence in surrender.

  The Williams family also found economic success in the Greenwood District. The family owned several businesses, including the Williams Dreamland Theater, a rooming house, a confectionery, a garage, and rental property.

  Educators like Ellis Walker Woods, principal of Booker T. Washington High School for over 35 years, earned respect and renown. Woods came to Tulsa by foot from Memphis, Tennessee, in answer to a call for “colored” teachers. Local press dubbed Woods the “quintessential Tulsan” for his preeminent leadership in the realm of public education. Throngs of mourners assembled at the Tulsa Convention Center for Woods’s 1948 funeral.

  The Greenwood District pioneers took full business advantage of Jim Crow. They seized the opportunity to disprove the inferiority myth through their own ingenuity. The success of the Greenwood District defied conventional wisdom. Such a brash display of black business acumen and economic prosperity could scarcely be tolerated, let alone embraced, by segments of the greater Tulsa community.

  Tulsa’s World War I Main Street Parade in 1917 honored patriots and encouraged young men to enlist in the armed forces in anticipation of the United States’ entry into the war on April 6, 1917. This photograph was taken from the top of the Robinson Hotel. The building under construction is the Commercial Building, later home to Boswell’s Jewelry on the bottom floor. The building on the right is the R.C. Daniel Building. Daniel purchased the building at the 1904 World’s Fair in New York City and had it disassembled, shipped to Tulsa, and rebuilt. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)

  This 1909 photograph captures Main Street looking south from the railroad tracks. Hall Oil Well Supply on the right is a remodeled building. Builder James Monroe Hall constructed many of the buildings in this picture. At the rear is Tulsa’s first telephone switching station. On the left is the Archer Building, which housed a 5¢ store. The stone building on the left was the first masonry building in Tulsa. By 1909, Tulsa boasted paved streets and streetcar lines. This image reveals a multi-modal Tulsa, with horse-drawn vehicles, an automobile, bicycles, and streetcars. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)

  The Tulsa County Courthouse, built in 1912, sat on the corner of Sixth Street and Boulder Avenue. The space is now occupied by the Bank of America Building. The courthouse contained two courtrooms and a jail on the top floor. The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot began here. Armed deputies turned off the elevators and blocked the staircase as an angry white mob attempted to seize a black teenager, Dick Rowland, from the jail. This photograph was taken in 1941. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)

  The Akdar Theater, located on the northeast corner of Fourth Street and Denver Avenue, opened on February 1, 1925. An audience of 1,800 viewed a performance of the celebrated Ziegfeld musical comedy Sally. This ornate venue showcased movies as well as “first class acts.” The Tulsa Civic Symphony (later the Tulsa Philharmonic) premiered at the Akdar in 1927. Sold in the 1950s, the Akdar Theater became the Cimarron Ballroom. The facility was torn down in 1973. The foreground sign promotes Marland Oil. KRMG Radio and KVOO Television once occupied this building. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)

  W. Tate Brady, business owner and Oklahoma Democratic Party leader, epitomized wealth and power. He built the Brady Hotel in Tulsa in 1905, and later erected the Robinson Hotel. The Brady Hotel, touted as fireproof, burned in 1935. By some accounts, Brady had ties to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and participated, on at least some level, in the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)

  This is a c. 1900 portrait of John D. Seaman, one of Tulsa’s early postmasters. His residence was located at Fourth Street and Cheyenne Avenue. Josiah Chouteau Perryman, the son of Lewis Perryman and a member of the part-Muscogee (Creek) Perryman family, was Tulsa’s first postmaster. Tulsa’s first post office opened in 1879 on George Perryman’s property at Forty-First S
treet and Trenton Avenue. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)

  This 1905 postcard shows the Glenn Pool Oil Field, the site of gushers that changed the Tulsa area virtually overnight. The Glenn Pool, situated on the Ida E. Glenn farm some 12 miles south of Tulsa, catalyzed the Oklahoma oil industry. This breakthrough discovery brought in pipelines and capital investment. Nearby Tulsa became the epicenter of the oil business. In this image, the wooden oil derricks appear to reflect on a pool of water. That “water” is oil. Some of the gushers at the Glenn Pool happened prior to the building of storage tanks. As a result, these oil lakes were essentially collecting pools. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)

  This is a c. 1925 aerial view of downtown Tulsa. The Mayo Hotel had just been completed. Churches visible include First Christian Church, the Christian Science Center, and Holy Family Cathedral. The Greenwood District is to the north. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)

  Booker T. Washington High School was, in many ways, the centerpiece of black life in Tulsa. The school, established in 1913, educated many students who became nationally renowned, including Dr. John Hope Franklin, who graduated from Booker T. Washington in 1931. This 1937 photograph shows the Booker T. Washington High School Band. (Courtesy of the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.)