A hysterical white girl related that a nineteen-year-old colored boy attempted to assault her in the public elevator of a public office building of a thriving town of 100,000 in open daylight. Without pausing to find out whether or not the story was true, without bothering with the slight detail of investigating the character of the woman who made the outcry (as a matter of fact, she was of exceedingly doubtful reputation), a mob of 100-per-cent Americans set forth on a wild rampage that cost the lives of fifty white men; of between 150 and 200 colored men, women and children; the destruction by fire of $1,500,000 worth of property; the looting of many homes; and everlasting damage to the reputation of the city of Tulsa and the State of Oklahoma. -- Walter F. White, "The Eruption of Tulsa," The Nation, June 29, 1921

If the Sacco-Vanzetti Case was "the never-ending wrong," as writer Katherine Anne Porter put it, the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 was seldom even remembered. Its hundreds of victims were not commemorated in poems or novels or operas. Indeed it is only within the last decade that historians have begun to examine what happened and why. The state of Oklahoma appointed a Commission whose Report goes a long way toward rescuing the riot from oblivion. To read the report you will need Adobe® Acrobat Reader, which you can download here. The heart of the report is Scott Ellsworth's essay, pp. 37-102. It is a carefully researched and judiciously phrased account. Walter F. White's contemporary account in The Nation is also a highly useful source. Department of Special Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa has put nearly 100 photographs of the riot online. At right is a photo of a handful of the thousands of white Tulsans who invaded the Greenwood section of the city, drove out the black residents, and burned the entire area to the ground. Most of the white invaders were on foot, but some drove through the neighborhood shooting at passersby and into houses. Still others used private planes to fire from the air. Blacks resisted as best they could. There were several "fire fights" in which about fifty whites died.

As with Sacco-Vanzetti, we will use the Tulsa Riot as a jumping-off place. In one direction it leads us back to decades of racial violence following the Civil War and to the ongoing use of lynching by white mobs to keep blacks in "their place."

• It leads us to other race riots in which whites stormed into black neighborhoods in East St. Louis, Chicago (for the role of white gangs, aka "sports clubs" of the sort that gave Mayor Richard Daley his start, click here; for the summary of the Chicago Commission on Race Relations that looked into the causes, course, and consequences of the riot, click here), and Washington, D.C. (a 1999 Washington Post story)
• It leads us too to the emergence of Harlem as the "Mecca of the New Negro" in the 1920s and, one of our major concerns this semester, to the Harlem Renaissance.
• It leads us to the rapid growth of the second Ku Klux Klan, another of our major preoccupations.
• It leads to one of the most celebrated murder cases of the 1920s, now also largely forgotten, the trials of Dr. Ossian Sweet, a black physician whose family bought a house in a previously all-white neighborhood, for killing a white man who was part of a mob threatening to burn his house. This happened in Detroit.
• Detroit leads us to Henry Ford whose hiring practices did much to encourage black migration to the city and whose virulent anti-Semitism (be careful, this link is to a contemporary anti-Semitic site; Ford's 1921 book, The International Jew appears on many anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi sites) anticipated much of the KKK outcry against the Jews. Like Tulsa, Detroit became a center of KKK activity in the 1920s. So did Worcester, Massachusetts.

  Here are some initial questions:

  • What happened to set off the Tulsa Riot? Be careful to identify which source(s) you are using.
  • Once the riot began, what happened? Again, identify sources as you proceed.
  • What evidence is there of any role by the Ku Klux Klan in the riot?
  • How might we use the Tulsa Riot as a way of immersing ourselves in the public life of the 1920s?

   

  Kristin's notes:

• What happened to set off the Tulsa Race riot?
  Info from The Eruption of Tulsa: The riot was the product of poor race relations and resentment of the blacks among the whites. In Tulsa blacks had an opportunity to prosper, and were no longer restricted to an inferior possition. Knowing this... A girl, Sara Page accused an African American boy, Dick Rowland, of assaulting her in an elevator. This unchecked report immediately led to the riot. The jail where the boy was taken to was the same jail where a white man had been lynched. The black community in Tulsa was concerned for the safety of Rowland. They offered to protect the jail from attack. At 9:15 they were informed that a mob had stormed the jail - this report proved to be untrue. They returned later and a white man attempted to disarm them and a shot was fired. The riot immediately ensued.

• What happened once the riot began? >From The Eruption of Tulsa: The riot took the lives of 50 whites and 150-200 blacks. The damage due to the riot was $1,500,00.

• What evidence is there of any role by the Ku Klux Klan in the riot? >From The Tulsa Race Riot: The Klu Klux Klan in Tulsa would have to be involved in the riot, it only makes sense. There were both people in Klu Klux Klan uniform and regularly dressed whites, so it wasn't only members. The question of whether or not the riot was planned by the Klan still remains unanswered.

• How might we use the Tulsa Riot as a way of immersing ourselves in the public life of the 1920s? The Riot in Tulsa is an extreme example of the poor race relations in the 1920's. It shows the fighting caused by the tension between whites and blacks. The riot shows that the 1920's are not all about prosperity, but about conflict as well.

  Sara's notes:

• The Washington D. C. Riot was provoked by a man accused of sexually assaulting a wife of a Navy man. A group of Navy men fueled with alcohol began moving through Washington and along the way picked up other brawlers turning the pack into a mob. The police turned their backs on the mobs and, when they did acknowledge the violent actions, they arrested more black men than white.

• Blacks began to retaliate by driving around and firing randomly into groups of white men and women. After a great deal of violence, which resulted in several deaths and many injuries, Wilson mobilized 2,000 troops to stop the rioting. After "peace" was established, NAACP and others pushed for hearings to punish those involved but a Southern congressman blocked further persecution. (Washington Post Article)

• When the black veterans returned from the war, they resented the way that the country welcomed them and treated other black men. The increasing numbers of public lynchings and white support rallies supported the theory that the KKK was largely involved with racist movements.

• The Washington Riot was a clear example of the changes and controversy that our country was involved in. The 1920s was a time when the country was experiencing unbelievable changes from sexuality to racism; the country seemed to be chaotic, in a drunken stupor and high on life.

  Based on these reports, what do you make of the Chicago riot?

• What do you see as similarities?