The Tulsa Story In American History

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In 1921, Greenwood, a successful, all-black enclave in Tulsa, was the site of the deadliest race riot in U.S. history. For the inhabitants of "the Black Wall Street," life would never be the same.

 

 

J.B. Stradford, the son of a freed Kentucky slave, rose to prominence in Oklahoma during the early 1900s as one of the key developers of the all-black Tulsa enclave Greenwood. A lawyer and businessman, Stradford owned the 65-room hotel that sat right in the heart of the thriving community that would later become known as "the Black Wall Street."

But in a single day, all of that would change. On May 31, 1921, the arrest of a young black man on a questionable charge of assaulting a young white woman touched off the deadliest race riot in U.S. history. Whites charged through the community in retaliation, leaving an estimated 300 people dead, another 10,000 black residents homeless and 35 city blocks in ruin.

Stradford and 69 other black men were subsequently charged with inciting the riot. Stradford, however, jumped bail after his arrest and fled Tulsa for Kentucky. According to his great-granddaughter Laurel Stradford, his son (her grandfather), who was also a lawyer, used legal maneuvering to help his father avoid having to stand trial, including filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to keep him from being unlawfully detained.

"When I was a little girl, our grandmother used to tell us that J.B. had said that there was no greater gift that a man can be given than to have a son who saves his father's life," says Laurel Stradford. "There would be a lot of remembrance of my great-grandpa and the role he played in Tulsa, and the role my grandpa had in getting him free from being lynched."

But although J.B. -- who went on to run a successful law practice in Chicago -- managed to avoid facing "justice" in Oklahoma (he never returned to the state), the charges hung over him until he died. The Stradford family fought to clear J.B., but it wasn't until 1996 -- 75 years after the riot, and six decades after his death in 1935 in Chicago at the age of 75 -- that he was cleared of all charges. (Ultimately, none of the men indicted were convicted of anything.)

That 75th-anniversary year was also when the nation learned about the Tulsa Race Riot, which would come to be considered the most destructive race riot in U.S. history. "For years, silence engulfed this incident," says Hannibal B. Johnson, author of Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood. "In 1921, Tulsa was booming, so anything that would detract from its allure, such as the riot, was minimized."

Read on, or Learn About Other Black Towns Lost to History.

A Black Mecca

Indeed, Tulsa had been attracting thousands -- blacks and whites -- to the rich oil fields. By 1920, the overall population had swelled to more than 100,000 residents. Black Americans, migrating from Southern states as far as Georgia and Mississippi, were also attempting to escape the harsh realities of Southern racism.

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https://www.blackpast.org/.../john-the-baptist-stradford.../

BLACKPAST.ORG

John “the Baptist” Stradford (1861-1935) •

John B (for the Baptist) Stradford was born a free man in Versailles, Kentucky in 1861. His father, J.C. Stradford was a former slave who had been emancipated and was living in Stradford, Ontario (Canada) but who returned to the U.S. and was in Versailles … Read MoreJohn “the Baptist” Stradfor...

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Tulsa Race Massacre Sidelined Legacy of Black Wealth in Greenwood -...

TULSA, Okla.—Not much remains of the Greenwood neighborhood as it stood 100 years ago, when mobs of local whites, many deputized and given weapons by city officials, looted and destroyed 35 blocks of what was then one of the wealthiest Black communities in the nation.

Characterized by bustling streets with hotels, theaters and doctors offices, it later became known as “Black Wall Street.” A significant chunk of the district was razed during Tulsa’s urban renewal efforts, which local officials began roughly 70 years ago. An interstate highway was built over the district’s main strip, pushing residents further north.

Today North Tulsa, where many of the Greenwood residents’ descendants migrated, has a dearth of medical services available. A few weeks ago, a new full-service grocery store opened there, funded by Tulsa’s city government and various philanthropic organizations. It was the first in the area in 14 years.

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Tulsa 

Concert commemorating Tulsa race massacre canceled | Reuters

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After George Floyd’s killing last year, Harvard Business School Professor Mihir Desai says he channeled his thoughts and emotions the best way he knew how—by writing a case study.

His aim was to design a classroom exercise that would give M.B.A. students a deeper understanding of the country’s racial scars and what role businesses might have in processing them, he says. He soon seized on a historical event he felt deserved more attention: the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, in which armed white mobs attacked Greenwood, a prosperous, albeit segregated Black neighborhood in the Oklahoma city that later came to be known as Black Wall Street. Over 24 hours, as many as 300 people were killed and more than 190 of the community’s businesses burned to the ground.

Tulsa Tulsa Race Massacre Is Now an M.B.A. Case Study at Harvard - WSJ