Great Post.

Yes, that final paragraph you quote sounds pretty authoritative.

You know, I’m pretty sure it was the first Mayfest downtown in 1974 where I saw the GAP Band in person before they headed to L.A.

I do see the 3000 figure in several articles on the internet, but I’m assuming the Commission ultimately agreed on the published finding. Do you have any more information about this?

I don’t really know anything about it other than what I’ve read in the report and found via Google. The 3000 figure I quoted is from the site of a guy who wrote a book about it. Personally, I think that figure may be a little high, but I quoted him more for his description of the Greenwood area than anything.

I think this bit from the conclusion of the Confirmed Deaths report sums up the difficulty of getting an accurate count pretty well :

In summary, perhaps the least that can be said of the physicians, undertakers, police, and prosecutors of Tulsa of the time was that they were not hypocritical: they treated their black fellow-citizens no better when they were dead than they did when they were alive.

Although this preliminary report is limited to treatment of the confirmed dead, it cannot be closed without considering the as yet unconfirmed dead of the Tulsa race riot. First to be considered are the eighteen deaths that occurred in the Maurice Willows Hospital operated by the Red Cross until January 1, 1922. A systematic search of vital statistics records to find their names and the causes of their deaths has not yet been made. Some may have died of complications of wounds received during the riot; if so, of course, such deaths would add to the riot deaths. Others, particularly, if children or elderly whose homes were destroyed or their family life disrupted, may have succumbed easily to diseases they may have otherwise survived; while actually not killed in the riot the deaths of these victims would certainly have to be considered as riot-related.
. . .
As one whose entire professional life has been devoted to the investigation of mass disasters such as fires and floods, aircraft accidents, human rights violations, war crimes and acts of terrorism throughout the world, this writer is fully aware of the often exaggerated estimates of the number of victims that surface in the wake of the chaos and confusion following such events. At the same time, experience has shown that in manner of these situations, official counts of the dead or often seriously underestimated.

Considering the lack of proper documentation and the likelihood that many of the eyewitnesses needed to provide an accurate count moved out of the state or were dead by the time the commission began its interviews, I don’t think we’ll ever know how many people died.

BTW, this is off topic, but I’m a big fan of your site, Mike. The sections devoted to Lewis Meyer and Don Woods brought back a lot of memories.

I sent some follow-up comments about the Race Riot and the Greenwood area to Xeni at Boing Boing:

-

Here is a succinct summary of the Race Riot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_Race_Riot

Greg is right about it not being common knowledge. I went to school in Tulsa, and didn’t even know about it until the later 70s.

An acquaintance from college, Gary Reaves, did a TV news story about the Greenwood-Archer area in the late 70s. The Race Riot is mentioned by the anchorman in his introduction. I have a video clip of part of his story here:

http://tulsatvmemories.com/kvoophot.html

Unfortunately, only the first part of Gary’s story was on the tape I was sent by a reader. It sounded like the story was going to be about the renovation to come in the late 70s-early 80s. The restored business district was used as a location in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders”.

The man interviewed on the tape says that he grew up in the Greenwood-Archer area in the 30s. It sounds as if it may have been rebuilt somewhat by that time. Gary says that it was very busy again by the 50s, but it plainly had fallen on hard times by the 70s.

Tulsa was very segregated in the 50s; listen to this sorry radio spot from that period:

http://tulsatvmemories.com/tulradi3.html#apt

Greg, re the quote, “The night’s carnage left some 3,000 African Americans dead…”, the Final Report of the Oklahoma Commission to Study The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 came up with a different figure:

“Although the exact total can never be determined,
credible evidence makes it probable that many people, likely numbering between one and three hundred, were killed during the riot.”

http://www.tulsareparations.org/FinalReport.htm

I do see the 3000 figure in several articles on the internet, but I’m assuming the Commission ultimately agreed on the published finding. Do you have any more information about this?

Best regards,
Mike Ransom

There were burials in mass graves, but as of the last time I was in tulsa no one was really sure where the mass graves where.

There’s three sections of the report detailing the search for mass graves and attempt to find out how many people died. unfortunately, they weren’t able to come to many conclusions. We’ll never know how many people were murdered on that day. You can check them out here.

You sure did gloss a lot here.

True, but this is a blog. The final report is 188 pages long, so I took the liberties of trying to quote the portions of the story that make this incident in particular really stand out. If anyone’s interested in the details about the Tulsa Tribune’s incitement of racial violence, the history of the KKK in Tulsa, and the investigation of just what was thrown out of the airplanes, I recommend reading the full report.

1. There’s some decent evidence that the planes were dropping nitroglycerin. It’s believed this was the first time planes dropped bombs in aviation history.

2. You left out the Tulsa Tribune’s role in fomenting the riot. The infamous “To Lynch A Nigger Tonight” headline is the best example. Of course, all us who grew up in Tulsa know that the library’s only copy of the May 31, 1921 issue is missing a number of articles.

3. No one knows who fires the first shot that night. The white mob and the black mob both showed up at the jail. The sheriff sent them both home, saying no lynching tonight, not while he was sheriff. The crowds turned to leave, there was a shot, and hell was unleashed.

4. During the wind-down of the riot, many of the blacks were rounded up and taken to the baseball stadium (where the Warehouse Market and downtown Home Depot now stand) for “their own safety.” None of the whites were rounded up. In fact, no one was ever charged.

5. There were reports of explosions in the Greenwood district in houses sounding like munitions going off. There is evidence that blacks in the community stockpiled arms just in case an event like this were to occur. They didn’t stand a chance against the armed white mob, though.

6. The new oil barons that lived in Maple Ridge and around Swan Lake hid their black servants during the mayhem for their safety. Well, the ones that weren’t out rioting.

7. The death toll has long been debated. The numbers usually range from 30 to 300. There were rumors of a mass grave in Oak Lawn cemetary. A large number of blacks just up and left during and after the riot and never looked back.

8. At the time, the Ku Klux Klan was huge in Oklahoma. They had a lot of influence in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Eventually, Klan influence on the state government led to the impeachment of the governor.

8. Finally, you forgot the ultimate irony: Dick Rowland, the bootblack accused of attempted rape, never had his case go to trial.

It’s good that the story of the riot has finally been told in the last 30 or so years. So much of the old guard tried to bury the story for far too long. Heck, they even bulldozed what was left of Greenwood for the University Center at Tulsa. Could it happen again?

My AP US history teacher spent a long time on it, and even showed us some sort of kooky conspiracy theory filled documentary from the mid to late 80’s that seemed like it should have been fake, except it was entirely true.

It’s weird because no records of it happening exist. The national guard was called out, but you can’t find it documented. There were burials in mass graves, but as of the last time I was in tulsa no one was really sure where the mass graves where.