Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

In the aftermath of the massacre, the Black Tulsans became refugees in their own community. Many survivors were forced into internment camps at the Convention Hall, the fairgrounds, and the minor league baseball stadium. James T. West, an educator at Booker T. Washington High School, recalls people being “herded like cattle” into these camps and the wounded and ill being left without help for hours (153). The refugees were marched to the camps at gunpoint by members of the white mob and robbed of any belongings they managed to bring with them. Some managed to escape to nearby towns, states, or simply disappeared, never to be found again.

The American Red Cross was called for relief, and Red Cross representative Maurice Willows begged to be allowed to call the incident a natural disaster after seeing the level of destruction and death, since a natural disaster classification would allow the Red Cross to act more quickly to send relief workers to provide medical care. According to Red Cross records, 183 Black people needed surgery immediately after the massacre, with 70% requiring further hospital treatment. Within a week, doctors performed another 163 surgeries, with 82% being considered “major” operations (155). Of the 20 doctors working, 11 were Black. The National Guard armory functioned as a field hospital/clinic for the wounded, since the Black hospital had been burned to the ground during the massacre. Some Black survivors that were in critical condition had to be transferred to white hospitals, which was unprecedented in Jim Crow Oklahoma. 

Many of the Black Tulsans received temporary shelter from the Red Cross, but some of this shelter meant staying in the internment camps. The fairgrounds camp, for example, housed 5,000 refugees at one time, which was half the Black population of Tulsa. The Red Cross raised $100,000 in aid for the Black Tulsa community, and several other agencies also contributed to the aid efforts, including the NAACP, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Colored Citizens Relief Committee, the East End Welfare Board, the Salvation Army, and several churches.

Many Black Tulsans were released from the camps within hours, but others were forced to remain for weeks or months, even into the winter. In order to be released, a white person had to come and “vouch” for the Black person. The Black person was then given a “green card” they had to wear (156), and if they were found without a card, they would be arrested. The socioeconomic status of the Black person did not matter; Assistant County physician Dr. R. T. Bridgewater cared for patients during the day, but returned to the camp at night, since his house was destroyed. Architect and contractor J. C. Latimer could not leave the camps as he was self-employed and did not know any white people to “vouch” for him. He eventually convinced a white man to pose as his brother-in-law to gain his freedom. 

The camps ran rampant with disease, with eight pregnant women suffering premature births that ended in death, and many more pregnant women suffering complications as a result of the massacre. Many suffered from malnutrition, as they had to buy their own food, and many lost all sources of income in the destruction. Those who could not pay had to work for food, and the work consisted up manual labor cleaning up the Greenwood District that the white mob destroyed. The hard work further contributed to their illness and malnutrition. It was also a stark physical reminder of how much damage the mob had done, which was likely between $50 million and $200 million in today’s currency.

Many people lost their businesses, their homes, their churches, but many also lost their loved ones. Thirty-seven death certificates were issued following the massacre, 25 for Black Tulsans and 12 for white Tulsans. Nine of the Black victims were burnt beyond recognition, and a stillborn Black baby was also found. These numbers are likely conservative, however; historians believe as many as 300 people died during the massacre, the majority of them being Black Americans. Colbert explains that this lack of certainty over the true death count stems from the fact that many Tulsans, both Black and white, recall seeing bodies dumped into the Arkansas River and also claim that there are undiscovered mass graves in Tulsa containing more victims of the massacre. 

An all-white grand jury convened and placed the blame for the massacre, which they dubbed a race riot, on the Black men who went to the courthouse to defend Rowland from the lynch mob. None of the white people who took part in the violence ever faced any consequences for the burning, looting, injuries, and murders that they inflicted upon the Black community of Greenwood. In fact, some notable community members of Greenwood, including J. B. Stradford and A. J. Smitherman, were accused of inciting the violence, leading both Stradford and Smitherman and his family to move north to avoid indictment.

The community tried to rebuild Greenwood in the aftermath of the violence, but white society attempted to thwart them at every turn, first passing laws that required the new Greenwood buildings to be made of fireproof materials, something many of the Black Tulsans could not afford. Insurance companies also refused to pay Black business owners and homeowners for their losses. The rebuilding was also complicated by the loss of Stradford, Smitherman, and Gurley, who all left the community, never to return.

Many others also left Tulsa, traumatized by the violence of the massacre. As for Rowland, he was released after Page wrote to request dropping the charges against him. Both Rowland and Page disappeared from the historical record, apparently leaving Tulsa. As the Black community mourned their losses and attempted to rebuild from the ashes, the white Tulsans tried to bury the bloody past.

While the white Tulsa community sought to forget the massacre, a number of newspapers wrote about it, including The New York Times and the Times of London. Many outside of Oklahoma condemned the massacre, though the white people of Tulsa themselves were split: Some were proud to have participated in the violence, while others were ashamed of the actions of the mob. The KKK took a new interest in Oklahoma, with members gaining public office and even hosting a parade through downtown Tulsa in April 1922; in addition, 1,700 active members continued to terrorize Black Tulsans in 1922.

Some Black Tulsans wanted to raise awareness about the massacre, including Mary Elizabeth Jones Parrish, one of the survivors. In 1922, she wrote a book titled Events of the Tulsa Disaster, in addition to writing about the massacre for the Oklahoma Interracial Commission. While Parrish sought to bring the events to light, the rest of Tulsa and Oklahoma sought to bury the massacre, hoping to avoid the perception of Oklahoma as a racist and unsafe place to live.

The Tulsa Tribune ignored the event in its aftermath, including in its later commemorative “15 years ago” and “25 years ago” celebratory issues for 1921. The Greenwood Massacre was not included in Oklahoma history curriculum until 2000, almost 80 years after the events. Many people who moved to Tulsa in the aftermath of the violence had no idea it had ever happened. Educators at schools in Tulsa, including Nancy Feldman of University of Tulsa and Nancy Dodson of Tulsa Junior College, were prohibited from teaching about it in their classrooms. However, Loren L. Gill, a World War II veteran, wrote his graduate thesis about the topic in 1946. Still, the massacre was only discussed privately, and to talk about it in public was considered taboo. Colbert adds, however, that teachers at Booker T. Washington High School taught their students about the massacre. 

Things changed in the 1970s, 50 years after the event. Head of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce Magazine Ed Wheeler decided to cover the event. Though he was intimidated against doing it and many publications rejected his story, he eventually published it in the Black Impact magazine. His story renewed discussions about Tulsa’s history. As the civil rights movement made steps forward for equality, the historical community began to piece together more and more about what happened in Greenwood, little by little, even though national recognition of the horrors were still years away.

Colbert states that Booker T. Washington High School still exists in a new location, with the original I of the high school being transported and used in the new school due to its historical significance. Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church also survived the massacre and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018. In addition, after Smitherman left Tulsa and closed the Tulsa Star, Black journalist Theodore Baughman, who left the Star to start his own competing Black newspaper in 1920, the Oklahoma Sun, resumed printing the Sun, renaming it the Oklahoma Eagle. The paper still exists today, the only business that still remains from the time of the 1921 massacre. 

What remains of Black Wall Street is 14 brick buildings, reconstructed after the massacre. There are also now dozens of street plaques commemorating the people and historic buildings of Greenwood, which were installed in the 1990s. Over 170 plaques now exist, and though some are damaged or missing, construction is ongoing to preserve them.

In the 2010s, Greenwood became a racially mixed neighborhood with a minor league baseball team, arts district, mall, and luxury apartment complex. Colbert describes how some Black residents of Greenwood (which is still two-thirds Black) feel uncertain about more and more white businesses moving into an area whose history they do not understand or appreciate. Despite this, actions have been taken to preserve Greenwood’s history and celebrate its community. There is now the Greenwood Cultural Center, a nonprofit that has an events venue, photo gallery, and classrooms for youth courses and other community programs. There is also the Mabel B. Little Heritage House, which is a museum dedicated to survivor Little and the history of the massacre and its impact upon the community. The John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation also formed to construct the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park, named for survivor, lawyer, and civil rights advocate B. C. Franklin’s son. The park includes three bronze statues of photographs of people in the massacre and a 25-foot-tall Statue of Reconciliation that depicts the history of Black Americans in Oklahoma. 

Colbert adds that, despite these steps, some Black members of the Tulsa community do not feel enough has been done. An 11-member state commission formed in 1997 to investigate the causes and consequences of the massacre. In 2001, the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 published a 178-page report with strong recommendations for a series of reparations, including monetary payments to the survivors and descendants of the massacre, a scholarship fund for those students affected by the massacre, an “economic development enterprise zone in the historic Greenwood District” (179) and other such initiatives. Besides the building of the Reconciliation Park, none of these other reparations have come to fruition.

Though some survivors and descendants attempted to sue the state in 2003, Colbert explains that the government rejected their claims as they believed it had been “too long” since the massacre, despite the clear and deliberate attempts by the government and white society to cover up the truth (179). The appeals in 2005 on this case were also rejected without comment. Also unsuccessful were Black Tulsans’ attempts to have the entire Greenwood District marked as a historical site on the National Register of Historic Places, an initiative that would have granted Black Tulsans more control over the construction and development of their community.

People have also attempted to convince the Tulsa government to search for any possible mass graves to recover the bodies of unaccounted victims, especially after Clyde Eddy came forward in 1999 to say that he, at 10 years old, saw white men burying Black bodies in Oaklawn cemetery. Though Eddy gave this testimony in 1999, it would take 20 years for the government to finally investigate his claims: In 2020, Tulsa began to dig for the mass graves, finding the bodies of 18 potential massacre victims in Oaklawn and beginning the excavation of other cemeteries that may contain mass graves.

Despite the slow progress for reparations, some apologies have been made; the charges against J. B. Stradford were dropped in 1996, and October 18 was named “J. B. Stradford Day” (182). In 2007, all indictments against Greenwood residents were dropped, including those against Smitherman. A number of museums have since commemorated the massacre, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum.

Colbert also notes that the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, formed in 2017, has worked to build a history center in Greenwood, develop educational curriculum for Oklahoma schools about the massacre, and, after receiving a grant for $1 million, has funded the Greenwood Art Project. In 2018, the Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce was formed to “enhance the quality of life for African Americans and the north Tulsa community through economic development, education, workforce development, community development, and legislative advocacy” and hopes to rebuild Greenwood and the surrounding areas even further (185).

Tulsan Eddie Faye Gates has also donated to the Gilcrease Museum a large number of photographs and other firsthand documents and narratives to further preserve the historical truth of the massacre. Colbert attributes the burial of the truth about the Tulsa Massacre to “white supremacy and the myth of American exceptionalism” (187).