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| Daily Ardmoreite, 01-June-1921 |
100 years ago today, on 31-May-1921, a white mob in Tulsa, Oklahoma attacked the black-owned Greenwood District, destroying businesses, burning houses and killing people of color. The Tulsa Race Massacre may have been the worst single instance of racial violence in US history. No one knows how many African Americans died. "Frisco" refers to the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway.
Race War Rages in Tulsa Following Arrest of Negro Charged With
Assaulting Young White Girls; Number of Dead Increased With Late
Reports: Torch Leaves Fiery Trail Through "Little Africa" of the
Northeast Metropolis; State Troops Hold Muskogee Negroes at Bay
FIGHTING CONTINUES AFTER A DARK NIGHT OF TERROR;
BLACKS HERDED INTO CONVENTION HALL AND GUARDED
BY GRIM MEN HEAVILY ARMED; HEAVENS REFLECT GLOW
OF FLAMES WRITHING SKYWARD FROM "LITTLE AFRICA"
State Troops Patrol Streets of
Tulsa While Negroes Flee From
Burning Homes and Surrender to
Armed Guards; Over 3,000 Are
Now Held in Prison Camps
ENTIRE SECTION NEGRO TOWN
SEETHING, ROARING MASS OF
FLAMES; FIREMEN NOT
PERMITTED LAY HOSE.
Tulsa, Okla., June l.-- At 9 o'clock, 3,000 negroes had been gathered at convention hall under guard. It was filled as was also the police station. The remainder of those gathered up are being taken to the baseball park. All are under armed guard.
The national guard got into action about 11 o'clock last night about an hour after the battle began at the house, when a detachment appeared at the police station under command of Major Rooney. After driving away the crowd which had broken into the store of a sporting goods house, to obtain arms and attempting to disperse them from the block in front of the police station, the guardsmen made flying trips in trucks and automobiles into outlying districts.
Later detachments were quartered in various parts of town to suppress possible, outbreaks and a large squad with a machine gun, was sent to the end of Admiral Boulevard, with instructions to hold it at all hazards against a reported invasion of 500 blacks from Muskogee, which failed to materialize.
At 7:30 this morning, the entire south side of the negro quarter, on either side of Archer, extending from Boston east to Elgin, was a mass of flames.
Following the fighting last night, white men everywhere were heard threatening to wipe out "Little Africa" forever, with the torch. The first attempt was made at 1:30 last night, when two houses at Archer and Boston, which had been used as a garrison by more than 50 negroes burst into flame.
An alarm was sent in and the fire department dashed to the scene. An attempt to lay hose was quickly stopped by 50 armed white men who had assembled and the fire equipment was returned to the station. While the crowd turned again to exchanging shots at long range with the negroes who were slowly retreating to the north and east behind the buildings of the district.
The start to make good the threat in earnest to burn negro town, was at 6:40 o'clock this morning. Almost simultaneously fire began to steal from the windows and doors of the deserted shacks along Archer and soon dense clouds of smoke were enveloping the entire district. Under the smoke veil, armed men scouted in automobiles and as soon as their cordon tightened about the place where the negroes were stationed and occasional firing gave warning that the fight was still on.
Negroes remained in many of the burning homes until they were enveloped by fire and threatened to fall. Then they could be seen by scores, darting from doors with their hands upraised and crying "Don't shoot," as they dashed through the smoke to surrender and be taken to the prison camp established at convention hall.
State troops under command of Adjutant General C. F. Barret arrived here at 9 o'clock to take charge of the riot resulting from a race war when armed negroes and whites engaged in battle. At this hour the situation was reported quieter so far as actual firing was concerned, but fires were raging in all parts of the negro section of the city. The flames were spreading and threatened to wipe out a considerable portion of white residence districts in the Standpipe and Sunset Hill sections. It is believed the whole negro section will be wiped out.
Six white men are known to have been killed. It is estimated that fifty negroes, men and women and children, have been killed. Scores have been wounded.
Three thousand negroes had been segregated in prison camps where they are under armed guards.
NATIONAL GUARD
ASSUMES CONTROL
IN TULSA; MARTIAL
LAW IS IN EFFECT
COMPANIES RUSHED FROM MUSKOGEE
AND OTHER POINTS TO
SCENE OF RACE WAR, RIOTING
AND CONFLAGRATIONS.
(By the Associated Press)
Muskogee, June 1. -- Company A, Muskogee and Company B of Wagoner, Ola., national guards, were ordered at 9:45 a. m. to proceed at once to Tulsa. A special train is being made up.
Tulsa, June 1. -- A war between negroes and whites, starting over the arrest of a negro charged with an assault on a white woman, had continued early Wednesday morning and national guard troops were ordered to Tulsa to aid in controlling the various factions The exact number of killed and injured was not known but the killed were believed to total almost a hundred.
Rowland was spirited out of town at 2 o'clock this morning by deputies from Sheriff O'ccullough's office. They refused to divulge his whereabouts.
Officers said the black would be given a speedy trial just as soon as the situation quiets down to permit it, and the case will be transferred to another jurisdiction if it is found impossible to try it here. They gave assurance he would be fully punished if found guilty of the charge.
Rowland is accused of attacking an orphan girl in an elevator.
Adjutant General Barret has taken up headquarters at the city hall and announced that Col. B. H. Markham. Oklahoma City, would be in command of field operations.
Two companies from Muskogee and one from Wagoner were ordered by Barrett to entrain at once. Another company will arrive from Oklahoma City at 1 o'clock. Martial law has not yet been declared and only developments will determine if it is to be invoked, Barrett added. He is working under direction of the sheriff, the mayor and chief of police until such time as he deems it necessary to change command, the adjutant general said. The troops are to be stationed at once in the negro district.
In a fresh outbreak in the Standpipe Hill district in the extreme northern section of the black belt, Mrs. S. A. Gilmore, 225 East King street, a white woman, was shot in the left arm and side, at 7:30 o'clock. Mrs. Gilmore was standing on the front porch of her home when she was picked off by a black sniper, one of a score or more barricaded in a church.
Hundreds of armed white men are being rushed to the district in automobiles. An open battle is believed imminent.
A white girl was reported killed on North Peoria in the vicinity of a refinery. The report could not be verified at 10 o'clock. At 10 o'clock it was reported two carloads of negroes from Muskogee had passed Kendall college, located in the eastern part of the city.
A 20 year old white boy, thought to be named Olson and living at Sapulpa died at 8:30 o'clock, following a battle an hour earlier at the Frisco depot in which negroes are reported to have been killed. Olson's body was removed to undertaking parlors where it awaits positive identification.
MARTIAL LAW TO
BE DELCLARED IN
TULSA; ACTION IS
HOURLY EXPECTED
GOVERNOR SAYS CANNOT
UNDERSTAND HOW CITIZENS OF RACE
RIOT TOWN LOST CONTROL OF
SITUATION.
Oklahoma City, June 1. -- Martial law will be invoked In Tulsa unless the situation there is relieved, and under control within the next hour or two, governor Robertson said at 11:45 o'clock following long distance conversation with officials at Tulsa. Attorney General Freeling will go to Tulsa this afternoon.
"The situation at Tulsa seems peculiar to me," Governor Robertson said. "With power vested in all city and county officials there to deputize and put into the law enforcement every citizen of the city if necessary, I cannot understand how this trouble was allowed to get such a start."
Conversation with Adjutant General Barret was to the effect that it was impossible for the fire department to enter the negro section and that the flames were raging unabated.
Would Mean Firemen's Life
Tulsa, Okla., June 1. -- "We can't use the equipment we have and for that reason have not asked for fire apparatus from other cities," R C. Alder, fire chief, said at ten o'clock this morning.
"It would mean a fireman's life to turn a stream of water on one of those negro buildings. They shot at us all morning when we were trying to do something but none of my men were hit. There is not a chance in the world to get through that mob into the negro district.
"We have five lines protecting the warehouses on the Katy railroad and I think we have them saved. If the wind should change the white residence section east of the negro district would be menaced.
"The fire has swept Greenwood street, where the negro business section was located and is sweeping around the hill north. So far the white residence section on the north has not been touched."
Chief Alder indicated that he was prepared to call for outside assistance in case it became necessary.
FIGHTING CONTINUES AFTER A DARK NIGHT OF TERROR;
BLACKS HERDED INTO CONVENTION HALL AND GUARDED
BY GRIM MEN HEAVILY ARMED; HEAVENS REFLECT GLOW
OF FLAMES WRITING SKYWARD FROM "LITTLE AFRICA"
Officers Spirit Brute
Accused of Crime to Place
of Safety; Street Car
Traffic Suspends; Business
Houses Close
CITIZENS GUARD ALL
APPROACHES TO CITY.
WHITE WOMAN WOUNDED BY
STRAY BULLET: RIOT
ASSUMES DANGEROUS
PROPORTIONS -- DETERMINED TO
WIPE OUT BELT.
(By The Associated Press)
Tulsa, June 1. -- Pandemonium reigns throughout Tulsa today, following a night of rioting between the whites and blacks, which had its inception when a negro shot a white man in the crowd which had assembled about the county jail in which was confined Dick Rowland, a negro charged with assault upon a white girl.
A full half hundred negroes are been rounded up and are now held under a strong guard. Fires are springing up in all sections of that portion of Tulsa settled by negroes and known as "Little Africa."
State troops from Oklahoma City, arrived on the scene early this morning and the situation is reported well in hand, by the mayor and chief of police, both of whom, however, have appealed to citizens to remain within doors and not to gather upon the streets.
Stores remain closed throughout the morning, while street car and interurban traffic is at a standstill, and railway trains are detoured around the city. Strongly armed bodies of men are guarding all the roads which lead out of and into the city.
While it is known that several white men have died from bullets fired by negroes, it is estimated that fully half a hundred blacks have been slain, and it is generally conceded that this number will be materially augmented before the smoke of battle finally clears away. Information as to the exact number of fatalities is unavailable at the present hour, but it is known that many, both whites and blacks, have been wounded, some of them seriously.
Appeals were issued to the citizens by chief of Police Gustafson and Mayor L. F. J. Rooney in command of the local guard units to remain indoors. They expressed the hope at the same time that the situation was being gotten under control, and expected to have it well in hand with the arrival of more troops from Oklahoma City at 8:30.
Superintendent E. E. Obernoltzer announced that schools in the danger zone would not convene today. He said those remote from seats of trouble would continue as usual but no attempt whatever would be made to hold classes in sections where there might be danger to the pupils going and coming from the schools.
At 8:30 two white men killed in the riot had been identified.
Carl D. Lotpeisch, 28, Randall, Kansas, was shot through the breast and taken to a hospital at 6:30 o'clock this morning. He died shortly afterward.
An unidentified white man, about 28; light brown hair, light brown eyes, five feet ten inches, 160 pounds at undertaking parlor now.
F. L. Curry, age 26, and son of Judge F. Z. Curry, was slightly wounded in the neck by a flying bullet at Fifth and Boston, at 11 o'clock last night. He had stopped his car at the filling station at Fifth and Boston and was standing by it unconscious of the impending trouble when the battle at the court house broke and one of the first bullets struck him. His wound was pronounced not serious.
A. B. Stick, age 29, city clerk of Sapulpa, is near death from a bullet wound entering the back and going entirely through the body. Stick was standing on the Cincinnati avenue steps of a leading hotel watching the fight when a stray bullet struck him down.
G. T. Prunkard, aged 34, also of Sapulpa, a Frisco conductor was in the caboose of a Frisco train when shots fired by negroes at the crowd, went wild and pierced him in the right shoulder, chin and forehead. His wounds are not believed fatal, although very painful. The shots were from a shotgun and of a small size.
Lee Fischer, age 21, a truck driver, was shot in the left leg and thigh while at First and Cincinnati during the battle in that quarter at 10:20 last night. He will recover.
L. C. Slinkard, age 25, West Tulsa car inspector for the Frisco, was crossing Main street at the Frisco tracks, a few minutes before the first firing took place when a speeding automobile filled with armed negroes ran him down, fracturing his middle thigh and left leg.
Armed Whites Roundup Blacks
Tulsa, Okla., June 1. -- Firing continued here today after a night of race war.
Hundreds of armed white men were rounding up all negroes in the negro section of the city, segregating them under guard.
Innumerable fires also were burning in the negro section of the city.
No estimate was possible early this morning of the dead, but it was known that at least seven white men had been killed and scores wounded. The hospitals were filled to their capacity.
A number of negroes are dead and it is estimated that the total death toil may reach beyond a score. Talk of driving into "Little Africa," as the negro section of the city is known, was heard on all sides. As these threats were heard the torch was set to all sections on the district and fires were soon burning throughout the black belt.
The trouble began Tuesday night with the gathering of a mob of whites at the county courthouse, where Dick Rowland, a negro, was held on a charge of attempted assault on a white girl.
Soon armed blacks came on the scene after the whites and blacks had faced each other for some time, the first shot was repotted fired by a black when a white man attempted to wrest a gun from a negro. The whites were reported to have been unarmed.
A fusillade of bullets followed, which continued throughout the night. Stores were broken into and all guns and ammunition seized and passed out. All roads and bridges were under guard by armed posses. Street car service was suspended and business places were closed.
As the negroes were rounded up they were herded into Convention Hall under guard.
The police station was filled to overcrowding with blacks and it was then that they were taken to Convention Hall.
Automobiles were returning from the negro section loaded with men and women.
Gangs of negro men were driven in solid formation through the streets to places of safety where they could be guarded.
Reports were heard that Muskogee negroes were arming to come here, but a long-distance telephone message to the Tribune disproved it, and added that three companies of state troops were held in readiness to proceed here.
Reports were piling up as the morning wore on of additional fatalities, but definite information was un- available.
Governor Robertson Has
Declared Martial Law
To Control Tulsa Trouble
Oklahoma City, June 1. -- Martial law in Tulsa was ordered by Governor Robertson at 11:15 o'clock and Adjutant General Barrett placed in command of the city. The order was given over the long distance telephone and a proclamation to this effect is being prepared and will be issued immediately.
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