Tulsa Race Riot

The first event was with the Industrial Workers of World (IWW), where they were blamed by Tulsan’s in bombing the house of a wealthy oilman. It began on “October 29, 1917”, when the home of a wealthy oilman was bombed in Tulsa. There were little clues to be found but as Scott Ellsworth reports in his book Death in a Promised Land, “The newspapers were pointing the blame to the IWW”(25). The secretary of the IWW was going to be the spokes person for the twelve members of the IWW in court, with the accusation of bombing the house of a wealthy oilman. Ellsworth reports:

“The trial was brought to a speedy conclusion. Not only did Judge Evans find the twelve guilty, fine them $100 each, and committed them to jail, but five people in the courtroom who had served as

The white saw that the African American citizens were better armed, so as The Crusader reports, “Armed mobs of whites now broke into hardware stores and pawnshops, taking weapons and ammunition” (5). This is where the white mobs were getting hostile, they had more men and they were heavily armed. Then a white man approached an African American male and attempted to take his gun away from him. Shots were then fired which started the June 1, 1921 Tulsa race riot, the largest race riot that this nation has ever seen. As a CNN article wrights, “Truckloads of whites set fires and shot African Americans on sight” (n.pag.). Many newspapers reported saying fireman who responded to the alarm, were kept away. As a report for The Crusader, “firemen made no attempt to fight the flames in the Negro district, but rather took up a position midway between the Negro and the white districts that would enable them to fight the spread of the flames to the white district”(21). There have been some eye witness accounts that whites were flying airplanes “The Black Wall Street” or “Little Africa” which were the names given to the Greenwood district of Tulsa, laid in ruins from the white mobs. As the Tulsa Tribune reports on the following days of the Tulsa race riot, that the Nation Guardsmen under command of Adjutant General Barrett patrolling the Negro section, now a smoldering mass of blackened ruins, at 2:30 this afternoon and with the city under martial law, […], which took a death toll of nine white men and boys, 68 Negroes (1A). After the race riot African Americans were put into camps so that they would not cause another upraising. With all of this information, it does not show that white citizens of Tulsa did anything wrong. African Americans were at fault with this uprising, even the Major of Tulsa to the Commissioners states, “Let the blame for this Negro uprising lie right where it belongs on the armed Negroes” (n.pag.). This clear evidence shows that the white supremacy in Tulsa was enormous. White Tulsan’s had gotten away with a crimes of murder and property damage. The Independent and Weekly Review reports that “a property loss of over $1,500,000, the complete destruction of the Negro garters of Tulsa Oklahoma” (646). There is no clear evidence on how many people die in the Tulsa race riot too. For the magazine Economist it stated with its eyewitness accounts “of dead bodies stacked like cordwood against a fence, and tossed by the dozens into the Arkansas River” (29). There were also many unmark mass grave sights were dead

Some topics in this essay:
African Americans, Scott Ellsworth, African American, Dick Rowland, Judge Evans, Belton Jenks, Adjutant Barrett, Promised Land, Nida Belton, Main Street, race riot, tulsa race riot, tulsa race, african americans, white supremacy, dick rowland, citizens tulsa, african american, ellsworth reports, white citizens, wealthy oilman, june 1 1921, race riot african, white citizens tulsa, stand white supremacy,