By Randy Hopkins James Jones, also known as "Diamond Dick" Rowland, seated third from left, front row. Courtesy of Booker T. Washington High School The title picture shown above is that of James Jones taken from the 1921 yearbook of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Booker T. Washington High School. Jones has long been viewed as the teenager at the center of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre "Diamond Dick" Rowland. Now, thanks to the efforts of his high school classmates, it is possible to view previously unpublicized photographs of the mysterious James Jones, as well as other, remarkable new evidence. In July 1978, graduates of Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington High held an expanded fifty-year reunion. Celebrated over the course of three days, the reunion honored the school’s Classes of 1916 through the 1920s. The culmination was a formal gala held at Tulsa’s Mayo Hotel, shown in the following photograph. [1] Courtesy of Princetta R. Newman Collection, NMAACH. The core of the 1978 Reunion Committee consisted of Race Massacre survivors. The President was Robert Fairchild, who gave extensive interviews to Eddie Faye Gates and Ruth Avery Sigler concerning the great calamity. Other survivors included the Committee secretary, Wilhelmina Guess Howell, and the majority of various designated chairpersons, including W. D. Williams and Robert Moreland, who had been athletic teammates of Jones. As part of this celebration, the 1978 Reunion Committee solicited and collected “rare pictures and other valuable data” from alumni and published them in an “album of memoirs” for the reunion attendees. This class photo album was titled Down Through the 1920s. Fortunately, a copy belonging to Eunice Cloman Jackson survives. She was a junior in 1921. She and her husband, Samuel M. Jackson, later ran a series of Greenwood funeral homes and were well-known and respected in the community. Eunice Jackson’s copy, partially autographed, is now lodged in the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History & Culture, having been donated there as part of the Princetta R. Newman Collection of Family Photographs. Courtesy of Princetta R. Newman Collection, NMAACH The Newman Collection consists of 145 photographs documenting “life in Tulsa and the businesses of Black Wall Street, particularly the Jackson family and their funeral home, the oldest business in North Tulsa.” The Newman Collection is available online at the National Museum’s website. Eunice Jackson’s copy of Down Through the 1920s is located on the seventh page of the Newman Collection’s index. All the images from the reunion memoir album are reproduced there. The rare student photos begin on page eleven of Down Through the 1920s. The very first photograph is that of James Jones, who many consider to have been the “Diamond Dick” Rowland, whose alleged assault of a white orphan led to the Race Massacre. Courtesy of Princetta R. Newman Collection, NMAACH The principal evidence of the Jones-Rowland connection was provided by Damie Rowland Ford. In a 1972 interview with Ruth Sigler Avery, Damie reported that a “skinny, little barefoot, black boy” came into the grocery she was running in Vinita, Oklahoma. She determined that he was an orphan named Jimmie Jones, who was then living on the streets begging for food with two sisters. [2] She decided to take him in and to care for him “just like as mother,” with the approval of Jimmie’s two sisters who then disappear from the story. [3] Damie further explained that Jimmie later changed his surname to Rowland and began using “Dick” as a first name. She related that his friends began calling him “Diamond Dick,” after he purchased a diamond ring as a birthday present for himself. [4] The young woman pictured with James Jones was Vyola Webb. Vyola was a Booker T. junior in 1921; James Jones was a sophomore. [5] One of Vyola’s brothers, Walter, was Jones’ teammate on the 1921 football team. Vyola’s father was Staley Webb, who became a Tulsa County deputy sheriff in 1920. Before that, he was a Tulsa city policeman and before that a Tulsa County constable. He was still a Tulsa deputy sheriff in 1935. According to the 1920 Census, Vyola, her parents, sisters, and brothers were living in an apartment building run and occupied by J. H. Smitherman, then a Tulsa city police officer. Smitherman was the first Black detective in the Tulsa police department and the brother of Andrew J. Smitherman, publisher of the Tulsa Star newspaper. [6] Vyola’s father Staley was likely the “Webb” who accompanied O. W. Gurley from Greenwood to the Tulsa County Courthouse around 6:00-6:30 p.m. on May 31, 1921, to check on rumors that the youth called "Diamond Dick" was going to be lynched. While there, deputy sheriff Staley likely conferred with his boss, Tulsa County Sheriff Willard McCullough, who appears to have protected the prisoner through the course of events. [7] The James Jones in the Jones-Webb photo appears leaner and older than his photos appearing in the 1921 Booker T. Washington annual and other athletic team photos. [8] This suggests the photo was taken well after high school days. Both Jones and Vyola are dressed to the nines. Their complementary outfits would have even been appropriate for a wedding. It is possible that the Jones-Webb photo was provided by the Vyola herself, as she was the chairperson of the 1978 Reunion’s registration committee in her married name Vyola Berry. Mrs. Berry was the long-time attendance clerk and secretary at Booker T. Washington high school. [9] A second photo of James Jones appears on page thirteen of Down Through the 1920s. It is the same photo of the 1921 Booker T. Washington basketball team that appeared in the school’s 1921 yearbook. The yearbook version contained no identifying names, but the 1978 version does and it confirms James Jones is the player holding the ball marked “championship.” Photos of the 1921 basketball team later reproduced in the 1963 Booker T. Washington yearbook identify him as J. W. Jones, as do various other 1921 basketball and football team photos. [10] Courtesy of Princetta R. Newman Collection, NMAACH Standing in front of Jones is Bill Williams, the team captain. Williams’ family owned the Dreamland Theater and other Greenwood businesses. More commonly known as W. D., Williams served as a Booker T. teacher for decades. History was his subject. Williams may also have been in charge of assembling Down Through the 1920s in his position as chairperson of the 1978 Reunion’s brochure committee. The only football team photo in Down Through the 1920s was from 1924. There are no surviving pictures of the 1920 football team, who played their games in the fall of 1920, but Jones was as a 1920 team member. [11] Surviving photos of the 1921 football team show Jones, identified as J. W. Jones, sitting front and center and again holding a ball. But the 1921 team played its games in the fall of 1921, after the Tulsa Race Massacre. According to the Tulsa County jail log, Dick Rowland was a prisoner until September 28, 1921. [12] If Jones was Rowland, then he returned to school and made a bee-line for the football team after leaving jail. Jones’ 1921 team went undefeated and began the season with a 96-0 thrashing of Okmulgee. Perhaps the team was taking out some frustrations from earlier in the year. Perhaps Jones was as well. Courtesy of Booker T. Washington High School The third and final James Jones photo in Down Through the 1920s is found on page eighteen. Jones looks younger than in the Jones-Webb photo and is clad in overalls and spiffy shoes. The woman standing next to him and apparently shielding them both with an open umbrella was identified as Virginia Carter, another Booker T. student. [13] To the immediate left of the Jones-Carter photo is a photo of Robert Fairchild, president of the 1978 Reunion Committee and a freshman in 1921. The photo immediately to the right of Jones is that of Tuleta Duncan, a sophomore in 1921. Like Vyola Webb, Tuleta Duncan went on to be employed at Booker T. Washington High School for over forty years. She served as the Cafeteria Manager. [14] Courtesy of Princetta R. Newman Collection, NMAACH In interviews, Robert Fairchild named the bootblack at the core of the Massacre as Rowland, even as he declared him innocent. History teacher W. D. Williams spoke of Rowland quitting school and becoming a bootblack, but also ridiculed the notion that Rowland was guilty. [15] None of Jones’ classmates appear to have ever “outed” a connection between him and Rowland. While this may suggest that Jones was not Dick Rowland, the much more likely possibility is that, like Fairchild and Williams, they all believed him innocent and were protecting him. In the memoir album Down Through the 1920s, the 1978 Reunion Committee reclaimed and vouched for James Jones as their classmate. He was one of the few to get three pictures in the book. Down Through the 1920s’ memorial page also contains a list of those graduates who had passed away, broken down by graduating classes. James Jones is listed under the Class of 1923. Years of death are not listed. The reference to Jones’ passing links, albeit fitfully, to a “James Jones” grave marker located adjacent to the Rowland family plot in Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery and first discovered by Tulsa historian Steve Gerkin. The death date of the crude Oaklawn marker is March 1921, before the Tulsa Race Massacre. But Jones shows up on the 1921 football team photo, taken after the Massacre. [16 ] Courtesy of Steve Gerkin There is also new evidence that not only did James Jones not die in 1921 but that he was in Tulsa on a later date: specifically, June 9, 1928. That’s the day Vyola Webb got married to Mr. Armstead Wilson Berry. The ceremony was performed by J. F. Mosely, pastor of the Mt. Vernon A. M. E. Church located then and now on Greenwood Avenue. The couple’s Certificate of Marriage identified two witnesses. The first — presumably the maid of honor — was Tuleta Duncan, using her then-married name Butler. As mentioned, both Vyola and Tuleta worked together at Booker T. Washington High and would do so for over forty years. [17] The second witness to the marriage was J. W. Jones. The Jones-Webb photo was one of the traditions of a wedding celebration - a posed photo of the bride and the best man. Jones stands respectfully and deferentially, his arms behind his back as if at attention. He stands behind Vyola, making her the center of the photo just as she was the center of the event being honored. Best man Jones is the portrait of chivalry, far removed from the Tulsa Tribune’s 1921 image of a cowardly elevator skulker. That is the image that the 1978 Reunion Committee of Booker T. Washington published upfront in their compilation of over fifty years of collective memories. On the Certificate of Marriage, the space for J. W. Jones’ residence was left blank Courtesy of Randy Hopkins Endnotes: [1] Unless otherwise noted, all photographs included in this paper are drawn from the Princetta R. Newman Collection of Family Photographs housed at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAACH). The Newman Collection is online and can be accessed at https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/search-collection/tulsa-objects-nmaahc-collection. [2] Ruth Avery’s Interviews on the Tulsa Race Riot: Damie Rowland Ford, box 2, Ruth Sigler Avery Collection, Special Collections and Archives, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa, Tulsa, OK (hereafter the “Avery Collection”). Ironically, Ruth Avery pursued her interview with Damie Rowland Ford at the urging of Samuel M. Jackson, Eunice Cloman Jackson’s husband. [3] Perhaps coincidentally, two young girls appear as “grandchildren” of Dave and Ollie Rowland, Damie’s parents, in the 1920 Census. One was named Earlean Roland, who is now buried in the Rowland family plot in Tulsa’s city-owned Oaklawn Cemetery under a married name. The other was named Thelma Clayton. A photograph of Thelma Clayton appears on page twenty-one of Down Through the 1920s, though the date or school year of the picture is unknown. [4] While the name “Diamond Dick” may have had a triggering effect on people when read in context with an alleged attempted sexual assault of a so-called seventeen-year-old white orphan, there is another possible explanation for Jones’s attachment to both diamonds and the name “Dick.” When he was growing up, pulp magazines were the comic books/graphic novels of their day. One popular pulp hero was “Dashing Diamond Dick,” a chivalrous and heroic character who wore a costume covered with diamonds. Ironically, Dashing’s face was the whitest of white because of injuries suffered when his enemies tried to lynch him. “Diamond Dick,” Public Domain Super Heroes. www.pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/DiamondDick. [5] A copy of the 1921 Booker T. Washington yearbook is online at https://thislandpress.com/2013/05/09/the-pages-of-the-1921-booker-t-washington-high-school-yearbook. James Jones’ sophomore class picture is contained on page seventeen and his basketball team photo is on page twenty-eight. His name is listed as a member of the 1920 football team on page twenty-seven, though there is no team photo. Vyola Webb is listed as a junior on page eighteen. [6] U.S. Census Bureau, Fourteenth Census of the United States, Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1920). For Staley Webb as a city police officer, Ronald L. Trekell, History of the Tulsa Police Department 1882-1990 (Tulsa, OK: Tulsa Police Department, 1989), 389. For Staley Webb as county constable, For 1935, Tulsa, Oklahoma City Directory, 1935, ancestry.com, 565. Webb’s service as county constable may have coincided with one of McCullough’s earlier terms as County Sheriff. Also, Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma, 2019), 22-23. [7] Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921, 38. For actions of Sheriff McCullough and deputy sheriff Barney Cleaver to shield Rowland from mob and Tulsa police chief Gustafson, Randy Hopkins, “The Freeing of Dick Roland". [8] A full inventory of James or J. W. Jones’ school photographs include: (1) those in the 1921 Booker T. Washington yearbook (sophomore class and basketball team photos); (2) 1921 basketball and football team photos included in the 1963 Booker T. Washington High yearbook, U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999 [database on-line], ancestry.com; (3) 1921 basketball and 1921 football photos discovered by Steve Gerkin and included in a published homage to the 1921-1946 athletic teams of Seymour Williams, Booker T’s legendary coach; and (4) the 1921 basketball photo with name caption in Down Through the 20s. [9] See, e. g., 1967 Booker T. Washington High School yearbook, online at U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999 [database on-line], ancestry.com., 49. [10] See endnote 8. [11] 1921 Booker T. Washington High School yearbook, page 27. [12] Randy Hopkins, “The Freeing of Dick Roland.” [13] The woman shown in the Jones-Carter photo may not be the same as the student photo of Virginia Carter shown on page twenty-two of Down Through the 1920s. The woman with Jones appears older, though the quality of the picture is poor. It is possible that the photo of Jones and an older woman was a prank, with the real Virginia Carter as the target. Perhaps there were rivalries still surviving after fifty years. James Jones did leave a reputation as a “ladies’ man.” [14] See, e. g., 1967 Booker T. Washington High School yearbook, online at U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999 [database on-line], ancestry.com., 50 (appearing under married name Tuleta Shawnee). [15] For Fairchild, Eddie Faye Gates, They Came Searching (Austin,TX: Eakin Press, 1997), 69-72; “Robert L. Fairchild, Jr. Interview at University of Tulsa Taken on April 18, 1976, Avery Collection). For W. D. Williams, Don Ross, “Prologue,” Tulsa Race Riot: A Report of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Oklahoma City, OK: Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, iv-vii; Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 1-6. [16] For Gerkin’s groundbreaking research on the identity of "Diamond Dick" Rowland and the mysteries of the possible Oaklawn Cemetery burial sites for James Jones, Steve Gerkin, Hidden History of Tulsa (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2011), 41-53; Steve Gerkin, “Diamond in the Rough,” Race Reader (Tulsa, OK: This Land Press, 2017), 43-47; “Is This The Face Of The Man at the Center Of The Tulsa Race Riot?,” Race Reader, (Tulsa, OK: This Land Press, 2017) 48-52. [17] Oklahoma, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1890-1995 [database on-line], ancestry.com. For Tuleta Duncan marrying George Butler in March 1928, see “Marriage Licenses.” Sapulpa (OK) Herald, March 19, 1928, 1.

A Documentary Film from the Center for Public Secrets and Well-Told “OAKLAWN” tells the story behind the investigation into the search for unmarked graves at Tulsa's Oaklawn Cemetery stemming from the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. A Public Oversight Committee was created as part of the City of Tulsa's 1921 Graves Investigation to assure "transparency and accountability." The Committee was made up of descendants of Race Massacre victims and leaders in Tulsa's African-American community. The film highlights the bureaucratic hurdles through the knowledge and experiences of descendants and members of the Public Oversight Committee. The Committee was repeatedly left in the dark about developments and left out of major decisions. The film reveals their experience and is told by the members themselves. "They said we were the oversight Committee, but we really are the out-of-sight committee,” said State Rep. Regina Goodwin. Goodwin’s frustrations were felt by many in the Committee, who believed there was inconsistent communication and conflict with many of their wishes by City officials. The conflicts threatened to further poison relations between the City and Tulsa's African-American community. On a deeper level, the film delves into the injustices that Black Americans face on a daily basis through inequities in all facets of life, including government and policing. The film’s release came just as the City of Tulsa announced that officials will once again begin excavation fieldwork at Oaklawn Cemetery. The original excavation was abruptly terminated in June 2021 after the discovery of a single gunshot victim. “OAKLAWN” was created and produced by the Center for Public Secrets, a Tulsa-based institution that explores the city’s hidden secrets through events, collaborations, and investigations in partnership with Well-Told, a creative agency based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. For screening requests or additional information, please contact info@centerforpublicsecrets.org. Are you looking for a way to get involved? The easiest way to make your voice heard is to email the City of Tulsa and Mayor G.T. Bynum's office. On November 18th, 2022 Mayor Bynum said, “to make them accessible to both the folks on the Oversight Committee but also anybody else that wants to participate in the meeting and the reality is at this point there is an international interest in this Investigation we’ve been doing those meetings virtually to maximize the number of people that can watch them and be able to get information from them.” Since the Centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, however, the City of Tulsa has stopped making Public Oversight Committee meetings accessible to the public with only a single exception. The City has also failed to post recordings of post-Centennial meetings on its 1921 Graves webpage or its YouTube channel. In September, the City refused even to record the Public Oversight Committee meeting. The public is being locked out.

By Fraser Kastner The monument in Owen Park was erected by the Tulsa Association of Pioneers in honor of the charter members of the association living in Tulsa, Indian Territory and vicinity for thirty years from 1881 to 1921 and other pioneer families. In September of 1921, a group of influential Tulsans formed the Tulsa Association of Pioneers to commemorate the founders of their city. Eventually, they installed a monument in Owen Park which stands to this day, a reminder of how they hoped to be remembered. A century later Tulsa’s true history has been obscured by the passage of time and old-boys-club omerta. The recent discovery of mass graves in Tulsa’s Oaklawn Cemetery and the newly-reaffirmed status of Eastern Oklahoma as tribal land invites us to take a deeper look at this city’s history. What is the true history of Tulsa? Who gets to tell it? And what did the Pioneers’ and their monument really stand for? An 8-foot slab of stone juts out of a small hill at the intersection of Edison Street and Maybelle Avenue, west of Downtown Tulsa. It’s easy to miss; it shares a parking lot with Owen Park, DiscoveryLab, and a few other local landmarks. The inscription commemorates a gathering of Tulsa’s “Old Timers,” those who had settled in the area in the first few years after the land rush. It reads, “This stone marks the ground where ‘Old Timers’ who had lived in Tulsa and vicinity over thirty years, met on Sept. 21, 1921, at a Barbecue given by Dr. Sam G. and Dr. Jim Kennedy. They all visited with old friends, reminisced, and organized the ‘Tulsa Association of Pioneers’ to Commemorate and Perpetuate the memory of those ‘Sturdy Pioneers’ who, by their sacrifice (sic) and effort helped to build a great Empire.” The inscription was composed by James Monroe Hall, himself an Old Timer who came to the region in 1882. Attached to the upright stone are three horizontal additions, the largest of which contains a list of fifty families descended from those early settlers. The horizontal slabs were added sometime after the memorial was moved to its current location in 1950. This list reflects membership between 1935 and 1964. Many of the names are instantly recognizable to those familiar with Tulsa. The Kennedy, Vandever, and Thompson families lend their names to Tulsa’s most distinguished skyscrapers. Archer, Clinton, Bynum, Avery, Perryman, and Owens, are also recognizable. The Tulsa Association of Pioneers monument gives a distinctly rosy impression of those figures. It harkens back to Manifest Destiny, to the steadfast pioneer of American myth who tamed the unchurched prairie with grit, gun, and God. In truth, the Tulsa Pioneer Association was largely composed of Tulsa’s elites, a class that rose to prominence through the oil business and associated commercial apparatus and retained power through vigilante violence, yellow journalism, and all the associated dirty tricks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The monument bears the names of segregationists, war profiteers, land thieves, and at least two Klansmen. While not every name on the monument is directly connected to the violence of that era, it is likely that they knew about the activities of their peers and remained silent. The city fathers took their secrets to the grave, and the silence stood for decades. Decades later we can begin to see a clearer image of Tulsa’s founders against the backdrop of mass graves near Greenwood and Tulsa’s continued occupancy of Native land. For a few people in Tulsa, 1921 was a good year. The region’s oil reserves were a source of massive wealth for a few, partially facilitated by the Great War. Dr. Samuel Kennedy was one such person. Kennedy’s name was on the city’s official charter, along with fellow “old-timers” J.M. Hall, P.L. Price, Tate Brady, L.M. Poe, G.W. Mowbray, B.E. Lynch, Captain Seaman, and Colonel Calkins. Kennedy retired from medicine in 1907 to manage his business interests, which had become considerable. He owned a large tract of property that covered much of what is now northwest Tulsa. A White man, Kennedy had married into the Osage tribe and much of his land was in Osage territory. He was also connected to the development of oil fields and served as an officer and board member at the first National Bank of Tulsa along with many others who would go on to make up the Tulsa Association of Pioneers. 1921would have seemed like a good time for Dr. Kennedy to throw a party. Just two years earlier he had completed work on his Kennedy Building, which a contemporary adulently described as “the largest and finest office building in the state.” A few years later the Kennedy Manson would be complete at a cost somewhere around $75,000, about a million dollars today. Both buildings are still standing. He held office in the Osage nation, at one time advocating for the extension of their mineral rights, a move which likely would have enriched himself and other Whites who were invested in Osage oil reserves. Kennedy was well-liked and well-thought-of. His friend J. M. Hall wrote of him that he “practiced medicine here so long he probably knows more of the old pioneers than anyone in Tulsa. He can call the father and mother by their given names and all the children as he welcomed many of them into this world.” And so when Dr. Kennedy and his brother Jim threw a barbeque on his ranch, a great many people turned out. The party was advertised in the news and appeared on the front page of the next day’s Sunday Tulsa Daily World, which chronicled the meal: “Great was the joy of the old-timers in the occasion and tears sparkled as they clasped hands which they had not for long grasped in friendly salutation. The entertainment took place on the lawn of the Kennedy home, where on a long table was spread a veritable feast of choice barbecued meat, with the accompaniment of bread and butter, eggs, pickles, potato chips, lemonade, coffee, and watermelon. There was over 300 present, of whom about 25 were relatives or younger people.” J.M. Hall, who would later write the inscription on the Tulsa Association of Pioneers monument, was one of those 300 who had joined the festivities. He was personally familiar with many of those present, and the Tulsa Daily World wrote that he “led the informal raiding of the storehouse of memory.” His speech is preserved in the Sunday world praising city leaders for working to bring rail lines through Tulsa. “You laid the foundation for which has made Tulsa what it is today,” he told the crowd. That night they organized the Tulsa Association of Pioneers, so that future generations in the Magic City would remember the great deeds that had built it. Tulsa, the Magic City, was something less than the land of Oz in 1921, even if oil and the money that followed might have made it seem that way for some. In reality, Tulsa’s resources were a source of immense wealth for the city’s elites, who were deeply jealous of their treasure. The war, or more specifically war propaganda carried by many Oklahoma newspapers, had radicalized many. This culminated in a rash of vigilante violence that targeted labor organizers, Blacks, immigrants, and anyone deemed insufficiently loyal to the flag. Tulsa’s elites stood to make a fortune in the oil market created by the war and encouraged this process of radicalization. In some cases, this was done directly. This was the case with Tate Brady, who was a member of a Klan cell calling itself the Knights of Liberty. Brady was present for at least one act of vigilante violence against IWW members when 17 members of the party were tarred and feathered with the aid of police in a 1917 event that came to be known as the Tulsa Outrage. Brady also hosted the Association’s second meeting in 1923 at Arlington, his Confederate-inspired mansion. Other names on the Tulsa Association of Pioneers monument were connected to known acts of vigilante violence. Sheriff Willard McCullough is believed to have been a Klansman and supervised the organization of the Tulsa Law Enforcement Club in December of 1921. The Club conducted vigilante raids on alcohol and narcotics dens, mainly focussing on Greenwood and Black Tulsans. Another member of the Association of Pioneers, Lilah D. Linsey, served as Treasurer of the Tulsa Council of Defense. The Tulsa Council of Defense was responsible for identifying and targeting insufficiently patriotic elements during World War I, helping establish the acceptance of vigilantism in Tulsa. A Tulsa World article about the Knights of Liberty from 1921 says that “it was generally rumored that they were prominent businessmen who decided to administer their own brand of punishment in times of emergency.” It is likely that Tate Brady was not the only member of the Pioneers’ Association to have taken part in the Knights’ activities, but we may never know for sure. It is certain, however, that other Pioneers Association members were complicit in vigilante violence and at least attempted to profit by it. After the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Greenwood area was placed within Tulsa’s fire district. This meant that Greenwood was placed under a new building code which made it much more difficult for displaced Black Tulsans to rebuild. The Chamber of Commerce established the Real Estate exchange to determine the value of stolen and destroyed property in the Greenwood neighborhood. The plan was to convert the area to an industrial sector, which newspaper reports claim would more than triple the value of the land. Black Tulsans would be further segregated onto “higher and more sanitary ground to the northeast,” separated from the industrial area that had replaced their neighborhood only by a “string of small parks.” Those who had lost property were advised by the exchange not to seek legal council, promising that “competent legal advice will be furnished free of charge.” The plan was abandoned because no one bothered to actually secure land for the displaced Blacks. The Chamber of Commerce also participated in the internment of Black Tulsans. During and after the Massacre, roughly half of Black Tulsans were rounded up by law enforcement and National Guard Troops and placed in internment camps. Conditions in these camps were bad, with one eye-witness account describing the sick and wounded being left untreated for hours. Black Tulsans who were not in the camps were forced to wear or carry a green “Police Protection” card which listed their name, where they worked, where they lived, and other information. The Chamber of Commerce and City Commission paid for these cards. The Chamber also helped organize the Business Men’s Protective League, a group that guarded the roads into and out of the city to prevent a rumored Black invasion. Merritt J. Glass was the president of the Real Estate exchange which hoped to profit by further segregating Tulsa. Even after it became clear that the dispossessed Blacks would have nowhere to go, Glass argued that Greenwood should still be converted to industrial use. Tate Brady was the vice-chairman of the Reconstruction Committee which picked out Lansing Avenue as the new Black business distinct. Dr. Sam Kennedy was a member of the Chamber of Commerce which facilitated the entire affair. The actions of these men and the groups that represent them show a clear preference for racism and segregation while also demonstrating tolerance for violence and lawlessness. All three of these men’s names are on the Tulsa Association of Pioneers monument, and in many cases, they shared a fair number of other social and business connections to other members of that club. While some profited by the violence and chaos, others abetted it from the pulpit. Charles William Kerr, the pastor of Tulsa’s First Presbyterian Church and eventual TAPS member, blamed Black Tulsans after the Race Massacre in a sermon mere days after Greenwood had been attacked. Successful Blacks, he argued, couldn’t expect to be tolerated. Although he had tried to dissuade the lynch mob who had come for Dick Rowland and opened his church basement to refugees, his sympathy for Black people reached its limit when it threatened white supremacy. The eastern edge of Dr. Sam Kennedy’s former farm is roughly half a mile from North Detroit Ave, commonly held to be the westernmost frontier of Black Tulsa. If Dr. Kennedy had been on his property the day of the massacre he might have seen the fires rising from the burning Greenwood. He would have smelled the smoke and accelerants used by the White mobs to destroy the most prosperous Black neighborhood in America. He would have heard the hateful shouting of the destroyers and the cries of the victims. He would have known what kind of town he had helped build. Three months later, while many Black Tulsans were preparing to spend the winter in tent cities, Kennedy threw his “Old Timers” barbecue on his farm. Although the TAPS Monument claims that the picnic on Kennedy’s farm took place on the 21st of September, Tulsa Daily World Coverage places the event a few days earlier. In truth, the 21st was the day of a gathering of the Sons of Confederate Veterans held at the Brady Hotel. It made sense: Brady himself was a member of the Sons. Speakers such as Sen. Luther Harrison of Holdenville paid tribute to Confederate idols, including Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest. Harrison’s speech contained many tenuous claims, including that the first shots of the civil war were fired by John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, rather than at Fort Sumter, and that Rhode Island had been the first state to secede in 1786. The noble Southern struggle came to an end, he said, because they had fought until they “hadn’t a round of ammunition for their guns, neither had they a day’s rations in their knapsacks.” This was not the first time the SOCV had visited Tulsa, they hosted their twenty-eighth reunion in Tulsa just a few years earlier in 1918, an event commemorated by a special souvenir edition of the Tulsa Daily World which featured Klan Founder Nathan Bedford Forrest alongside Woodrow Wilson, General Pershing, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis and a special two-page spread advertising the city of Tulsa to the visiting Sons. 1921’s gathering was more low-key, although still a multi-day affair. Oklahoma’s Governor, James Robertson, sent a telegram regretting that he could not attend. While Senator Holdenville valorized the Klan’s founder at the Brady Hotel, the Klans presence was being increasingly felt in the area. By 1921 the Ku Klux Klan had a membership of roughly two thousand in the Tulsa area. In January of that year, members of Tulsa’s Joe Carson American Legion Post were openly speculating about reforming the Knights of Liberty in response to a possible visit to Tulsa from National Nonpartisan League founder Arthur C. Townley. The same day the Sons of Confederate Veterans met in Tulsa, the Tulsa Daily World documented 150 Klansmen riding through Shawnee and drawing weapons on locals who followed them. The very next page featured an editorial by Tulsan J. C. Anderson endorsing the Klan as “interested in the welfare of the community and of all persons worthy of consideration.” In the same column, an anonymous Klansman warns fellow Tulsans that, “I will say this: DO RIGHT, LIVE RIGHT, BE RIGHT and nothing will molest you. But we all know that the guilty of a crime must suffer.” A column by Nora Cole Skinner on the same page downplays the seriousness of the Tulsa Race Massacre. In her column, Skinner blames the presence of Black people in Tulsa for the violence and echoing Confederate grievances: “Why should ... northern cities upbraid Tulsa?” she asks. “They also have had race riots, and these clashes are apt to happen in any city where there are large negro populations.” Tulsans took cues from their leaders about what was acceptable. As a result, the city appears to have been very open to racist ideologies and the associated violence. Although this cannot be generalized to everyone who lived in the city at this time, the lexicon of acceptable ideas skewed toward the extreme right-wing. Counterfactual historical narratives, like those espoused by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, were embraced and spread in local media. White supremacy was the order of the day. History is written by the victors, and the history of Tulsa is no exception. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were rife with conflict, and if anyone can be said to have come out on top it would be the families listed on the TAPS monument. The Tulsa Association of Pioneers sought to establish a historical narrative for the city that placed white settlers, missionaries, and industrialists at the center and overlooked or outright denigrated Native Americans, Blacks, labor activists, and other groups important to her history while ignoring the violence, racism, and structural inequality that facilitated the “Pioneers’” success. In 1933 James Hall wrote a history of Tulsa for the Association of Pioneers. In many ways, he was the perfect man for the job. Hall had come to the region early in the city’s history and knew many of the city’s most powerful people on a personal basis as customers at his general store. His book, “The Beginning of Tulsa,” covers the years from 1882 to 1900 and contains many wild tales from the tenuous and often violent frontier days. Men became rich and influential overnight. Others were gunned down in the streets or died deaths of despair out on the lonely prairie. Oil was struck, buildings were constructed, and the M.K. and T. line brought ever more commerce and fortune. Behind it all were benevolent personalities represented by the Association of Pioneers: those captains of industry for who had transformed a little trading post on Arkansas into the Magic City within a lifetime through grit, guile, and perseverance. As with the monument, something more complicated is buried in the narrative. Hall admits that “perhaps too much has been written about some things and some men, and not enough about others. If this is true, it's because the author is more familiar with the persons and events mentioned.” Indeed, Hall’s narrative centers almost entirely on the activities of white settlers who came to the area during the Land Run in the late nineteenth century. Hall credits his own brother as the “Founder of Tulsa,” because he built the first store building and had some influence over the location of the town. H.C. Hall, the author’s brother, suggested to a railroad engineer in 1882 that a sidetrack for a new town be added in Creek territory, rather than Cherokee because Creek laws were more permissive about allowing White settlers to do business. While it is probably true that Hall was one of the first white settlers to begin doing business in the Tulsa area, the area had been populated for years by Native American tribes. In truth, Tulsa was founded in 1836 by Creeks who had been expelled from their homelands by the Indian Removal Act when Chief Archee Yahola selected a prominent oak along the Arkansas River as a meeting place for their council. Hall’s text generally glosses over the presence of Native Americans in the region, except when they represent an obstacle to “progress,” a nebulous concept that stands in for the designs of White settlers. With few exceptions, Native Americans are depicted as irresponsible and unintelligent, and the positive contributions of Native American personalities are dwarfed by those of relatively obscure white settlers and industrialists. In reality, Native Americans were frequently taken advantage of by white settlers. Making matters worse, settlers often abetted each others’ wrongdoing. Hall relates that his brother, the supposed founder of Tulsa, arranged with some Native American families to enclose a pasture covering what is now East Tulsa and Broken Arrow. One third was cultivated as a farm, with the remaining acreage used as pasture. Traveling cattlemen would pay to pasture their cows, with profits being shared between the Native American families and Hall. The Indian Memorial Monument lies in the same area of Tulsa's Owen Park, and marks the common boundary point for the tribes that settled in the area and the end of the Trail Of Tears. Ultimately this arrangement worked against the families who owned the land. Hall writes that: “This proved a paying investment for the Tulsans for several years. Later the cattlemen usually had a number of head that were not fat in the fall. They would sell these to the Indians, charging high prices, deducting the amount due for pasturage, and taking notes for the balance. The Indians often lost not only the pasture money but also were unable to pay the additional obligations and had to turn back the cattle.” In other instances, the text takes a patronizing view of Native Americans. Hall assures the reader that “more than one Indian became a good farmer during this time,” adding that “one little Cherokee who clerked in the J.M. Hall store is an example.” The Hall brothers enclosed 300 acres and promised to turn it over to him once they had made their money back, which Hall is happy to relate he did in only a few years. African Americans are treated even more unfairly in the text than Native Americans. Portrayals of Black people in Hall’s text range from dangerous criminals who swiftly meet justice to the butt of jokes and mishaps. In one story, a group of supposed Black robbers are nearly lynched in Vinita only to be tried and hanged shortly thereafter in Wichita. In another Tulsa’s first barber, a half-Black man by the name of Sorrell is a noted drunk who flees town after breaking into a whisky warehouse and putting his hand on the face of a drowned cowboy whose body was being kept there. As Hall puts it, “There was fun as well as tragedy and mystery in the early days.” Violence against Black people was accepted as a matter of course. Hall reminisces about Old Timer Bob Childers, a mixed-blood Creek who had once served as a judge in Coweta. During his tenure as a judge, a jury returned an innocent verdict against a Black man charged with horse theft. Childers ordered the man punished anyway, saying that “‘If that negro didn’t steal that horse I know one he did steal and we will whip him anyway.” Hall goes on to relate that Childers was a fine poker player and had large hands; as if the abuse of power were merely a colorful occurrence in the life of a lovable character. Later Hall remembers settler Joe Truitman, noting his German heritage and trade as a coffin maker before revealing that Truitman allegedly shot and killed a Black woman over a dispute concerning a clothesline. Hall assures the reader that the deceased Truitman could not have been guilty “he was so cross-eyed.” In a story about Bass Reeves, the famed Black U.S. Marshall allegedly disarmed a man in Hall’s store by ordering him to turn his weapons over to the writer, since a White man wouldn’t want to give his weapons over to a Black lawman. This is the only positive portrayal of an African American in the text, and Hall manages to lionize himself by association with Reeves. The intersection of Edison St. and Maybelle Ave. in Tulsa where both monuments reside. Tulsa's oldest remaining house is in the background. The underlying attitude of the text, and of the Tulsa Association of Pioneers, is that the land belonged to White settlers by right and that all others were interlopers. Hall’s praise toward Native Americans is restricted to those who integrated into White society, and sometimes that wasn’t even enough. The few Natives who are spoken of warmly, such as Chief Pleasant Porter and A. Lombard, are only mentioned briefly. Hall It is clear that if Hall knew these men at all he did not know them as well as he knew many of his White peers, pointing to the tacit segregation of the two groups. In the introduction to this book, Hall writes that a committee was appointed by the Pioneer Association “to confer with the author as to what disposition to make of the story.” It seems fair to conclude that the resulting text reflects the beliefs and attitudes of the membership of the Tulsa Association of Pioneers. Members of the Tulsa Association of Pioneers helped establish the Tulsa Public School system, and J.M. Hall even served as the president of the first school board when Tulsa was incorporated. Schoolteachers were hand-picked by the school board, a majority of whom were Association of Pioneers members. The Tulsa Association of Pioneers monument was moved to its current location in 1950. A few dozen feet away stands the Indian Memorial, commemorating the nearby spot where the Cherokee, Creek, and Osage Tribes shared a common boundary. The Pioneers saw fit to place their monument slightly uphill from the Indian Monument as if to assure that true history would always stand in the shadow of the Pioneers’ White settler narrative. This outlook is best described in Hall’s book when he’s praising Dr. Kennedy and the rest. “[Kennedy], with the other pioneers, had the courage to put their hard-earned money into buildings upon the land that they didn’t possess until the townsite act was passed.” The beliefs and attitudes held by these people would continue to shape the fabric of the city in the next century. Tulsa is still a largely segregated city, North Tulsa is still over-policed, and White men who made their fortunes on Native land continue to dominate local politics. Life expectancy in North Tulsa is shorter than in South Tulsa. The Race Massacre disappeared from the local discourse, and didn’t appear in curricula for nearly a century. Inequality is so pervasive within the fabric of Tulsa that it appears to be normal and goes unquestioned by many, a legacy more resilient than any column of stone. Right now a local group calling itself the People of Tulsa is moving to have the monument removed. Their petition has 326 signatures as of writing. One of those signatures belongs to Dan Hahn, Middle Grades Principal of Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences. Dan also teaches a class on the Race Massacre at TSAS, which shares Owen Park with the Monument. He sees the TAPS Monument as part of a dark legacy that Tulsa still needs to reckon with. “We'd like to put them on trial, but they're not here anymore. We're the ones left and we're the ones that are conducting our existence in the shadow of some of these things which they left,” says Hahn. “I think we have a historical, a civic, and moral duty to right those wrongs. And I think removing monuments is a small but powerful way to honor the history while still advocating for the descendants of people who were historically disenfranchised." The Pioneers’ monument is not commonly known or visited. The Tulsa Association of Pioneers itself no longer exists. Instead, the beliefs and ideals of that group were carried on in Tulsa’s school system, local politics, and business world. The smug White-supremacy that interned Blacks for their supposed protection while White mobs burned their homes is still present in the city, especially in the over-policed, mostly Black north side. Economic inequality fostered by anti-labor violence continues to affect the city, manifesting in the forms of increased poverty rates, underfunded public schools, shoddy public transportation, and an over-reliance on private philanthropy to fill gaps in social services. The fictions spun by the founders of Tulsa continue to shape the character of the city. Today, as archaeologists unearth mass graves underneath the city and more information comes to light regarding the unlawful acquisition of Native assets by White settlers, we are confronted with the reality of our city’s beginning. Tulsans must decide between beautiful lies and the ugly truth. By facing our city’s legacy for what it is, we can better understand and address the problems that affect us today. The “Pioneers,” if they truly loved the city they built, would surely want it that way.

By John Neal Charles Page High School in Sand Springs, Oklahoma from the 1965 Sandite yearbook of student Barbara Eichenfeld courtesy of the author. In honor of the integrating students: Dollie Chambers, Cortez Johnson, Vicki Westbrook, Calvin Long, Keith Robinson, Marcia Jones. Marvin Stewart, Betty Towns, and Douglas Westbrook. Preface and Acknowledgements This piece was written principally for my schoolmates of Charles Page High School in 1964 when the school was desegregated. I did not learn much of what is written herein until very recent years. It originated with a desire to learn more about the Tulsa Race Massacre and Sand Springs’ possible role in it. Like many of you, I did not know of its occurrence until well into adulthood. Later in life, I wanted to learn more. As I was researching the subject I came across, quite by accident, the website of James W. Russell. At the site, he has a section on the integration of Sand Springs schools. I was shocked to learn there had been fierce resistance to desegregation by the Sand Springs School Board and its Superintendent, and other related events. I reached out to Mr. Russell, and a series of correspondences and conversations ensued in which Mr. Russell expressed a desire to “recapture” the actual history of the desegregation efforts. He is a primary source for what is written here. http://www.jameswrussell.com/ However, we had other collaborators in our recapturing efforts, including my wife (the former Barbara Eichenfeld), Calvin Long, Cortez Johnson, and Kenneth Ray Jr. All but the last person were fellow schoolmates at CPHS in 1964. Kenneth is the son of Kenneth Ray Sr., who was a pastor in the Black neighborhood at the time and played a prominent role in the desegregation efforts. I also had conversations about many of the events with Bob Lemons, Senior Class President, and my former debate partner. Mr. Russell is also contemplating a video documentary chronicling the events. I decided to expand my research and create a written chronicle of what happened, and provide a comprehensive context. Dianna Phillips, the Museum Coordinator of the Sand Springs Cultural and Historical Museum, helped me with much of the research concerning the early history of Sand Springs. She made numerous, valuable contributions to that section of the manuscript. The Desegregation of Charles Page High School in 1964 Only weeks after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the first complaint in Oklahoma was prepared for federal court. It gained nationwide attention. As reported in the NY Times on August 21, 1964: “Five Negro students were refused enrollment today in the 10th and 11th grades of Charles Page High School and met with United States Attorney John Imel to discuss the filing of a complaint under the Civil Rights Act of 1964”. [1] The Tulsa Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality organized the school desegregation effort. The Black neighborhood in Sand Springs received support and inspiration from professional basketball legend Marques Haynes who was raised in Sand Springs. This would mark the culmination of those efforts; the Sand Springs School Board and Superintendent having battled to preserve segregation in the Sand Springs public schools. Basketball hall-of-fame member, civil rights advocate, and Sand Springs-native Marques Haynes, courtesy of Public Radio Tulsa. The high school is named after town founder Charles Page, who is still revered in this small city located just west of Tulsa. He is foremost recognized for his philanthropy by establishing and funding a large orphanage (Sand Springs Home) and a residential housing complex for widows and their children (Widows Colony). Already wealthy when he was lured to the area by the Tulsa oil boom of the early 20th century, Page embarked on the making of an idealized city for industry and commerce. Jamey Landis, a Sand Springs historical chronicler, put it like this, “Charles Page swiftly set about creating his ideal industrial city with a boldness that shocked even Tulsa’s more daring business leaders. He established a transportation system, water supply, and electrical power that enabled him to hire businesses and industries with the promise of free land, low-priced utilities, and a $20,000 resettlement bonus. Sand Springs boomed and continued to thrive despite obstacles such as the great depression and violent labor disputes.” [2] But the founding of the town by Page was not without controversy and the town was segregated from its outset. Charles Page High School student Cortez Johnson, one of the first black students to attend the school, from the 1965 Sandite yearbook, courtesy of the author. Indian Land and a Segregated Community Prior to the Dawes Act of 1887 Native American lands were held by tribes as communal property. This Act coerced tribes into severing the land into allotments to individual tribal members to be held as private property. In a short period of time thereafter, they could sell it to whites. Historian D.S. Otis wrote this Allotment Act (as it was also named) “… was one of the most important pieces of legislation dealing with Indian affairs in United States history.” [3] It may have also been the most disastrous. Proponents of the legislation argued that this would transform Indian civilization, creating entrepreneurs and farmers, aligning its culture more closely with white society. Otis wrote, “On the other hand, as has been shown, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that there were definite and powerful interests behind allotment which were not philanthropic at all; that homesteader, land companies, and perhaps railroads, saw allotment as a legal way of getting at wide areas of Indian lands.” [4] Thus, at the turn of the century and continuing thereafter, individual Indians found themselves in possession of sizeable tracts of land they could sell to anyone. But they had no experience valuing the worth of the land in a capitalistic exchange. The Five Civilized Tribes had been forcibly removed to Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears between 1830 and 1850. Following the Civil War three dozen other tribes were also removed to Oklahoma, including the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache. These tribes lost vast acres of communal tribal land by the Allotment Act. For example, the Creeks lost two million acres of their allotted domain. [5] Jamey Landis noted, “In 1908, full-blooded Creeks were allowed to sell their land to non-Native Americans, and Charles Page quickly purchased large tracts of land…” [6] Several lawsuits resulted from these cheap land acquisitions but Page was able to hold on to the lands. The original Sand Springs township was platted in 1911 consisting initially of 160 acres. That same year the Southside Addition containing about 33 acres was platted by Page for African Americans, establishing at the outset a segregated community. An additional Black community was south of Sand Springs. This area had been in existence since at least 1906. Later it became known as Buford Colony, named after J.E. Buford, a Black educator, and principal of Booker T. Washington School in Sand Springs. While Buford Colony was largely a sprawling farming and residential area, the Southside Addition in the early part of the century had hotels, cafes, and a grocery store. The Black ancestry of the people in the two neighborhoods has not been comprehensively traced. It is known that many Indian tribes owned slaves, including those relocated to Oklahoma. “By 1861, eight to ten thousand Black people were enslaved throughout Indian Territory.” [7] Following the Civil War, the federal government in 1866 required their emancipation. It is reasonable to conjecture that Creek and other Indian tribes’ former slaves may have settled in the Sand Springs area. For example, in Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Historical Society notes, “From 1865 to 1920 African Americans created more than fifty identifiable towns and settlements, some of short duration and some still existing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.” [8] Together the two Black communities would fight for desegregation of the Sand Springs schools in the 1960s. Oklahoma's Civil Rights Struggles Oklahoma has a long history of Black civil rights struggles. The Oklahoma Constitution of 1907 did not mandate complete segregation because of fear President Roosevelt would not approve the Constitution with his signature. But it did segregate schools in Article XIII Section 3. It was finally removed by statewide plebiscite in 1965. [9] Midcentury Oklahoma had been a hotbed of civil rights protests. Most early protests centered around restaurants and public accommodations. For example, Clara Luper led a 1958 sit-in at the Katz restaurant in Oklahoma City, two years prior to the heralded Greensboro sit-in. This sit-in led to numerous other demonstrations at lunch counters, cafeterias, churches, and amusement parks, as well as marches, voter registration drives, and boycotts. [10] Many were successful. In the same year of the integration of CPHS, there were picket lines in front of Tulsa City Hall demanding integration, [11] and police arrested 54 persons attempting to integrate a Tulsa restaurant. [12] All of this had been preceded by the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. The Sand Springs Leader reported that some of the refugees who escaped the massacre were sent to Sand Springs. They were provided food, shelter, and a safe environment in the “colored school building.” [13] Some may have remained in Sand Springs. Newspaper accounts of the period portrayed Sand Springs’ role in a positive light. But it did not lead to desegregation within the community. In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education shattered the myth that school systems, one for Blacks and one for whites, could ever be equal, ruling separate was inherently unequal. In Oklahoma, not only did the Constitution mandate segregated schools but funding for white and Black schools were separated. It was not until 1955 that resources were placed in a common school fund, but gross inequality continued. [14] Student Calvin Long from the 1965 Sandite yearbook, courtesy of the author. Separate and Unequal Oklahoma was beginning to slowly change in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the aftermath of Brown v Board of Education and vigorous civil rights actions. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), founded in 1942, was an inter-racial organization fighting racial discrimination. In the early 1960s, it was one of the leading organizations challenging public segregation in the South. In the summer of 1964, the Tulsa chapter of CORE turned their attention to the Sand Springs schools led by James W. Russell, a nineteen-year-old resident of Sand Springs and a CORE member. While Sand Springs was at its manufacturing and industrial apex in the 1960s, it remained a strictly segregated community. Separated only by the Katy Railroad tracks, forays by Blacks across the tracks were limited to domestic help and work in a few white-owned businesses. But it was the stark contrast in public schools that drew CORE’s attention. A police officer carrying a young girl walks past three civil rights demonstrators on the ground next to the Tulsa, Oklahoma, police station on April 2, 1964. The demonstrators were part of 54 arrested at a Tulsa restaurant. Members of the group, backed by the Congress of Racial Equality, went limp when arrested and forced officers to carry them from the restaurant and the paddy wagon. Image courtesy of The Atlantic. Segregated schooling for Blacks began in a church in 1912 until the Booker T. Washington School was built for the 1914-1915 school term. Charles Page donated the land for both the church and school. [15] The school construction was probably funded by the Rosenwald Fund. Julian Rosenwald was the founder and CEO of Sears, Roebuck, and Company. He partnered with Booker T. Washington to build over 5,300 schools for Blacks throughout the South from the early 1910s to the 1930s. [16] In Oklahoma alone, 176 schoolhouses were built. [17] James Russell provided the following information on Booker T. Washington School and Charles Page High School to the CORE Tulsa Chapter contrasting the black and white segregated schools" [18] "Booker T. Washington School located in the Southside Addition has approximately 400 students aged 6 to 18 housed in a single building. Course curriculum there offered only 35 ½ credits compared to Charles Page High School’s (CPHS) 84. The comparable shortcomings were many, ranging from higher mathematics and Latin to auto mechanics and typing, as mere examples. The school structure in contrast was decrepit for blacks while the Sand Spring’s high school had facilities for debate, choir, home economics, modern stagecraft, an indoor swimming pool, gymnasium, and football stadium, etc. The high school division of Booker T. Washington had 67 students compared to 900 at CPHS. One justification the School Board initially used to deny admission was the falsehood that CPHS wasn’t large enough to add all the Black students. This lie was later abandoned when the organizing group learned the facility was built to accommodate 1,000 students." It should come as no surprise that the Sand Springs School Board and Superintendent vigorously opposed integration. This had occurred and continued to occur all across the South and in Oklahoma even after Brown (1954) had ordered desegregation “with all deliberate speed”. Many local school districts in the State tried voluntary plans which had been sanctioned by the State Board of Education beginning in 1955, but they almost invariably achieved little. For example, a voluntary plan was submitted by Tulsa in 1965 but Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa was not fully desegregated until 1973. [19] In 1972 a federal court judge ordered the Oklahoma City School Board “to develop desegregation plans so the individual student populations would be reflective of the overall minority population.” [20] Resistance, Betrayal, Success In a preliminary meeting with CORE representatives, the Sand Springs School Superintendent and its Board Clerk initially argued Booker T. Washington School was adequate and the citizens were satisfied. Later in the meeting, they fell back on the further lie that CPHS was at its enrollment limit and could not house all the Black high school students. At the end of the meeting, the school officials conceded a partial integration was feasible. At the next Board meeting, CORE members and residents from the Black neighborhood attended in hopes of further discussion of the matter. However, the Board refused to discuss the issue. Mr. Russell reported that the School Board Clerk exclaimed, “I will not be pressured by a sit-in, or whatever this is.” [21] In response, a Black neighborhood meeting was called to develop a concrete proposal. While the majority were in favor of integration there was also reluctance and fear. The tipping point came when Marques Haynes rose to speak. Haynes was one of the most accomplished and recognized professional basketball players of the era, having starred with the Harlem Globetrotters. Haynes resided near Buford Colony in Sand Springs. Haynes swayed the crowd when he noted he had not wanted to be a basketball player. “When I went to high school, I really wanted to be a printer. But I couldn’t because there was no printing program in this school while there was one in the white school. If we want our children to have the most opportunities in life, they have to be able to go to decent schools.” [22] At the next Board meeting, Haynes made their proposal with the support of Black community leader Reverend Kenneth Ray. It consisted of three parts: 1) Rezoning of schools for uniformity, 2) Integrating 10th, 11th, and 12th-grade students into CPHS, and 3) Maintain and integrate Booker T. Washington teachers into the Sand Springs school system. The Board rejected the proposal but agreed to admit 18 of the 67 eligible students. [23] Subsequently, the Superintendent attempted to deter students from applying for transfers with unveiled threats. They and their parents were told that there would be violence if they did so and that Black students were not smart enough to “make it." [24] Following the outright refusal to admit five underclassmen, the students and parents sought admission via a federal court complaint. The Board partially relented and announced it would admit at least ten students to the high school. [25] Fear, Silence, Incidents Nine Black students attended CPHS in 1964. The three seniors, one junior, and five sophomores that were admitted did not know what to expect. They had all witnessed the reluctance and fear within the Black community. They had experienced resistance from the white school board and school superintendent, as well as fearful admonishments from school administrators. Yet they had all volunteered, seeking a better education and greater opportunity. While the students had a certain awareness of confrontation and violence at the desegregation of schools elsewhere, they surely didn’t know that violent opposition and resistance to segregation was common throughout the country. Three years later in 1967, more than 13 years after the Brown decision, a report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights observed that “violence against Negroes continues to be a deterrent to school desegregation.” [26] The white students were totally uninformed and unprepared for their arrival. Contributing to the unpreparedness was the last-minute timing of the capitulation by the school board. The local newspaper, The Sand Springs Leader, reported on the Black student’s enrollment just days before the start of classroom instruction but made no mention of the controversy. [27] Nevertheless, no efforts were made to prepare the white students. Black residents were a total enigma to them. As George Everett, a chronicler of Sand Springs history would later note of that time period, “Colored Town … was such a great sociological distance that it was easy to forget it was even there.” [28] White children in Sand Springs had been taught virtually nothing about the Civil War, slavery, or Jim Crow. Fortunately, perhaps, they also knew nothing of the Tulsa Race Massacre, then over 40 years in the past. So, when the Black students arrived there was no school assembly, no teacher instruction, and based on informal surveys of former students, few family discussions to prepare them. It’s as if all the adults held their breath and waited to see what would happen. Racism has to be taught and the mid-teen students were naive. Consequently, adverse events were limited, but race-based incidents and emotionally wrenching experiences did occur. Here is a contemporaneously compiled list of remembered experiences and/or incidents reported by students attending CPHS in 1964. Experiences and Incidents Some Black residents feared their community would ultimately be lost. Some Booker T. Washington teachers and administrators feared losing their jobs. Most did. Pressured by threats, James Russell’s mother moved out of Sand Springs. A prominent Black pastor who supported desegregation faced stiff opposition from some members of his congregation. Black students integrating CPHS were rebuffed by some members of their neighborhood, caused by the fear that their departure would weaken the community. Black students were told white students had sticks and there would be violence. Black students remembered they were “scared to death”. A team head coach at CPHS refused to attend the try-out for a Black student. Black students remember white students lining the hallway staring in silence as they passed by. An interracial group of students was refused admission to a pizza parlor. Black students remember that white students “accepted us” over the course of the initial school term, and athletic teammates “had our backs”. There were no protest demonstrations or physical attempts to block integration. There was no violence. One year later the School Board desegregated the rest of the Sand Springs Schools with the Superintendent issuing a statement that began in part, “While our schools have officially operated for several years under a policy of nondiscrimination…” [29] In 1966 the Booker T. Washington School was closed and school integration in Sand Springs was complete. The School and the Southside Addition neighborhood were later demolished for economic development. [30] A commemorative plaque that is scheduled to be installed at CPHS in 2021 to recognize the integration of the school in 1964, courtesy of the author. Endnotes: 1. New York Times,” Negro Pupils Plan Rights Law Action” August 22, 1964. 2. Jamye Landis and the Sand Springs Cultural and Historical Museum Association. Sand Springs, Oklahoma (Charleston SC: Arcadia Publishing, 1999), 35 3. D.S. Otis, The Dawes Act and the Allotment of Indian Lands (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973) IX Ibid. 31 4. Ibid. 31 5. Theodore Isham and Blue Clark, CREEK (MVSKOKE), Oklahoma Historical Society (The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture) 6. Landis: Sand Springs 10 7. Oklahoma Historical Society, Freedmen History (The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture) 8. Oklahoma Historical Society, All-Black Towns (The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture) 9. State Question No. 428, Ref. Petition No. 149, adopted at election May 3, 1965. 10. Blackpast.org - https://www.blackpast.org/african-history/luper-clara-1923/ 11. Tulsa Historical Society and Museum Photo Records Catalogue No.2016.028.10412 and 2016.028.10413, May 28, 1964 12. The Atlantic, “1964: Civil Rights Battles” with AP photo number 11 and caption. May 28, 2014 13. Sand Springs Leader, “Sand Springs Responds to Needs of Black Refugees” June 3. 1921. 14. Dianna Everett, BETTER SCHOOLS AMENDMENT Oklahoma Historical Society (The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture) 15. Nathaniel J. Washington, J. The Historical Development of Booker T. Washington School (c) 1978 p 1-2. 16. Tom Hanchett History South https://www.historysouth.org/rosenwaldhome/ 17. Cynthia Savage, ROSENWALD SCHOOLS Oklahoma Historical Society (The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture) 18. James W. Russell, Report on Project to Desegregate the Sand Springs, Oklahoma Public Schools. Tulsa Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) http:www.//jamesrussell.com August 18, 1964. 1. 19. Commission on Civil Rights, Washington D.C. ED 145054 August 1977 p 131 20. Jerry E, Stephens, BUSING Oklahoma Historical Society (The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture) 21. Russell, Report 2. 22. James. W. Russell “Marques Haynes Gave Civil Rights Movement a Dunk Shot” (Willimantic CT: The Chronical, December 7, 1992) 23. The Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Okla.), Vol. 45, No. 14, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 20, 1964, newspaper, August 20, 1964; Tulsa, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc1804980/: accessed August 10, 2021), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society. 24.Ibid. 25. E.L. Goodwin Jr., “Sand Springs School Board Rejects Then Accepts High School Students”. Oklahoma Eagle August 27, 1964, 26. Equal Justice Initiative (http: www.eji.org/news/history-racial-injustice-resistance-to-school-desegregation.) 27. Sand Springs Leader, “Six More Negro Students Approved to Attend CPHS” August 27, 1964 28. George Everett, Sandite Sketches (Sand Springs Cultural and Historical Museum 201) 39 29. Sand Springs Leader, “‘Free Choice’ Policy Scheduled in Schools Here.” August 19, 1965 30. Vision2025 Sand Springs Keystone Corridor Redevelopment, http://vision2025.info/sandsprings-keystone-corridor-redevelopment/

By Randy Hopkins UPDATE ON JUNE 25, 2022 - Unfortunately, since the following letter was sent to the Tulsa City Council in March, the City’s treatment of the Graves Investigation’s Public Oversight Committee and the public at large has continued to deteriorate. It appears the Mayor’s Office gave no advance notice to the public of the recent June 21st “presentation” to the Oversight Committee. The time of the presentation was set to discourage attendance and “technical issues” conveniently limited comments from some Committee members. Highhandedly, the Mayor’s staff has now unilaterally decreed that all future meetings will be held only virtually, where that staff can lock out Committee members’ comments. Live meetings, combined with hybrid virtual access, would allow the public to better understand what is really occurring beneath the veneer of City press releases. This is in sharp contrast to the rules that were promulgated before the Race Massacre Centennial, which focused the nation’s eyes on Tulsa. Back then, former Vice Mayor Amy Brown emphasized that the Oversight Committee was empowered to set the meeting agendas.[1] With respect to live vs. hybrid meetings, Brown said on February 23, 2021, that: “you are welcome to convene in another format if it is more ideal for you. There is no prohibition to prevent you from meeting in the format that you prefer.” [2] Once the Centennial was over and a single body with bullet holes was discovered in Oaklawn in late June 2021, things changed. Doing things the “wrong way” now rules the day. LETTER TO TULSA’S CITY COUNCIL IN MARCH 2022 The Public Oversight Committee has been widely touted as a powerful component of the City of Tulsa’s 1921 Graves Investigation. Mayor G. T. Bynum made that crystal clear in 2019 when he declared to Tulsa and the world that “folks from outside government” would “oversee the process.” He proclaimed that the Committee — made up of descendants of Tulsa Race Massacre victims and other influential members of Tulsa’s African-American community — would provide transparency and hold the City “accountable” for doing things “the right way.” Their job was to “point out (where) it isn’t being done in the right way and where we need to be right.” [3] As recently as January 17, 2022, Scott Ellsworth, a member of the City’s Physical Investigations team, declared that the prospect of future excavations was “in the hands of the public oversight committee that the City of Tulsa has created.”[4] Since the Centennial of the Race Massacre, however, the City has treated the Public Oversight Committee as little more than a stage prop. If that seems a harsh, consider this: 1. The vanishing homicide investigation. Mayor Bynum spoke forcefully in 2019 where he assured everyone that “we are treating this as a homicide investigation.” That never happened. You heard the Deputy Mayor on March 2. When asked if this was a homicide investigation or an archeological dig, she told you without a moment’s hesitation that it was an “archeological dig.” In what became a pattern, the Oversight Committee was not consulted on this shift, learned of it only in July 2021, and could not find out who made the decision to drop the homicide investigation. The explanation given to the Committee (and to you on March 2) was that all the culprits of the Massacre were long dead. But the Mayor knew that fact in 2019. Everybody did. The Mayor said that made no difference. In what he described as a “basic compact” with the Massacre victims, Bynum declared: “It doesn’t matter if you were murdered two weeks ago or ninety-eight years ago. No family in this community should have to have part of their family story that an awful event happened and their family member disappeared and they never knew what happened. That’s not acceptable. And that is why we are treating this as a homicide investigation.” There is more at stake here than putting anyone in jail, even if they were alive. There is finally finding the truth. A homicide investigator could help with that. By suddenly advancing the “everyone is dead” alibi with a straight face, the Office of the Mayor treated the Oversight Committee as simpletons who couldn’t remember the Bynum’s public promises. Now, the City Council is being treated the same way. 2. Moving the goal posts of the 2021 Oaklawn “dig.” At your latest meeting, you were told that the purpose of the 2021 Oaklawn dig was to find the so-called Original 18 - male victims of the Massacre for whom some records exist. As a result, searchers limited their focus to the remains of Black males in plain, handleless wood coffins. But that was not what the Oversight Committee was told before the Massacre Centennial. In January 2021, the City’s physical investigation team told the Committee that a coffin’s hardware would not preclude a finding that a body was a Massacre victim. In March 2021, the same team said that did not expect to find only male victims and would not restrict their search to males only. [5] No one consulted with the Committee on the change of scope or even told them about it. They learned of it on July 27, 2021. Even then, they could not get answers as to who made the decision to change the target. The end result is that the City of Tulsa now finds itself in the ridiculous public posture of appearing to discriminate against female and minor-aged Massacre victims. Try explaining that to your constituents. 3. The “Stop Dig” order. On June 22, 2021, things seem to be swimmingly with the Oaklawn dig. State Archeologist Dr. Kary Stackelbeck recorded a video report that more remains were being unearthed and the dig was expanding further south. This was precisely the direction where a 2000 Race Riot Commission map shows the location of the “Original 18.” It’s likely the same direction that the newly announced dig will take. Two days later, however, the bottom dropped out. Dr. Stackelbeck announced that the dig was over and that eight archeologists under contract with a private corporation (CARDNO), along with archeologists from the University of Oklahoma, were being sent home. The CARDNO contract contemplated a 6-8 week dig. They were banished after 3 weeks. Again, the Oversight Committee was not consulted, learned only after the fact, and could get no clarity on who made the decision. The City administration now tells you that the entire “team” made the decision, but Dr. Phoebe Stubblefield, leader of the investigation team on the ground, told the Oversight Committee in July 2021 that: “I agree that there is a bad perception. I share your sentiment that we found something interesting, then almost immediately stopped, and I agree that’s how it looks. I can’t answer your question about who gave the order, I don’t have that knowledge.” [6] The “bad perception” part of Dr. Stubblefield’s statement relates to the apparent reason for the “stop dig” order — the discovery of one set of remains with gunshot trauma. Just one. That was announced on June 24, 2021, in the same video report that announced the dig’s termination. Finding one trauma victim — what they were looking for — was enough to scuttle the dig. The City administration made itself look conspiratorial — or panicked — and running from the truth. This was self-inflicted damage on the part of the City government and it’s not the only instance of that. Even those Tulsans who just want the graves investigation to be over and done with have been damaged by the failure to finish the Oaklawn dig when all hands were on deck. The City is, commendably, getting ready to extend the Oaklawn dig. That work should have already been completed under the original contracts. Now, the contracting process has to start from scratch and will proceed in the new reality of inflation, shortages, and even war. How much more will it cost now? The assumption that the Oaklawn dig could be seamlessly renewed turns out to have been extraordinarily faulty. 4. The “leave ‘em in the ground” order. Having found human remains in a mass grave, the City disinterred nineteen for study but left fourteen in the ground. Again, there was no advance consultation with the Oversight Committee, they learned of it well after the fact, and “the decider” was not revealed. Leaving the fourteen to lie was an outgrowth of the new scheme to target only males in plain wood coffins. The fourteen are said to be women and children in fancier coffins, such as wood coffins with handles attached. The Oversight Committee has been repeatedly told that leaving them in place was a way to show “respect.” The Oversight Committee finally learned on March 1, 2022, how the investigation team knew that the fourteen coffins contained females and children. According to Dr. Stubblefield, the “wood” caskets have so deteriorated that the skeletons are exposed and it was possible to determine sex and relative age just by looking. No opening of caskets was required. How did the City show “respect” for these exposed remains? By using an earthmover to cover them with dirt on July 30, 2021. Before the covering, nineteen airtight caskets for the previously disinterred adults and plastic storage bins for the infants were replaced in the same excavation pit. Dr. Stubblefield, who voted against the July 30 reburial, warned that those modern caskets were at risk of moving. If so, that would place the fourteen sets of exposed human remains at risk of further damage. Why could the new caskets move? Dr. Stubblefield also explained that a creek of water was running under, or even through the excavation hole. Committee Chair Kavin Ross said that mud had flowed into the old caskets even before the dig, called it a “mud pit” and a “big bowl of soup.” Treating the fourteen remains this way was a curious way to show respect for the dead, Massacre victims or not. 5. The arbitrary decision to rebury and the July 27, 2021 “private” briefing. Last Wednesday, the Council was reminded that meetings of the Oversight Committee were available to the public to view in real-time. But that wasn’t true on July 27, 2021, when the City held a “private” briefing and announced its unilateral decision to reinter nineteen sets of human remains back in the mud pit. By keeping the public away, the City isolated the Oversight Committee and created yet another appearance that it was engaged in a cover-up. At the end of the meeting, the Oversight Committee voted unanimously to delay the reburial. That included Chairman Kavin Ross who you met on March 2. Dr. Stubblefield joined in. One of the issues that needed further study was reburying at another Oaklawn excavation, the Sexton, which was far above the water line. The City’s former Deputy Mayor had herself urged Sexton as a temporary reburial site months earlier. Dr. Stackelbeck also urged that Sexton be considered. The Committee also wanted answers to their many unanswered questions. The Mayor’s Chief of Staff promised to get the answers “immediately, tomorrow.” That didn’t happen. Instead, the City bulled ahead with the reburial for July 30. The Oversight Committee got less than 48 hours' notice. It was a return to the old days, where, in the words of Kavin Ross, the City just arbitrarily “did things.” 6. July 30, 2021: Day of Disgrace We live in a nation torn by racial divisions. What the City did on July 30 created both a harsh visual metaphor for that strife and poured fuel on the fires. The burial started at 9:00 AM. Combined with the short notice, this prevented the Oversight Committee from invoking judicial help. Inside the barred gates of Oaklawn Cemetery, approximately twenty people — only four of them Black — said a prayer before the City’s earthmover rumbled into action. Outside Oaklawn’s iron fence, Massacre descendants, only just learning of the news, watched in shock, anguish, and anger. “This is a crime! This is a crime! This is a CRIME!," one of them shouted. What was so magic about having a reburial on July 30 is another unanswered question. Apparently, the City just wanted its way and got it, consequences be damned. The work was handled by City equipment and crews and they could have been sent into action at a later date. Contrary to the City administration’s later false assertion, the Oversight Committee never approved that reinterment in any form. The truth was the exact opposite. [7] Indeed, it is possible that the City violated state law by its actions on July 30, given the later representations of the Mayor’s press office to the Washington Post. [8] The videos and photographs of that day are now part of the City of Tulsa’s “permanent record.” The effect of its actions was to rub the noses of the Public Oversight Committee and beyond them the Greenwood Community into the dirt of the City’s recreated mass grave. That day will not soon be forgotten. 7. The March 1, 2022 public meeting of the Oversight Committee. It would be nice if I could say things changed for the better in the March 1 Oversight meeting. The City was, after all, agreeable to renewing the dig. If anything, the condescending treatment of the Oversight Committee was even worse. At no point were Committee members asked for their opinions, though they offered some, and no votes were taken. The Committee was just there to “ask questions,” after which the plan to be followed was imperiously announced. It was what the Mayor’s office wanted to do in the first place. Imperiousness, condescension, and broken promises do not win friends and influence people, at least favorably. You are dealing with people who, for excellent reasons, have a deep distrust of Tulsa’s city government. Yet, everything that the government, or at least the Office of the Mayor, has done since the Centennial has been at war with trust. Members of the Oversight Committee, supposed representatives of their communities, have been made falsely to appear as lackeys complicit in the stop dig and the excuseless cruelty of July 30. That too will be a hard one to forget. You should know that Chairman Kavin Ross, who spoke to you on March 2, has been treated in a most cavalier fashion by the Mayor’s Office. When the Office told him about their decision to reinter on July 30, it would give him no justification. When he pressed, he was told they just needed to “push the process along.” When he opposed the reburial at the private briefing, he revealed that: “I still have questions that are not answered. I still don’t see a rush to have this ceremony on Friday...Is it an issue with funding? I’ve been screaming that from the top of this whole...before everybody started jumping ship. I asked where is the next round of money? Was it placed on the city budget? How much do we have in our budget? I could never get any clear-cut information on why I cannot get that kind of information.” Along the way, Ross’ pleas that Tulsa show the watching world how things should be done have fallen on the deafest of ears. In the process, the City government has damaged itself and the image of Tulsa. The City is echoing past history and not a happy one. The day after the Race Massacre, top drawer Tulsa bankers and businessmen announced a “reparations” plan for Greenwood — they used that word. As soon as the comforting news of the rebuilding effort was nested in newspaper headlines across the nation, it was dropped like a rock. [9] Once the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial was in the rear-view mirror and one bullet-ridden skeleton was discovered, rocks again started dropping. I’d respectfully suggest three things to get the investigation back on track and they are all in the City’s control. Happily, following this path will make the Graves investigation easier, less stressful, and hopefully happier for everyone compared to the present path. It’s your best chance for a ‘win-win” situation. One, the Mayor needs to apologize to the Public Oversight Committee. He made the table-pounding promises. He and the City reaped great public relations benefit before and during the Centennial of the Race Massacre for their commitments. While his staffers were the public face of dealings with the Committee, he sat at the pinnacle of power on the issues. The buck stops at his desk. In my experience around Tulsa, I believe that most people are a pretty forgiving sort. But you’ve got to ask for it and mean it. Second, the City must truly start doing things the “right way.” That means no more treating the Oversight Committee like lap dogs or propaganda props. No more failing to seek the Committee’s advice in advance, no more keeping them in the dark, and no more unilateral decision-making. No more broken promises. When Kevin Ross asks for information, he should get it... pronto. And no more “our way or the highway” attitudes. The Committee should be treated as colleagues, instead of being excluded from the teamwork. The Mayor promised this would be done in the “right way” and that’s exactly how things should be handled beginning now. The next time the Oversight Committee says “jump,” I suggest the City strongly consider jumping. After all, if the Oversight Committee’s advice had been heeded, the Mayor would not now have egg on his face for the breach of his promises. The new and expanded Oaklawn dig would have already been concluded, instead of having to be re-contracted in troublesome times. The disrespectful treatment of the human remains left in the ground would not be an issue. The City would not be in the absurd position of appearing to discriminate against female and child victims of the Massacre. The horrible images of raw, racial divisions on July 30 would not exist. The public anger and stress levels would be reduced. Wouldn’t that have been much better? Finally, I suggest that the Mayor’s office and the Oversight Committee engage in a short mediation effort. That might pay dividends down the road. The way the City goes about the Graves Investigation is almost as important as the finding of victims. In the long run, it might be the most important. Randy Hopkins Endnotes: 1. Jan. 28, 2021 meeting of the Public Oversight Committee at 1:27:08 forward. 2. February 23, 2021 meeting of the Public Oversight Committee at 1:46 forward. 3. The evidence and authorities on which the following claims are based are listed in much detail in my essay "Echo of History: The City of Tulsa’s Mass Graves Debacle," published on October 1, 8, and 15, 2021 by The Oklahoma Eagle and available online at https://www.centerforpublicsecrets.org/post/echo-of-history-the-city-of-tulsa-s-mass-graves-debacle. I will not repeat them here, but if any Councilor wants clarification on my source material, you have but to ask. 4. https://lsa.umich.edu/history/news-events/all-events.detail.html/90099-21667838.html 5. For January 2021 representation, January 28, 2021 Public Oversight Committee Meeting, 1:31:50 to 1:33:20 (Dr. Stackelbeck). For March 2021 representation, March 23, 2021, Public Oversight public meeting, 41:00 to 43:30 (including Dr. Stubblefield, “But I don’t expect this particular feature, this mass grave, to have only males...” and “I’m not reserving it to only males....we are talking about pillagers, these are the worst kind of pirates, there is going to be raping and murdering not just shooting guys...”). One possible explanation for the presence of higher-quality coffins in a mass grave is that Tulsa suffered a “run of coffins” in early June of1921. Funeral homes might have reached deep into their inventory, even throwing in casket shipping crates, at least one of which was found in the Oaklawn pit. 6. July 27, 2021 Public Oversight private briefing, 2:33:05 to 2:34:10. Earlier in the briefing, Dr. Stubblefield was asked “Who made that decision to stop and conclude the dig.” She replied, “Yeah, I have no information for you on that.” 1:44:25 to 1:46:15. 7. The City justified the July 30 reburial by pointing the finger at the Committee itself and its approval of a temporary reinterment plan in March 2021. But that plan imposed no specific deadline date — July 30 or otherwise. Indeed, when that plan was presented in January 2021, Tulsa’s then Deputy Mayor Amy Brown said, “We are not aware of a restriction that limits how long they can be out of the ground for analysis” — a representation made after consultations with the State Department of Health, the Department’s general counsel, and the City of Tulsa’s legal team. The re-interment plan approved in March not only did not impose a July 30 deadline, it barred it. The plan required, first, a determination of whether discovered graves did or did not house Massacre victims. Even without regard to the future DNA analysis, fundamental forensic analysis was not yet concluded in late July. It wasn’t even certain that the remains were Massacre victims. After the controversial reburial, Mayor Bynum’s press aide Michelle Brooks admitted that “further analysis” would be necessary to determine that fact. The report of the Physical Investigations Committee was seven months away. Even if Massacre victims were confirmed, the March re-interment plan provided an option (a) to store the coffins above ground or (b) to rebury them somewhere in Oaklawn. The word “OR” was capitalized. The City’s hands were not tied in any way on July 30. 8. After the July 30 public relations disaster, the Mayor’s office attempted damage control by telling the Washington Post that the City was required to rebury the remains to meet state “permit requirements” obtained before the June excavation. The state permit was alleged to require the city to reinter after the “on-site forensic analysis, documentation and DNA sampling were complete.” The Mayor’s press aide added that Tulsa had to “abide by the permit requirements that were filed with the Oklahoma State Department of Health and the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office, requiring the remains to be temporarily interred at Oaklawn Cemetery.” This story made the City seem reasonable to the public. It is dubious that such a permit ever existed; if it did, the City violated state law with the July 30 Oaklawn reburial. Under Oklahoma law, a permit to disinter is required only if reburial will occur in a different cemetery or for the purpose of cremation. In that case, a “Request for Disinterment Permit,” specifically naming the different cemetery (or specifying cremation) must be filed with the State Department of Health in advance and receive State approval. Here, the City and Public Oversight Committee agreed to a temporary reburial back in the same cemetery — Oaklawn. That was the City’s intention from the beginning. If the City filed for a disinterment permit naming a different cemetery — a prerequisite for getting a permit — then it filed a false application. Making false statements in multiple permit applications constitutes a felony or, in this case, nineteen felonies — one for each set of remains — each punishable by up to a $10,000 fine and/or two years in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. The warning for those penalties is printed at the bottom of the permit application form. Whenever reinterment is intended in the same cemetery, as here, no state permit is required. The applicable statute provides that “if the dead body or fetus is to be disinterred and reinterred in the same cemetery, a disinterment permit is not required.” Instead, a simple Notice, to be filed within five days of the disinterment, is sufficient, with no state approval needed. There is no deadline for reinterment under a Notice procedure, as then-Deputy Mayor Brown confirmed along with the Oklahoma State Department of Health, the Tulsa County District Attorney’s office, and the City of Tulsa’s legal department. 9. https://www.centerforpublicsecrets.org/post/mask-of-atonement

By Randy Hopkins Tom Owens, also known as Roy Belton, courtesy of the Tulsa Tribune The words passed down a dark, narrow stairway through the corridors of the Tulsa County Courthouse and into the jammed streets outside — “We got him, boys, we got him!” Cheers erupted from a thousand nighttime spectators, gaining volume as a nineteen-year-old white man everyone then called Tom Owens, hands bound, was led outside by armed, masked men. Hatless, smooth cheeked and slender, Owens puffed on a cigarette he had calmly hand-rolled in his recent hiding spot in the cage called the county jail’s negro dungeon. While there, he asked to be shackled and handed a six-shooter so he could contest his expected captors. He was said to revel in the idea. Now, wavy brown hair blowing around his face, he was shoved into a large Hudson automobile, a vehicle which itself had just been liberated from the control of the Tulsa police. The youth - he was said to have scarcely looked his age - showed no fear and uttered not a whisper of protest.[i] The Hudson led a parade, followed first by the machines used by an organized gang of fifty masked men who had quietly driven through the heart of the city to descend on the courthouse shortly before 11 p.m. on Saturday, August 28, 1920. Two ambulances joined the queue on Boulder Avenue. More autos fell in line, not by the score but the thousand, eager followers cramming their running boards. Celebratory gunfire added glamour to the procession. Through West Tulsa and onto a deeply rutted road past Red Fork they wound, to a spot where the road made a sharp turn in the dismal woods. There, the parade halted and masked men jerked their prisoner from the car. They asked him questions and he spun them yarns. Lightning and thunder added to the uproar. “What did you kill Nida for?” a rifle bearing man demanded. Owens said he did not. “What made you make that confession if you didn’t?” persisted his inquisitor. “I said that to save the girl.” They asked him for any last words. Owens requested a message be sent to his mother in Knoxville, Tennessee. In the process, he revealed his true name was Roy Belton. “Tell her, I died to protect a girl, that’s enough.” One paper reported that he said to save “my girl.” Cries of “rope, rope” rang out all around. But there was no rope. No one had brought one along. So the still unruffled prisoner, henceforth known as Roy Belton, was shoved back in the Hudson and the parade commenced anew, the foot-bound spectators jumping from running board to running board for advancement in the melee. Down a tree-hung road to the west, a vital rope was finally secured and a new staging area located near where the road was darkest and most dismal. A band of armed men - some masked and some not, some in civilian clothes and some in uniforms - held back the crowd of at least two thousand gathered in an open field a quarter-mile back. They were described as a melting pot of men, women, and children from all walks of life. The masked men in charge of the captive chose a spot marked by a large advertising sign and the Federal Tire Company’s marketing effort was soon adorned with a noose. When preparations were complete, the order “let ‘em come” was yelled and the audience was given leave to move forward, tramping through mud and slush, shoulder to shoulder, until they reached a ditch beyond which they were again barred. On the rise of a hill beyond the ditch, Belton was seen chatting amiably with his soon-to-be killers. Hands freed, he was passed a paper, produced a tobacco bag from his own pocket and rolled his last smoke. His hands were steady. He puffed contentedly. After the noose was affixed, six masked men put their weight to the rope. Roy Belton entered his final plea, “I’m innocent,” with the last syllable uttered while he was on tiptoes and drawled without the slightest terror. An eyewitness newspaperman wrote, “Either he was insane or he rode to death the gamest man that ever faced the gallows.” An uncanny stillness descended, broken by a distant hound’s long, moaning howls. Lightning still played. After five minutes, a convenient undertaker listened to his heart and recommended five more. A large, masked man, dominant among the group, yelled, “All you hijackers take a look at this.”[ii] Pandemonium was loosed when the body finally dropped. The guards relaxed their grip and a mad dash ensued. Like locust, souvenir hunters stripped their dead target nearly nude. The recently found rope was itself cut into bits. A convenient ambulance arrived and a stretcher was loaded. As if on cue, the county sheriff, who had been brushed aside like chaff scarcely thirty minutes earlier, arrived to resume custody of his prisoner. The ambulance returned to its undertaking parlor, where Roy Belton was put on display for the eager and the curious who lined up to see his corpse deep into the next day. Before the viewing was complete, Tulsa’s top law enforcement officers reassured the public with echoing statements. Tulsa Police Chief John A. Gustafson, who had been present at the killing along with most of the Tulsa Police Department, declared: "I do not condone mob law, but Tulsa has a peculiar situation and the sentiment here is not so prejudiced against this kind of lynching as it might be in some other community….I believe this will be a good object lesson to that class of criminals and do more to stop hi-jacking than anything else that could have happened." [iii] Tulsa County Sheriff James Woolley, who had delivered Belton to his killers, chimed in: "I am unreservedly against mob law; the courts were made to convict and sentence the criminal, but I believe that Belton’s lynching will prove more beneficial than a death sentence pronounced by the courts. It shows to the criminal that Tulsa men mean business."[iv] They would be proven wrong. Tulsa County Sheriff James Woolley Courtesy of the Tulsa World Almost exactly one week earlier to the hour, the Hudson lurched onto the road at a sharp curve just past Red Fork, nearly colliding with a vehicle driven by a local garage owner named Houser. While the Hudson gathered speed toward Sapulpa, Houser heard cries of anguish. Stopping to investigate, he came upon Tulsa taxi driver Homer Nida, age twenty-five, lying beside the road bleeding from a gaping stomach wound. The good Samaritan rushed the wounded man to the Tulsa Hospital. Before losing consciousness, Nida revealed that he had been transporting two men and a woman, when one of the men clubbed him with a pistol and shot him as he begged for mercy.[v] The brutal crimes, soon to include murder, occurred at a dramatic moment for Tulsa law enforcement. Earlier that very day, Tulsa Police Commissioner James M. Adkison had declared an all-out war on crime and undesirable characters. Tulsa Police Chief John Gustafson, Adkison’s appointee, and close associate promised a clean-up so complete it will look like “a treatment from an electric vacuum cleaner when we get through.”[vi] Adkison and Gustafson were men who meant business.[vii] Nine months later they would bear a central responsibility for the disaster long called the Tulsa Race Riot and now the Race Massacre. On May 31, 1921, Adkison and Gustafson commissioned at least four hundred special police deputies and set them loose upon the city. Gustafson testified that the police “armed” 250 of them, confirming that the Tulsa police department sponsored the “looting” of the local hardware stores that evening.[viii] Adjutant General Charles Barrett, head of the Oklahoma National Guard, reported that the special deputies helped “inciting” the outbreak, did “most of the shooting” and formed “the most dangerous part of the mob.” He wrote that the state guard’s first task was to prevent them from interfering with fire department efforts to put out fires that “many of these officers were accused of setting.”[ix] For now, Commissioner Adkison and his chief of police were faced with an immediate challenge to their first big anti-crime campaign. A dragnet was thrown and arrests were not long in coming, though the big break was fortuitous. A young man named Roy Belton, but who used the alias Tom Owens, talked to excess and attracted suspicion as he hitchhiked out of town.[x] Arrested on Sunday, August 22, he was taken to the hospital where Nida, amidst spasms of pain, declared him “the man.”[xi] Taken to the Tulsa County Attorney’s office, Belton chattered through various versions of events, with a flat denial giving way to the story that had gotten him arrested - that a girl attempted to inveigle him into stealing a cab but he resolutely refused to have anything to do with the plot. He followed this by identifying Marie Harmon as his date Saturday evening, during which date he heroically disarmed a gun and knife-wielding robber, perhaps to explain wounds on his face and hand. The papers quickly reported that he was the teller of weirdly contradictory and fantastic stories. He later claimed that he intended to marry Harmon.[xii] Dubbed the “woman in the case,” the quickly scooped-up Harmon first claimed to know nothing. After grilling by the police and a spell in a cell adjoining Belton, she admitted her presence in the cab. On Tuesday, August 24, the woman described as twenty-seven years old by the Tulsa Tribune signed a statement explaining that she was married to an oil field worker and that she was introduced to Belton, then using his alias, a “few days” before by George Moore, who roomed at the apartments where she and her husband lived. On the fatal Saturday, Moore brought him back to the apartments where Belton proposed the three of them take a trip to Texas to which Harmon agreed. She thought they were picking up a car in Sapulpa for the sojourn and claimed to be shocked at the violent turn. She fingered Belton as the gunman who shot Nida after brutally manhandling him. She said he threatened to shoot her when she tried to run. She also told the police where to find the stolen Hudson, which led to its discovery.[xiii] Her husband, if there was one, never put in a public appearance.[xiv] Marie Harmon courtesy of the Tulsa Tribune Belton refused to be upstaged and provided his own oral confession later Tuesday, confirming Moore, age nineteen, was the other man in the cab and Raymond Sharp, Moore’s roommate, was in on the deal. Sharp, age seventeen, was arrested and also confessed.[xv] The papers reported that Gustafson was “bending every effort” to capture Moore. Gustafson reported “hot clews” and a well-laid plan to capture the man he said was a police character with a long record.[xvi] The details of Belton’s and Sharp’s confessions vary with the published tellings. The thrust was that the conspiracy was birthed at the rooming house at 1111 East Admiral in Tulsa, where Harmon, Sharp, and Moore maintained rooms. Somehow Belton entered the picture - the three males were originally from Knoxville, Tennessee and the surrounding area - and the group dynamics produced a plan to steal a taxi and set off for California by way of Dallas. The three men stalked Tulsa taxi stands as well as locations to hide a body. The trio aimed big and finally targeted a Cadillac driven by William Cranfield that stood at the Hotel Tulsa. They had to fall back on Nida’s Hudson when Cranfield detoured to a barbershop for a close shave.[xvii] Sharp, a grocery clerk, provided the gun and money for buying bullets.[xviii] Instead of accompanying the gang, he was to pick up Harmon’s clothes and take them by train to Dallas, where the successful thieves were to unite. Belton said Moore was assigned the pistol, but suffered an “attack of yellowness.” Belton took over, hitting Nida with the weapon. Belton then claimed that the gun broke and accidentally fired while he was fixing it, though Nida and Harmon said it was intentional.[xix] Belton vouched for Harmon’s innocence.[xx] Sharp said she knew of the plot to steal, but not the planned shooting.[xxi] The newspapers differed on Nida’s rendition of Harmon’s role.[xxii] The confessions were not without issues. Belton’s was impacted by fears of being lynched and his police interrogators were the fear mongers. According to Assistant County Attorney A.E. Montgomery, Belton, still harboring behind his alias, sent word for him Tuesday afternoon. Arriving at the city jail where he was then detained, Montgomery found him sitting in Gustafson’s office. Belton asked Montgomery for an “absolutely private” talk. Once they were alone, Belton asked if there was any chance of violence against him if he made a statement. Montgomery assured him he would be absolutely safe.[xxiii] This exchange was quickly reported in the Tulsa World and constitutes the first mention of possible mob violence against the prisoners by the mass media of the times, the daily newspapers.[xxiv] Sharp, meanwhile, was stricken by acute appendicitis while in custody, but refused an operation until his father arrived from Tennessee. He signed his confession in front of Montgomery and Gustafson while “writhing in intense pain” and was in agony during his early morning arraignment on Saturday, August 28, when he and Belton were charged with capital murder. He had to be carried out on a stretcher when he and Harmon were removed from the county jail shortly after Belton was “delivered” - then slang for a jailbreak.[xxv] There is no sign that any of the defendants had legal counsel before the lynching. Tulsa County Attorney Thomas Munroe brushed aside Belton’s protestations of Harmon’s innocence and charged her with robbery.[xxvi] There also were published suggestions that she was the “woman in the case” in a number of other county “escapades” and the authorities promised a rigid investigation.[xxvii] After the lynching, Tulsa County Deputy Sheriff Noah Langley reported that: "[a] Mexican woman whose husband was killed at the Hickory mines several weeks ago by a joyriding party of two men and two women, said she recognized the picture of Marie Harmon, one of the murder quartet, printed in the Tribune, as being one of the women in the murder car that night.”[xxviii] In the week that followed his shooting, Nida’s condition swung from grim to hopeful to bleak, while Myrtle, his wife of less than four months, maintained a bedside vigil. Public outrage at the cold-hearted crime grew, especially among other Tulsa taxi drivers with whom Nida was popular.[xxix] The taxi drivers had long had much to resent, caught between the police, who eyed them as tentacles of the liquor trade, and the highwaymen, who eyed them as easy pickings. The Tulsa Tribune detailed twenty instances in the past two years when cabbies had been robbed or assaulted, though the Tulsa newspapers had not seen fit to publicize most of the incidents when they occurred. The drivers claimed there were more attacks than those reflected in the police records.[xxx] They were later assumed to have formed the heart of the lynch mob that organized near Swan Lake.[xxxi] The public was also greeted with suggestions that Belton might somehow get away with his crimes. A “wealthy sister” was said to be arriving from Missouri, though after the lynching it was reported that the whole family was in dire financial straits and the sister had suffered a nervous breakdown.[xxxii] Headlines also warned that Belton nee Owens was planning a plea of insanity. Belton contributed to the news cycle by sending a note to a former roommate asking him to testify regarding occasional “fits of insanity.[xxxiii] The odds of such an escape must have seemed great, since the newspapers painted an aura of eccentricity about Belton from the beginning. His photo, next to that of “Mrs. Marie Harmon,” greeted the public in Friday’s Tulsa Tribune, glaring out at them from hooded eyes.[xxxiv] In custody, his demeanor alternated between fear, defiance, collapse, and back to defiance. His placid reaction to approaching death - either he was insane or the gamest of men - impressed the press eyewitnesses. The more likely contributor to his final mood swing was that he had been drugged at the Tulsa County Jail. The Tulsa Tribune, using his newly discovered name, reported as “established fact…that Belton was under the influence of a strong drug at the time he was taken from the county jail and lynched.” An unidentified physician was called when Belton “collapsed” after word reached him that a mob was forming. This alert reached him in advance of the mob’s arrival at the courthouse, since the caregiver gave him “a hypodermic dose of morphine early in the night.” By the time the mob arrived, “the dope had taken effect and Belton was defiant.”[xxxv] The drugging would explain what happened when one of his killers “struck him a fearful blow in the back of a head with the butt of a revolver” in payback for clubbing Nida. Yet, Belton “gave not the slightest evidence that he felt the blow [and] his countenance did not change.”[xxxvi] Information about the drugging was provided to the Tulsa Tribune by county jailer Robert Terrell, who gloated over his prisoner’s suffering and played a dubious role in his delivery.[xxxvii] By Thursday, August 26, Nida’s death seemed imminent and rumors of lynching gathered steam. The Tulsa Tribune reported in bold type that Sheriff James Woolley knew about them and had posted two added armed guards at the county jail.[xxxviii] Several armed sheriff’s deputies stayed at the jail for two nights, though they were not there on the fateful Saturday.[xxxix] Nida’s death in the wee hours of Saturday, August 28, supercharged the speculation. Later that morning Belton and Sharp were arraigned for murder at a well-attended hearing. Harmon was reported as being too ill to attend. Belton put a further bulls’ eye on his back with his defiant attitude in court, or at least it was portrayed as such in the news.[xl] Woolley himself engaged in barbershop banter about a lynching that morning.[xli] The county jail reverberated with the rumors, reflected in Marie Harmon’s daylong hysterics - she was “fast losing her mind” - and Belton’s breakdown early that evening.[xlii] Tulsa law enforcement officials were on notice and all the protections should have been in place. Police Chief Gustafson promised that his police force would be ready at the county’s call.[xliii] The testimony of Tulsa Tribune reporter William Randolph is the more chilling for these assurances. Having been assigned by managing editor Victor Barnett to check reports of a possible mobbing, Randolph left the Tribune building around 10 p.m., an hour before the delivery. After talking to a “nightstick swinging negro policeman” on Greenwood who had not heard any rumors and a downtown cabbie who had, Randolph walked by the police station on West Second Street between Main and Boulder Avenues. He found “everything was quiet, nothing going on, there was two or three men standing out front, there was no excitement.” Moving on to the nearby Tulsa County Courthouse, he found: "It was dark down the stairs on the first floor. I walked through, walked into the entrance into the sheriff’s office there and that was dark and then I walked over to the County Attorney’s office and that was dark, but the boys sometimes stay in the back and I shook on the door. I didn’t rouse anyone." Walking outside, Randolph talked with other newspaper reporters already there awaiting action. He saw two figures inside by the sheriff’s office who disappeared from view.[xliv] At the time, all known sheriff personnel were locked inside the fourth-floor jail.[xlv] The two figures may have been part of the mob that took control of the courthouse’s roof before the delivery, as Woolley later discovered.[xlvi] They were the only signs of life in the soon-to-be stormed building. Nonetheless, the unguarded courthouse still left the inmates protected behind a barricade impregnable to a mob. Without use of the elevator, which had been taken to the fourth floor and disconnected, the only access was a dark, narrow stairway culminating at a locked barred door behind which stood a locked wooden door.[xlvii] Knowing witnesses colorfully described the ease of defending the jail. Jail trustee Harry Northrup testified, “We could have shot the legs off of forty men there and never batted an eye and never been in the least bit of danger.”[xlviii] The jailers also placed Belton in the jail’s “negro dungeon” in hopes that if invaders made it that far, they would overlook him in the darkness.[xlix] Without Sheriff Jim Woolley’s timely arrival after they assembled, the mob could never have achieved its goal. Rather than defending the inmate he was sworn to protect, Woolley permitted himself to be disarmed and marched up the stairs where he ordered his prisoner to be delivered to his killers.[l] The ease with which Woolley succumbed stirred immediate suspicions that he connived with the mob. Tulsa County Attorney Munroe arrived ten minutes after the prisoner had been taken and declared that he failed to see any evidence of preparations to defend the jail or to receive any satisfactory explanation from Woolley.[li] In the state capitol, Governor J. B. A. Robertson raged at the news, his anger doubled by word of Oklahoma’s second lynching that same weekend - this one of an African-American teenager effortlessly removed from the Oklahoma County Jail.[lii] Robertson posted rewards, dispatched detectives, and ordered the Oklahoma attorney general to seek removal from office of the limber-tailed Tulsa and Oklahoma County sheriffs.[liii] Robertson’s outrage was matched by Tulsa District Judge Owen Owen, who immediately summoned a grand jury, and County Attorney Munroe, who charged Woolley with collusion and promised another rigid investigation, though conceding that it would be highly unpopular.[liv] Assistant Attorney General C. W. King was assigned to Tulsa and issued subpoenas for a pre-grand jury court of inquiry to begin in early September.[lv] The Honorable Owen Owen courtesy of the Tulsa Tribune Two adversaries quickly entered the field against Robertson, Munroe and the investigations. Two days before the lynching, Tulsa Daily World owner and publisher Eugene Lorton returned from summering in Arkansas.[lvi] The World’s editorial page returned to the bloodthirsty tone last seen in late 1917, when it howled for the murder of union organizers.[lvii] Now, Lorton’s paper wrapped a cloak of respectability and good citizenship around actual murder. The paper’s first editorial after the lynching defended it as a “righteous protest,” and dismissed “moralizing” critics as “unsophisticated” and “not familiar with Oklahoma affairs.” The editorialist bugled: "There was not a vestige of the mob spirit in the act of Saturday night. It was citizenship, outraged by government inefficiency and a too tender regard for the professional criminal, registering an indignant protest." [lviii] Eugene Lorton courtesy of the Tulsa World With a critical election approaching, Lorton - then a Republican with political ambitions - turned the lynching into a political broadside against Robertson and the Democratic Party for leniency with the pardoning power. That was the “blackest” stain upon the state, not the occasional “summary punishment of [criminals]” or “citizens [taking] the law into their hands for the purpose of executing a just punishment.” The “hideous travesty!” was the Democratic Party-controlled state government, called the “bourbon machine,” not Oklahoma’s weekend of two lynchings.[lix] Lorton’s editorial page directed withering criticism to Sheriff Woolley, a Democrat, but offered not a word on the performance of the Republican-controlled city police.[lx] The second adversary was an unfolding conspiracy of silence. What had been the “Talk of the City,” gave way to a “widespread disinclination to hark back to the happenings,” followed by “serious obstructions” to the investigation.[lxi] The impact was felt even before the grand jury assembled. The attorney general’s detectives produced a list of five men who “know and saw the different members of the Tulsa police force keeping [the] crowd back so that the mob could finish their work unhindered,” including Gustafson.[lxii] The men were said to know a great deal and would talk if asked. King subpoenaed them.[lxiii] All but one, Whitie Weissinger, simply ignored the summons and he claimed to know nothing.[lxiv] Another witness, a jail inmate and trustee named O. A. Sexton, pleaded not to be questioned and warned, “If I go down here telling everything I know, they will lock me up, they will give me hell.”[lxv] Nonetheless, King was able to secure nineteen depositions, including Woolley’s, and they provide critical evidence of how the Belton lynching actually unfolded. This includes the pre-lynching contacts between city and county officials and the likely ringleader of the mob - William Cranfield, the Cadillac-driving original target of the hijackers; the incriminating behavior of Chief John Gustafson and the Tulsa police officers; and the equally incriminating behavior of County Sheriff James Woolley. Tulsa County Deputy Sheriff Noah Langley testified that two days before the lynching two taxi drivers visited the county jail in search of Woolley, who was absent. Langley knew one of the men by the name of Cranfield, and stated that he “talked like they was going to do it.” After Nida died, Langley was approached by Cranfield’s younger brother who he knew by the nickname “Yellow Hammer,” who also boasted of lynching plans. William and Yellow Hammer Cranfield make several appearances in the attorney general’s file, including being listed along with three others as “ring leaders of this mob.”[lxvi] Langley dismissed their threats because the jail was impregnable. He told King, “There ain’t a chance to get a man out of that jail if you wanted to prevent it” and “it couldn’t have happened if they had taken the right precautions.”[lxvii] Woolley fired Langley the day after he testified.[lxviii] William Cranfield and his companion, identified only as a taxi driver, then pursued a private meeting with Assistant County Attorney Montgomery, who had been publicly identified with the investigation and the cracking of the case. The two said that they “wanted to lynch Tom Owen [sic] alias Belton.” They reported that they had policemen in their group and “that the police had agreed them to help them lynch this boy and that they had some good citizens in addition to that.” The identities of the police and good citizens, if any, were unrevealed, but their existence would help explain the boldness of the two taxi men in approaching county officials. The conspirators also explained that “they had been up to Mr. Woolley’s office but couldn’t find him in but that they were going back and see Mr. Woolley.” (emphasis added). Refusing to countenance the scheme, Montgomery tried to call Woolley, but he was not there, so he reported the incident to the day jailer Robert Terrell and told him to tell Woolley, which Terrell promised to do.[lxix] Terrell appears to have functioned as a “cut-out man” for communications related to the lynching. Woolley testified that Terrell never mentioned Montgomery’s warning to him and Terrell failed to disclose it when fairly asked during his examination by King.[lxx] Montgomery’s was not the only phone call that Terrell neglected to mention. According to jail trustee Harry Northrup, Terrell took several calls at the jail on the fateful Saturday night, as many as four, that Terrell said were from Gustafson. The first was around 8 p.m., reporting that a mob was coming. A similar call was made “just before it happened.”[lxxi] It is not surprising that Gustafson would be closely monitoring the situation. Before and after becoming chief, he headed a detective agency - most of his professional career involved private detecting - with a self-publicized specialty of infiltration and intelligence.[lxxii] He was also skilled in the art of ambush, having masterminded the bloody Deep Fork Valley ambush in 1917.[lxxiii] He had been closely involved in the Nida investigation, including Belton’s confession that was intimidated by threats of violence. He said he told the jail to call the police if there was trouble and he was at the police station that night giving orders, both signs he knew something might be up.[lxxiv] Given that Gustafson appears to have been on top of the situation, where were the Tulsa police? Gustafson promised that his force would be ready at the call. The looming assault was so well publicized that a thousand spectators had time to get there before the delivery.[lxxv] Yet, Tulsa Tribune reporter Randolph found the police station sleepy quiet just minutes before. Gustafson himself told the World that the call for help from “the jailer” came in at 10:30 p.m., one half-hour before Belton’s seizure by the mob.[lxxvi] The courthouse was only four blocks from the police station. Yet, in spite of the red flags and Gustafson’s promise of readiness, the police only arrived after the Hudson had rumbled away.[lxxvii] Woolley claimed that the first police arrived after County Attorney Munroe, who appeared at least ten minutes after the fact.[lxxviii] Somehow, when the police did begin showing up to confront the armed mob, the first responders were two Black officers normally assigned to Greenwood, possibly the only two then on the force.[lxxix] After it was too late, the police force suddenly exploded into action. Gustafson was on hand to commandeer at least one private auto, demanding the driver transport officers to the lynching. By the time the captive was on tiptoes, most of the Tulsa police force had made its way to the site according to Gustafson himself. Gustafson was seen standing “within a few feet” of one of the masked men.[lxxx] Having been ordered by Gustafson not to interfere so as to avoid bloodshed, Tulsa’s police spent the evening “doing all they could to prevent disorder that might lead to gunplay.”[lxxxi] Tulsa Tribune reporter Randolph said that: "a bunch of police held us back with guns and while we were standing there there was a big crowd that gathered that filled that whole street, there must have been over a thousand people, and they were just pushing and surging back and forth."[lxxxii] The crowd managers must have been very effective. Not even the potentially chaotic move of the operation in search of the forgotten rope disrupted the proceedings for long. To the extent the police provided administrative services for the lynching, their efficiency stands out starkly beside their earlier slothful performance. Their ineffectiveness quickly returned. Not a single arrest was made for the murder most of the Tulsa police had watched happen. A few hours later, Gustafson explained the county officers waited too long to call and “we got there just a little late.” He declared it a “work of fate” and blessed the whole affair. He proclaimed, “It is my honest opinion that the lynching of Belton will prove of real benefit to Tulsa and vicinity.”[lxxxiii] King’s investigation also placed Woolley in a bad light, with the grossest of negligence as his best defense. Born and raised in Texas, Woolley arrived in Oklahoma around 1889. A Democrat, he served two terms of as Tulsa county commissioner (1910-14) and two terms as county sheriff (1915-16, 1919-1920). Immediately after the lynching, he explained that he would consider resigning if his friends recommended it.[lxxxiv] These friends likely included influential Tulsans and longtime Democratic party stalwarts W. Tate Brady and S. R. “Buck” Lewis. Woolley’s wife, Texana Dawson Woolley, was co-chair of the Tulsa County Democratic Party Women’s Club along with Rachel Brady, Tate’s wife. Lewis’ mother was also a member of the extended Dawson clan that settled around Dawson, Oklahoma, and during his first term in office Woolley hired Buck’s younger brother Carl as his undersheriff.[lxxxv] S.R "Buck" Lewis courtesy of the author Woolley appears to have been the teller of tall tales, a trait that might have served him well on the campaign circuit. He repeatedly marketed the tale that Marie Harmon’s terror of being lynched was so great that her hair turned white. This turned out to be false.[lxxxviii] He testified that County Attorney Munroe had applauded the lynching, a doubtful claim given Munroe’s immediate and relentless attempt to remove him, a fellow Democrat, from office.[lxxxix] His description of the flaccid city police responses to his call, however, is consistent with the way matters unfolded. Woolley testified: "So I went up to the office and I called the police station. I says "There is a mob here" I says “Have you got any men down there?” And they says “I will see.” So they fooled around there a while. Pretty soon he called up and answered and said “They are all out.” I says “Where are they?” And he says “I don’t know.” I says “You have them to call me just as quick as they get in because this mob is here.”"[xc] Woolley’s original published version of events was that he was not expecting the delivery, that he was absolutely unprepared and that “the men who entered the courthouse were in my office and had me covered before I knew what was up.”[xci] He also admitted that he viewed his prisoner’s guilt as certain and for that reason was unwilling to risk his own life.[xcii] Woolley’s “sudden surprise” tale was revised under oath. In the version he told King, Woolley left town earlier Saturday evening to monitor an American Indian stomp dance in Sperry.[xciii] Returning home about 10 p.m., his wife reported an unknown woman’s call warning that “they was gonna mob that fellow tonight.”[xciv] Rushing to the courthouse with his son-in-law, Woolley found the mob already gathered, which he had earlier described as consisting of two to three hundred men, many armed with shotguns and pistols.[xcv] Attempting only to jawbone them into leaving, Woolley retreated to his office where he made no effort to call his other deputies to defend the courthouse.[xcvi] Instead, he called the jail and cautioned the staff to try not to kill anyone.[xcvii] According to night jailer A.E. Basham, who soon became a former jailer, that was about fifteen to twenty minutes before the mob showed up outside the fourth-floor jail, suggesting that the instructions were not issued at gunpoint or under immediate duress.[xcviii] Robert Terrell said Woolley’s instructions included “you boys be careful and not get excited” and “be sure and don’t get excited now.”[xcix] Woolley testified that while sitting inside his office, he heard the men trying to pry open the elevator gate. The mob was still insufficiently emboldened and required exhortations from their leaders. Woolley said the ringleaders yelled, “Come on, you are yellow back sons of bitches” and, “You have got a yellow streak up your back,” which undermined Gustafson’s and Woolley’s claims that the public was so incensed that there was simply no stopping them.[c] Still showing no instinct for self-preservation, Woolley left his office, weapon holstered, and was immediately disarmed at the point of three weapons, two .45-caliber pistols and a shotgun.[ci] The leveling of three weapons was significant for that triggered the state’s “riot” law, under which all participants in the riot, including any police or “good citizens,” were as guilty of murder as if they had put their own weight to Belton’s rope.[cii] Back in the sheriff’s office, Woolley’s son-in-law called the jail to report that the mob had Woolley and “to look out.” Woolley led the gang upstairs, ordered his armed men inside to open up and hand over the mob’s target.[ciii] When he testified about this, Woolley could not remember either of his lynched prisoner’s names.[civ] The mob accompanying Woolley to the fourth floor were masked save one - its leader.[cv] Basham described him as a large man of authority; Slick Woolley commented on his commanding voice.[cvi] When other members of his band were shouting and waving weapons, he backed them up along the wall and ordered them to wait. He followed with calm assurances that if the jailers turned over Belton nee Owens, no harm would befall them.[cvii] Trustee Northrup testified that he was the one holding the gun on Woolley, yet he showed not the slightest concern that he might be identified. His confidence was not punished. Despite his long years of residence and service in Tulsa County, Woolley was unable to identify a single person associated with the lynching, either at the jail or around the noose.[cviii] If William Cranfield was the unmasked leader, perhaps Woolley rationalized it as fair justice for Roy Belton to fall into his hands. In spite of having a gun pressed against his belly, the death threats, and the damage to his reputation, Woolley’s subsequent investigation could not have been more passive. He told King, “Well, I have inquired around but nobody never will talk to you none, they kind of catch on what I was after and shut right up.”[cix] Like the police, the sheriff’s department never made a single arrest. King’s depositions were the high point of the investigation. Armed with them, King filed a petition to remove Woolley from office with the Oklahoma Supreme Court. This halted his court of inquiry just before reaching his planned grilling of the police.[cx] The supreme court wanted proof that it was not possible to get a fair trial in Tulsa and a hearing was scheduled. The depositions did not address that issue and King dismissed his petition before the hearing in order to pursue Woolley’s removal via the Tulsa grand jury.[cxi] Unintended consequences of the supreme court detour arrived when the Tulsa papers broadcast that the attorney general had “quit” the suit and that the supreme court had ruled that Tulsa would provide a fair trial.[cxii] The headline of the Tulsa Tribune for September 10, 1920 To notions of quitting and defeat were added “absolutely, idiotic incompetency,” which was Tulsa Judge Owen Owen’s livid response to the discovery on the grand jury’s opening day that a lowly (and apparently unsupervised) clerk had used the wrong subpoena forms in summoning grand jurors. This necessitated a ten-day delay until September 23 that killed both momentum and public trust. More than one hundred witnesses had shown up to testify and most would not be back. [cxiii] Meanwhile, news of the whole affair migrated to the newspapers’ back pages. When the grand jury finally got underway, most of the witnesses summoned to testify stayed away. Those who did appear could not definitely identify a single member of the mob. Prosecutor King promised contempt citations for the “no shows,” but by Tuesday, September 28, the game was given up.[cxiv] Apparently realizing that they could not force admissions even if they hauled witnesses to court, assuming the police would do any hauling, and that their case against Woolley was as strong as it was going to be, Munroe and King threw in their hand. Once again, the investigation ended before reaching the role of the Tulsa police.[cxv] On Wednesday, September 29, the grand jury revealed that it had turned up empty-handed in its search for the mob. The police were cleared of any wrongdoing. The jury voted 8 to 4 to return an accusation against Woolley, one vote short vote of the required nine to force a full removal trial. The newspaper promptly labeled Woolley’s close shave an exoneration and clearance. Judge Owen Owen seemed crushed by the result.[cxvi] The headline of the Tulsa Tribune for September 20, 1920 Tulsa voters got their chance to speak on November 2, 1920, and it was a Republican tide.[cxvii] The election removed County Attorney Munroe by sixty-seven votes and, with that, the end of the Nida case loomed. On November 17, an “old friend of the Sharp family,” sitting US Congressman and lawyer Representative J. Will Taylor arrived from eastern Tennessee to “assist in handling the case.”[cxviii] Popularly called “Hillbilly Bill,” the first- term Congressman would earn a reputation as an influential wheeler and dealer within the national Republican party.[cxix] At the beginning of January 1921, Munroe’s Republican successor, Thomas Seaver, took office. In mid-January, Tulsa County Commissioner-elect Ira Short was approached about facilitating a bribe of Seaver to secure Marie Harmon’s freedom. Short reported that the sum of “between $5,000 and $10,000” was mentioned, with the money to be provided by “an Indian.” Short, who would bear a shotgun while standing beside Tulsa Sheriff Willard McCullough in defense of the Tulsa County Courthouse and Dick Rowland on May 31, 1921, refused to participate and later reported the effort to the attorney general’s investigators.[cxx] On January 18, 1921, it was announced that Seaver intended to dismiss charges against both Harmon and Sharp. Harmon’s dismissal came first, with Seaver arguing that Munroe had promised her immunity for her admission that she was aware of the planned car theft.[cxxi] That deal, however, was conditioned on Harmon testifying against her codefendants.[cxxii] When he dismissed her, Seaver told Harmon to “leave Oklahoma and remain away,” though he wanted her back if Moore was ever caught and tried. There was no similar condition imposed regarding Sharp. Eight days later, Seaver freed Sharp, who was presumably long since treated for appendicitis, on the ground that Sharp’s confession could not be used and there was no one to testify against him. Seaver explained the delay between the two dismissals as due to waiting for Sharp to raise “sufficient money to take him back to his home in Tennessee.”[cxxiii] No one was ever tried for the murders of either Homer Nida or Roy Belton. The sputtering legal system, the Tulsa Daily World’s editorial justification for lynching, seemed again on display. Ironically, Roy Belton’s claim to have saved “the girl” turned out to be accurate - his life had distracted the mob from Harmon and his death had drained prosecutorial ardor. The voters cast their highest vote totals in the sheriff’s race. Woolley lost the last of his four election tilts with Republican Willard McCullough by a 1,305 vote margin, far and away the largest of their contests.[cxxiv] Woolley had expressed reliance on the advice of friends. If his friends such as Tate Brady and Buck Lewis played a role in persuading him to ignore his legal duties, their advice cost Woolley his political career.[cxxv] Meanwhile, McCullough came out of the election with a firm desire never to repeat Woolley’s surrender of a prisoner, but the actions of Tulsa law enforcement in the Belton lynching meant that many would not trust him to prevent it. Other people, inclined to similar violence, found comfort in the official sanction and the entertainment seekers knew where to assemble when the next rumors blossomed. The Belton lynching may, however, have done more than simply set the stage nine months later when an even more vivid target appeared. The attempted lynching of Dick Rowland may, in modern parlance, have been a case of “getting the band back together.” State District Judge Redmond S. Cole advised the US Justice Department one week after the Tulsa Race Massacre that: "Beyond peradventure of a doubt the same group of roughnecks and hoodlums who mobbed Belton last September planned this outrage. As near as I get it some 15 or 20 of them went to the Courthouse; it was known throughout town what they expected to do." Further, Cole recommended where to start the investigation that he assumed would ensue: "There is a party in Tulsa known among the underworld as Yellow Hammer who is supposed to have been the leader in the Belton mob and who was whitewashed by the Belton grand jury. It is common talk around Tulsa that he was one of the ring leaders in this bunch; his correct name is Cranfield.”[cxxvi] If Yellow Hammer Cranfield and associates were involved, what of the police and “good citizens” whom his brother William Cranfield had reported were in on the plot to lynch Roy Belton? Were they also in on the plot to kill Diamond Dick Rowland? Endnotes: [i] This synthesis of the lynching is based on (a) the work product and investigative documents preserved in State of Oklahoma v. James Woolley in the District Court of Tulsa County, Attorney General Civil Case No. 1017, box 23, record group 1-2, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma City, OK (hereafter cited as AG Civil Case 1017-page no.); (b) the transcript of a court of inquiry conducted by Assistant Attorney General C. W. King, “In the Matter of the Investigation of the Conduct of the County Officials of Tulsa County, Oklahoma,” September 1920, transcript, State of Oklahoma vs. James Woolley in the District Court of Tulsa County, Attorney General Civil Case No. 1017, transcript: box 23, record group 1-2, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma City, OK (hereafter cited as “Court of Inquiry, witness name, page no.”); and (c) articles published on August 29 and 30, 1920 by the two principal Tulsa newspapers, the morning Tulsa Daily World and the afternoon Tulsa Tribune. At least two Tribune reporters and likely one from the World were eyewitnesses to the lynching. The melodramatic flourishes are largely theirs. “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1-3; “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1920, 1-3; “Mob Lynches Tom Owens,” Tulsa Daily World, August 29, 1920, 1, 9. “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 1, 3. [ii] Ibid. [iii] “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, 3. [iv] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 3. [v] “Bandits Club and Shoot Taxi Driver,” Tulsa Daily World, August 22, 1920, 1. [vi] “Drive Crime From City, Orders Chief,” Tulsa Tribune, August 22, 1920, 8. “Undesirables” expressly included any man or woman who could not prove a legitimate means of livelihood, a testy standard given that the flames of a post-World War I depression were starting to lick around the country. [vii] Adkison was senior to Mayor Thaddeus Evans in the Republican Party hierarchy, having served as city treasurer under the Simmons administration (1916-18). Adkison polled over eight hundred more votes than Evans in 1920 and was acting mayor during Evans’ frequent absences, which included a vacation undertaken before the Belton lynching. Evans did not interrupt his vacation, leaving Adkison in charge. “Mayor Will Return Soon,” Tulsa Daily World, September 3, 1920, 18. For Adkison’s biography, see Clarence B. Douglas, The History of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Volume II (Tulsa, OK: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1921), 52-3; Joseph B. Thoburn and Muriel H. Wright, Oklahoma: A History of the State and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1929), 122-23. For Gustafson’s biography, see “Local Findings on John A. Gustafson,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, box 25, record group 1-2, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma City, OK. [viii] For Adkison’s admission re: 400 special commissions, “Inefficiency of Police is Denied, Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 7; “Chief and Officers Take Witness Stand,” Tulsa Daily World, July 20, 1921, 8. Also see, The Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, (Oklahoma City, OK: Tulsa Race Riot Commission, 2001), 64 (claims there were 500 special commissions). For arming 250 men, see deposition of J. A. Gustafson in Stradford v. American Central Ins. Co.; Superior Court of Cook County, No. 370,274 (1921), 29-30 (“We armed during the night probably two hundred fifty citizens who assisted the Police Department in trying to quell the mob” and “I think we armed about two hundred fifty.”) (hereafter cited as Gustafson deposition). [ix] For inciting and most of the shooting, see “Neglect by Peace Force Blamed for Tulsa Riot,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 2, 1921, 1. For most dangerous part of mob, see Major General Charles F. Barrett, Oklahoma After Fifty Years: A History of The Sooner State and its People, (Oklahoma City, OK: Historical Record Association, 1941), 209 (“…in a race war a large part, if not a majority, of these special deputies were imbued with the same spirit of destruction that animated the mob. They became as deputies the most dangerous part of the mob and after the arrival of the Adjutant General and the declaration or martial law the first arrests ordered were those of special officers who had hindered the firemen in their abortive efforts to put out the incendiary fires that many of these special officers were accused of setting.”). [x] Besides being seen with a pistol in his pocket, “Owens” told a fellow passenger who mentioned the shooting, “Why, I know that girl, she told all her plans to me Saturday and tried to get me to go in on that, and I turned her down.” The man notified the Nowata, Oklahoma police, who placed the talkative passenger under arrest. “Hunt Second Bandit After Girl Talks,” Tulsa Tribune, August 24, 1920, 1. As noted, Owens turned out to be an alias for his real name Belton. After the lynching, he was referred to as Roy Belton, though his legal name was Russell Summers Belton. Born on July 12, 1900, near Knoxville, Tennessee, he was twenty years old, not nineteen as reported. According to his brother-in-law, he was a little “wild” as a boy and left home at an early age. “Belton Lynching Probe Starts Today,” Tulsa Daily World, September 1, 1920, 12. He appears to have been trained in carpentry but was working as a telephone line splitter in Tulsa. For carpentry, see Knoxville City Directory, 1917, 82 (Summers Belton a cabinet maker). For telephone work, see “Dry Battery Halts Escape, Following Shooting of Nida,” Tulsa Tribune, August 26, 1920, 1 (also disclosing that they worked in Tulsa under the name Roy Belton). [xi] “‘That’s Him, He Shot Me,’ Driver Says,” Tulsa Tribune, August 23, 1920, 1; “Hunt Second Bandit After Girl Talks,” Tulsa Tribune, August 24, 1920, 1; “Girl Confesses Plot in Tragedy,” Tulsa Daily World, August 24, 1920, 1. [xii] For Belton’s various versions, see Court of Inquiry, Montgomery, 163-164; “‘That’s Him, He Shot Me,’ Driver Says,” Tulsa Tribune, August 23, 1920, 1; “Girl Confesses Plot in Tragedy,” Tulsa Daily World, August 24, 1920, 1; “Mob Lynches Tom Owens,” Tulsa Daily World, August 29, 1920, 9. One of his wild claims was that he had deserted the US Army. After the lynching, County officials learned it was true. “Hush Falls Over City on Belton Mob,” Tulsa Tribune, September 4, 1920, 1. For intent to marry, see “Another Jailed in Holdup Case,” Tulsa Daily World, August 25, 1920, 12. [xiii] “Hunt Second Bandit After Girl Talks,” Tulsa Tribune, August 24, 1920, 1, 4 (quoting Harmon’s written confession verbatim); “Girl Confesses Plot in Tragedy,” Tulsa Daily World, August 24, 1. Belton was alleged to have told her through the bars that he “was in a tight fix, and that she was responsible for his plight.” “Another Jailed in Holdup Case,” Tulsa Daily World, August 25, 1920, 1. [xiv] The World primly concluded that Harmon was not married because Belton, alias Owens, said he planned to marry her. “Another Jailed in Holdup Case,” Tulsa Daily World, August 25, 1920, 12. There is a 1930 US Census record listing a Marie W. Harmon of the correct age living in Ponca City with her husband, described as a petroleum producer. [xv] “Another Jailed in Holdup Case,” Tulsa Daily World, August 25, 1920, 1; “Death Plot Revealed in Confessions,” Tulsa Tribune, August 25, 1920, 1. Sharp’s Tuesday confession was oral; it was reduced to writing and signed on Friday. “Hi-Jacking Chief Plans Escape on Plea of Insanity,” Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, 1. Sharp’s brother arrived after the lynching and described him as not quite eighteen and “never in trouble while at home,” which he had left only a few months before. The brother took a look at the confession, declared his brother innocent, and hired a lawyer. “Round Up Lynching Witnesses,” Tulsa Tribune, September 1, 1920, 1 (Sharp’s age); “Inquiry Starts Upon Tulsa Mob,” Tulsa Daily World, September 2, 1920, 1. [xvi] “Dry Battery Halts Escape, Following Shooting of Nida,” Tulsa Tribune, August 26, 1920, 1; “Hi-Jacking Chief Plans Escape on Plea of Insanity,” Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, 1; “To Quiz Hundreds on Lynching,” Tulsa Tribune, August 31, 1920, 1; “Sheriff May Be Removed,” Tulsa Daily World, August 31, 1921, 1; “Belton Lynching Probe Starts Today,” Tulsa Daily World, September 1, 1920, 12. It is possible the police got sidetracked with the wrong George Moore. According to a YMCA employment application filled out two days before the shooting, Moore’s full name was “George Perryman Moore.” However, George Perryman Moore from Knoxville was only fifteen in 1920 according to his birth certificate and US Census records. Another candidate is George Senter Moore, age eighteen and from Jefferson County, Tennessee, near Knoxville. If “Senter” was aware of the other Moore, perhaps he used “Perryman” as an alias, as might be done by someone needing to deflect attention from his own record. Whatever the case, on September 2 Gustafson reported that he now believed Moore would be hard to find. He also opined that Moore had headed to Springfield, Missouri, in order the meet up with Belton, suggesting that their relationship had survived Nida’s shooting. “Law to Seek Only Those Responsible for Inciting Mob,” Tulsa Tribune, September 2, 1920, 12. [xvii] “Cranfield Has Lucky Streak,” Tulsa Daily World, August 26, 1920, 16; “Death Plot Revealed in Confessions,” Tulsa Tribune, August 25, 1920, 1. [xviii] Moore was unemployed at the time, having previously worked as a grocery clerk. “Belton Lynching Probe Starts Today, Tulsa Daily World, September 1, 1920, 12. [xix] Precise details of the shooting differ, including whether Nida was in the taxi when shot or already in the road and whether he jumped out or was thrown. In Harmon’s version, Nida was forced to show Moore how to drive the taxi, the entire group then drove through Red Fork, then Belton shot Nida for no reason and the wounded man leaped out of the car. All versions merge with the threesome speeding away from the abandoned Nida. Determined to avoid the bright lights of Sapulpa, Belton ordered Moore to take the Turkey Mountain road. The car ran into a barbed-wire fence and became stranded. Moore and Belton fell into fisticuffs after which Belton ripped off his shirt, threw it away and ran off, per Harmon. She and Moore made their way back to Tulsa. Belton said he returned to the East Admiral apartment on Sunday, found Sharp and Moore in bed together, read them the Tulsa World’s coverage of the shooting and suggested they scatter. Moore did, Belton tried and Sharp stayed put. The varying press accounts of the confessions are contained in “Girl Confesses Plot in Tragedy,” Tulsa Daily World, August 24, 1920, 1; “Another Jailed in Holdup Case,” Tulsa Daily World, August 25, 1920, 1, 12; “Want Third Man in Taxi Mystery,” Tulsa Daily World, August 26, 1920, 10; “Verifies Story Told by Owens,” Tulsa Daily World, August 28, 1920, 9; “Mob Lynches Tom Owens,” Tulsa Daily World, August 29, 1920, 1, 9. Also, “‘That’s Him, He Shot Me,’ Driver Says,” Tulsa Tribune, August 23, 1920; 1; “Hunt Second Bandit After Girl Talks,” Tulsa Tribune, August 24, 1920, 1, 4; “Death Plot Revealed in Confessions,” Tulsa Tribune, August 25, 1920, 1; “Dry Battery Halts Escape, Following Shooting of Nida,” Tulsa Tribune, August 26, 1920, 1; “Hi-Jacking Chief Plans Escape on Plea of Insanity,” Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, 1; “To Ask Death for Slayers of Chauffeur,” Tulsa Tribune, August 28, 1920, 1; “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1-3. [xx] For Belton’s exonerating Harmon, see “‘That’s Him, He Shot Me,’ Driver Says,” Tulsa Tribune, August 23, 1920, 1; “Hi-Jacking Chief Plans Escape on Plea of Insanity,” Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, 1. He was less a white knight when questioned by his executioners. Then, he said, “The girl started the thing. She hurried up the shooting.” “Mob Lynches Tom Owens,” Tulsa Daily World, August 29, 1920, 1. He added that Moore, the real shooter, was working as a table waiter in El Paso, Texas, or maybe Juarez, Mexico under the alias Charlie (Charley) Ware. “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, 2. Belton had been stationed at Fort Bliss and presumably came across the real Charlie Ware there. It turned out to be a false lead. “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 1. [xxi] Both newspapers reported Sharp as claiming Harmon was in on the plot to steal the taxi, but not to kill the driver. “Hi-Jacking Chief Plans Escape on Plea of Insanity,” Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, 1; “Verifies Story Told by Owens,” Tulsa Daily World, August 28, 1920, 9. Assistant County Attorney Montgomery later described Sharp’s statement as admitting knowledge that Moore, Belton nee Owens and Harmon “had planned to at least rob Nida of the car if not to kill ]him).” “Habeas Corpus Writ is Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, December 3, 1920, 20. Sharp’s written confession is unavailable. [xxii] The World quoted Nida as saying that the woman did not participate in the crime. “Bandits Club and Shoot Taxi Driver,” Tulsa Daily World, August 22, 1920, 1; “Holdup Victim Clings to Life,” Tulsa Daily World, August 23, 1920, 10. The Tribune only quoted Nida saying that the woman showed no resistance at traveling with the two men. “Taxi Driver Shot by Hi-Jackers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 22, 1920, 1. Nida’s alleged clearance of Harmon was not further mentioned in the press or at all by the authorities. [xxiii] Court of Inquiry, Montgomery, 165. Montgomery states that Belton’s confession occurred on Friday, August 27, but likely confused that with the date of Sharp’s written confession. He stated that the press reported Belton’s confession either the day he gave it or the next, which is consistent with Tuesday, August 24, as Belton’s confession date. “Death Plot Revealed in Confessions,” Tulsa Tribune, August 25, 1920, 1; “Another Jailed in Holdup Case,” Tulsa Daily World, August 25, 1920, 1. There is no evidence that Belton’s confession was ever reduced to writing and signed. [xxiv] “Another Jailed in Holdup Case,” Tulsa Daily World, August 25, 1920, 12. While in police custody Belton learned how “bitterly resentful” the public had taken the crime and “asked for assurance that violence would not follow his statement.” [xxv] “Verifies Story Told by Owens,” Tulsa Daily World, August 28, 1920, 9 (“Writhing in intense pain,” Raymond Sharp signed a confession); “Sapulpa Officers Thwart Mob Action,” Tulsa Daily World, August 31, 1920, 1 (“Sharpe [sic], who has been suffering from appendicitis for the past week, was seriously ill. When he was removed from the jail, he was so ill that he had to be carried.”); “Hi-Jacking Chief Plans Escape on Plea of Insanity,” Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, 1 (“writhing in pain” when signed confession); “To Ask Death for Slayers of Chauffeur,” Tulsa Tribune, August 28, 1920, 1 (Sharp’s suffering during his arraignment on Saturday, August 28). [xxvi] “Belton Lynching Probe Starts Today,” Tulsa Daily World, September 1, 1920, 1 (“I feel confident we can convict her of murder.”); “Court Holds Two for Nida Murder,” Tulsa Daily World, September 9, 1920, 1. [xxvii] “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1920, 2. [xxviii] “Women May Testify in Lynch Quiz,” Tulsa Tribune, September 5, 1920, 1. [xxix] “Nida Funeral Held Tuesday,” Tulsa Daily World, September 1, 1920, 8; Court of Inquiry, Montgomery, 168 (very strong and intense feeling against Belton sufficient to put Sheriff’s Office on notice of lynching risk). [xxx] “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1921, 2. [xxxi] “Round Up Lynching Witnesses,” Tulsa Tribune, September 1, 1920, 1. It was called Orcutt Lake in the papers. The lake was renamed Swan Lake in 1917, but the original name lingered. [xxxii] For wealthy sister arriving, see “Hi-Jacking Chief Plans Escape on Plea of Insanity,” Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, 1. For family finances, see “Belton Lynching Probe Starts Today,” Tulsa Daily World, September 1, 1920, 12. For sister’s breakdown, see “Sheriff May Be Removed,” Tulsa Daily World, August 31, 1920, 1. [xxxiii] “Dry Battery Halts Escape, Following Shooting of Nida,” Tulsa Tribune, August 26, 1920, 1; “Hi-Jacking Chief Plans Escape on Plea of Insanity,” Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, 1; “Tom Owen’s [sic] Victim Dies,” Tulsa Daily World, August 28, 1920, 1. The ex-roommate was promptly arrested, but released after being viewed by Nida. What he had to say about “fits of insanity” was not mentioned. [xxxiv] “Confesses Plot to Slay Driver,” Tulsa Tribune, August 27, 1920, 1 (photos). [xxxv] “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1921, 2. The county physician J.E. Capps denied giving Belton a shot or even an examination after Monday, August 23. Capps said he showed no sign of being a drug addict at the time. The assistant county physician R. T. Bridgewater denied giving a shot or treating him. Court of Inquiry, J.E. Capps, 2-3, 7-8; Court of Inquiry, Bridgewater, 49-51. Night jailer Basham testified that he was unaware of any drugging after his arrival at 6 p.m. Court of Inquiry, Basham, 22, 39-40. Marie Harmon also was visited several times during the day by an unknown physician as she was having her own panicky “collapses.” “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, 2. The report of a Saturday drugging casts a slightly different light on Belton’s noose side claim: "I never confessed that I did the shooting. I was under the influence of dope when I remember talking to some men who came to the cell, but I never made any confession." “Tom Owen’s [sic] Victim Dies,” Tulsa Daily World, August 29, 1920, 1. In the shadow of the Federal Tire sign, Belton also claimed that Harmon had “doped” him. “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, 2 (“‘I didn’t know a thing about what was going on. She doped me. I swear she doped me,’ he added, in what was described as in his quiet, uninterested way.’”). [xxxvi] “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, 2. [xxxvii] “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, 2. Terrell told the paper: "Belton turned white as a ghost when the rumor first got to him… He was a changed man. No longer did he strut around like he was proud of the murder of Nida. His face bore an anxious and haunted look. In courage, he was the antithesis of Nida who fought bravely against death." [xxxviii] “To Ask Death for Slayers of Chauffeur,” Tulsa Tribune, August 28, 1920, 1. The extra guards appear to have been placed inside the fourth-floor jail itself, where they could only react in case of an actual jail invasion. There is no evidence that anyone ever was stationed to prevent access to the courthouse itself. During the delivery, the armed gang-controlled who entered the building. Court of Inquiry, Bowman, 90-91. [xxxix] Court of Inquiry, Basham, 23. [xl] “To Ask Death for Slayers of Chauffeur,” Tulsa Tribune, August 28, 1920, 1 (“‘Not guilty,” Owens snapped in a most defiant manner”). [xli] AG Civil Case 1017-033; Court of Inquiry, Glenn, 10-12. [xlii] “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Daily World, August 29, 1920, 2. [xliii] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 2 (per Gustafson: “The city police force did all in their power to prevent it. We notified the county officers that in case of a disturbance we would be ready at their call.”). [xliv] Court of Inquiry, Randolph, 109-10, 112-13. [xlv] The armed men inside the jail were A. F. Basham, night jailer; Robert Terrell, day jailer who Woolley says he told to stay over; and Wilburn “Slick” Woolley, the sheriff’s son. Slick, eighteen, was an unofficial deputy, armed when accompanying his father on raids and taking his meals at the jail. Slick testified that he went to the jail around 10 p.m. after his mother reported a call from “some woman” about a mob. Court of Inquiry, Slick, 52-53, 55-56, 59-60, 66. Sheriff Woolley claimed that he did not know his son was in jail until he ordered the barred doors opened. Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 135, 142. This assumes Texana Woolley did not tell her husband that their son Slick had gone off to deal with an armed mob. Basham testified that Slick took a call from his father urging the jailers not to kill anyone. Court of Inquiry, Basham, 25-26. Slick, his father, and Terrell said the call was taken by Terrell. Court of Inquiry, Slick, 52-3, 60; Court of Inquiry, Terrell, 70; Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 137. [xlvi] “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1920, 1-2. At some point on Saturday, a deputy state game warden armed with a .38 revolver sat on the third floor of the Courthouse. If he was part still there at 11:00 p.m., he made no appearance during the events. “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, 2. [xlvii] Court of Inquiry, Basham, 17-20; Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 146-147 (“the lights are all tore down” and men coming up the stairway would be “in the dark all the time…all the way up.”). [xlviii] Court of Inquiry, Northrup, 159; Court of Inquiry, Basham,, 20-21, 26-28; Court of Inquiry, Northrup, 150 (“[G]uarding of the stairway would be perfectly easy if you wanted to kill somebody…it would be a dead easy thing.”); Court of Inquiry, Northrup, 162 (“With ammunition enough to last [two men] could kill a thousand men and not get seen.”). Woolley’s successor as sheriff, Willard McCullough, would later explain that a mob “could not force entrance to the jail in the face of a deadly volley of steel which he said would greet any mob.”) “Sheriff Tells of Plans to Guard Negro,” Tulsa Tribune, July 14, 1921, 1. [xlix] Court of Inquiry, Northrup, 157; Court of Inquiry, Basham, 28, 31. The revived Belton asked to be shackled and given a six-shooter to shoot it out with the mob. Basham said, “he rather gloried in saying it.” [l] Court of Inquiry, Basham, 28-32 (would have never opened the doors); Court of Inquiry, Northrup, 159 (“If he hadn’t been there they wouldn’t have got the prisoner.”). [li] “Sheriff May Be Removed,” Tulsa Daily World, August 31, 1920, 1. [lii] “Alleged Murderer of Officers Taken From Jail by Mob,” Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, OK), August 30, 1920, 1-2. [liii] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 1; “Sheriff May Be Removed,” Tulsa Daily World, August 31, 1920, 1; “Belton Lynching Probe Starts Today,” Tulsa Daily World, September 1, 1920, 1; “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1921, 1; “To Quiz Hundreds on Lynching,” Tulsa Tribune, August 31, 1921, 1. [liv] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 1; “Sheriff May Be Removed,” Tulsa Daily World, August 31, 1920, 1; “Inquiry Starts Upon Tulsa Mob,” Tulsa Daily World, September 2, 1920, 1; “Hanging No Act of Citizenship,” Tulsa Daily World, September 3, 1920, 1 (Munroe acknowledges unpopularity of investigation, but says the “‘true interests of the community’” demand it.); “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1920, 1. [lv] “Belton Lynching Probe Starts Today,” Tulsa Daily World, September 1, 1920, 1. King’s Court of Inquiry commenced on Tuesday, September 7 and was intended to deal with the roles of Woolley and the Tulsa police. Judge Owen’s grand jury encompassed the identity of mob leaders and participants, as well as the roles of Woolley and the police. “Sheriff Target for Prosecution,” Tulsa Daily World, September 7, 1920, 12. [lvi] Lilian Crawford Perkins, “Society Woman’s World and Work,” Tulsa Daily World, August 27, 1920, 6. [lvii] For example, the World’s now infamous 1917 “Get Out the Hemp” editorial, appearing inches from Lorton’s name in the masthead, begged for killings thusly: "Any man who attempts to stop the [oil] supply for one-hundredth part of a second is a traitor and ought to be shot!…if the I. W. W. or its twin brother, the Oil Workers Union, gets busy in your neighborhood, kindly take occasion to decrease the supply of hemp. Knowledge of how to tie a knot that will stick might come in handy in a few days.…Kill’em just as you would kill any other kind of snake. Don’t scotch’em; kill’em. And kill’em dead. It is no time to waste money on trials and continuances and things like that." “Get Out the Hemp,” Tulsa Daily World, November 9, 1917, 4. For more advocacy of murder by the World’s editorialist writers see Randy Hopkins, “Birthday of the Klan: The Tulsa Outrage of 1917,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, 97, no. 4 (Winter 2019-20), 417, 422, 424-25. [lviii] “An Indignant Protest,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 4. [lix] “Our Indignant Governor,” Tulsa Daily World, August 31, 1920, 4. County Attorney Munroe had to fight this view of murder as good citizenship, arguing that it was simply an act of vengeance that threatened a descent to the law of the jungle. “Hanging No Act of Citizenship,” Tulsa Daily World, September 3, 1920, 1. On September 19, Lorton left town on a driving trip to Portland, Oregon and the Nida and Belton affairs were not again addressed on the World’s editorial page. “Eugene Lorton Says Brown, Tulsa Banker, Missed His Calling,” Tulsa Daily World, September 29, 1920, 18. [lx] “An Indignant Protest,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 4 (“[T]he whole proceedings was [sic] planned many hours in advance of the event; that the county authorities had warning of what was coming and ample time to prevent what did take place.Yet when the crowd moved to its purpose, the sheriff was swept aside like chaff without protest or even a gesture toward protecting the man in his charge.”). [lxi] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 1 (headline lynching the “Talk of the City”); “Special Court Starts Monday,” Tulsa Daily World, September 5, 1920, 1 (widespread disinclination and “serious obstructions”); “Court Will Call Witnesses Today,” Tulsa Daily World, September 6, 1920, 1 (“County officers admit the many obstructions which will be placed in their way by friends of the men who composed the mob.”); “Hush Falls over City on Belton Mob,” Tulsa Tribune, September 4, 1920, 1 (“Witnesses who talked freely of the affair for a day or two following, are silent as a tomb today”); “Women May Testify in Lynch Quiz,” Tulsa Tribune, September 5, 1920, 1 (“[I]f the tragedy was discussed at all. It was discussed in whispers.”). [lxii] AG Civil Case 1017- 003. The named police officers were “Doc. Bassett, Mondier, known as “Popcorn Shorty,” Chief Gustafson, Nick Remacher, and some other officers.” For other file notes concerning the five witnesses and the police participation: AG Civil Case, 1017-001; 1017-037. [lxiii] AG Civil Case 1017-025. [lxiv] Court of Inquiry, Weissinger, 169-170. He was at the downtown Stag Pool Hall when he heard a crowd was gathering and made his way to the lynching. The other four may have also been aficionados of the Stag which, as Weissinger described it, was an almost gossip-free pool hall. [lxv] Court of Inquiry, Sexton, 85-88. [lxvi] Court of Inquiry, Langley, 171-174; AG Civil Case 1017-036. After the lynching, Yellow Hammer and others went to Ed Welsh’s garage and talked considerably about the event. AG Civil Case 1017-037. King also attempted to identify the long gun-carrying mob member whose nickname had been called out while Belton was being prepared for hanging. One witness testified it “sounded like Yellow Jacket, or something like that to me.” Court of Inquiry, Owen, 45. There were other candidates for the nicknamed mobster, but oddly they all turned out to be associated with Yellow Hammer Cranfield. AG Civil Case 1017-037 (“Slim” Wade and “Little Buck” Bucan). [lxvii] Court of Inquiry, Langley, 175, 177. Langley had been a prison guard and had worked with the “custody and handling of prisoners” since statehood. Court of Inquiry, Langley, 178. He had been at a Sperry stomp dance with Woolley earlier Saturday night and drove by the courthouse after the mob assembled. He took off his hat, hunkered down, and drove away so as not to be seized and forced to open the jail. He went home. Woolley never called him or any other deputy for help. [lxviii] “File Suit to Oust Woolley,” Tulsa Tribune, September 9, 1920, 2. Langley’s partner, deputy John F. Burnett, also was removed. All sides claimed that it had nothing to do with the Belton lynching. Langley had been investigating the claim of the Mexican woman whose coal-mining husband had been killed by a joy-riding party she alleged involved Marie Harmon, of which nothing further was heard. [lxix] Court of Inquiry, Montgomery, 166-168. [lxx] For no notice of Montgomery warning, see Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 141. For fairly asked, see Court of Inquiry, Terrell, 82-83. For Terrell’s background in law enforcement, see Court of Inquiry, Terrell, 68, 76. [lxxi] Court of Inquiry, Northrup, 150-53. Terrell testified only that someone from the police - he did not know who and did not recognize the voice - called to say there was talk of a mob and to “let me know” if you need help. Terrell said he then called Woolley’s residence and asked Mrs. Woolley to pass a message onto the sheriff. Both the Woolleys said it was a woman who called the house. Court of Inquiry, Terrell, 68-69, 84; Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 137; Court of Inquiry, Slick 65-66. [lxxii] For self-promotion, see August 10, 1917 letter from Gustafson to Oklahoma Governor R. L. Williams marked document 82169, folder 1, box 36, R. L. Williams Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society Research Center, Oklahoma City, OK. For Gustafson’s history in private detection, see Local Findings on John A. Gustafson, Attorney General Civil Case No 1062, box 25, record group 1-2, State of Oklahoma vs. John A. Gustafson Chief of Police, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma City, OK (hereafter cites as State of Oklahoma v. Gustafson). [lxxiii] “Tulsa Detective Tells of Fight,” Tulsa Daily World, January 20, 1917, 1, 3. Working for the Oklahoma Bankers Association, Gustafson assembled a team to ambush members of the so-called Poe-Hart “gang" of alleged bank robbers. Gustafson claimed that at least seventy-five shots were fired in the resulting shoot-out, but nary a scratch was received by his men. Oscar Poe and the Hart twins, Harry and Billie, were slain. [lxxiv] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 3 (Gustafson: “‘Immediately I instructed the desk sergeant to issue a general call for all patrolmen to rush to the courthouse.’”). This is less expansive than it might appear. The patrolmen wore uniforms and were stationed on beats all over town. But the elite of the force were the detectives, who were plainclothesmen. [lxxv] “Mob Lynches Tom Owens,” Tulsa Daily World, August 29, 1920, 1 (“In a few minutes the handful of men outside the building had increased to hundreds and shortly a thousand people blocked the streets in curiosity and anticipation.”). Also, Otis Lorton, “Oklahoma Outbursts,” Tulsa Daily World, August 31, 1920, 4 (“The hanging bee pulled off the other night appears to have been a pretty well advertised event, judging from the number of non-participating spectators who suddenly appeared on the scene.”). [lxxvi] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 3. The jailer referred to by Gustafson was apparently Terrell, who admitted making a call to the police after Woolley called him. Court of Inquiry, Terrell, 70-71. Gustafson never mentioned Woolley’s call to the police. [lxxvii] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 3 (Gustafson: “‘But by the time even those at the staion [sic] arrived there members of the mob had gained entrance to the jail and secured Belton.’”). [lxxviii] Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 145 (after the delivery, Woolley went to his office where he met Munroe and “‘about that time, there is two or three of these city boys, Barney Cleaver and another colored fellow and some more came.’”). [lxxix] For two Black officers on force, see Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, 1982), 36-37. Other policemen, however, may have arrived first. According to the investigation file, policeman Doc Bassett bragged to Curley Lemon that “they had received telephone message fifteen minutes before mob taken prisoner from sheriff, and that they went to cornor [sic] of court house and waited until mob got prisoner, and then got car and went to scene of tradedgy [sic].” AG Civil Case 1017-003. Bassett, whose correct name may have been Bissett, was a detective and the “they” referred may have included more of the police department’s plainclothesmen. [lxxx] AG Civil Case 1017-001; AG Civil Case 1017-037. [lxxxi] For Gustafson commandeering auto, see AG Civil Case 1017-001. For most of the force present at lynching and Gustafson’s stand-down order, see “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 3. For police doing all they could to prevent disorder, see “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer,” Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, 1. [lxxxii] Court of Inquiry, Randolph, 117. [lxxxiii] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 3. Gustafson’s similar statement to the Tulsa Tribune was in “Mob Lynches Taxicab Slayer," Tulsa Tribune, August 29, 1920, 3. [lxxxiv] “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1920, 1. [lxxxv] “Jim Woolley Dead is Latest Rumor,” Tulsa Tribune, October 6, 1916, 1; “Committee Named to Entertain Cox,” Tulsa Tribune, August 31, 1920, 2. [lxxxvi] While Brady and Lewis were rock-ribbed Democrats, they abandoned the party in the April 1920 city elections and endorsed Republican candidate T. D. Evans over incumbent Democratic Mayor Charles H. Hubbard. Having previously fallen out with Hubbard, Brady and Lewis supported Charles F. Hopkins for mayor in the Democratic primary. After Hubbard won, Hopkins and his two ardent supporters threw in with the Republicans, with Brady promising to deliver 1,500 votes. “Hubbard and Evans Win for Mayor,” Tulsa Daily World, March 17, 1920, 1, 13; “Evans and Bigger Tulsa Ticket Win,” Tulsa Daily World, April 7, 1920, 5. In the primary, the total Democratic vote for mayor exceeded the Republican vote 5,905 to 2,160. With the support of the Hopkins-Brady-Lewis faction, Evans won a narrow 4,891 to 4,684 victory. “Evans and Bigger Tulsa Ticket Win, Tulsa Daily World, April 7, 1920, 1, 5. Republican commission candidate O. A. Steiner won an even narrower victory, suggesting that without the factional split the Democrats would have retained a majority of the city commission and would have selected the next police commissioner. The election drastically changed Tulsa’s history. Hubbard had good relations with Greenwood as shown by the ardent support of newspaperman A. J. Smitherman. Tulsa (OK) Star, April 3, 1920, 1. He was unlikely to have countenanced the gruesome events of 1921. Evans and Adkison did. For their part, the Republicans credited and the Democrats blamed the newly enfranchised women’s vote for the outcome. “Evans and Bigger Tulsa Ticket Win,” Tulsa Daily World, April 7, 1920, 1. [lxxxvii] Woolley had beaten McCullough by 314 votes in 1914, lost by 148 in 1916, and won by 82 in 1918. “Fields Carried the County by 781 Votes,” Tulsa Daily World, November 5, 1914, 2; “Republicans Given Six County Places,” Tulsa Daily World, November 9, 1916, 6; “Complete Tulsa County Vote by Precincts,” Tulsa Democrat, November 7, 1918, 6. [lxxxviii] For Woolley and Harmon’s white hair, see “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1920, 2 (hair as white as cotton); “To Quiz Hundreds on Lynching,” Tulsa Tribune, August 31, 1920, 1; “Call Guards at Trial of Nida Slayers,” Tulsa Tribune, September 8, 1920, 1. [lxxxix] Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 145. [xc] Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 132. [xci] “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 3. [xcii] “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1920, 1. [xciii] Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 131, 137. [xciv] Mrs. Woolley did not testify. For the description of the message delivered by an unidentified female, see Court of Inquiry, Slick, 52-53, 60; Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 131, 134, 137. Again, there was no mention of the call Terrell claimed that he made to Mrs. Woolley. [xcv] For two hundred to three hundred armed men, see “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1920, 1. [xcvi] Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 132, 142-43. As sheriff, Woolley’s legal duty was to use a “high degree of care” in protecting his prisoners from mob violence and an “imperative duty” to use all means within his power to guard his prisoners when he had notice of or reason to believe violence may be attempted. AG Civil Case 1017-038. [xcvii] Court of Inquiry, Basham, 24-5 (night jailer was told that Woolley said to be careful not to hurt anybody if we could help it); Court of Inquiry, Slick 54-55, 60-61; Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 134. [xcviii] Court of Inquiry, Basham, 24-26, 38. Slick said it was five or ten minutes or something like that. Court of Inquiry, Slick, 54. For Basham as a former jailer, see “Hear Three ‘Lynch’ Witnesses,” Tulsa Tribune, September 24, 1920, 1. [xcix] Court of Inquiry, Terrell, 70-71. [c] For exhortations, see Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 132, 143. For inevitability, see “Probe Belton Lynching,” Tulsa Daily World, August 30, 1920, 1, 3 (quoting Gustafson “‘[A] regrettable occurrence…But it was also probably inevitable because of the great feeling which had been aroused.’” Also quoting Woolley “‘[U]nder the circumstances I do not believe it could have been prevented. The men wanted Belton and would have gone to any ends to get him.’”). During his walk through downtown, Tribune reporter Randolph also learned from a cab driver that earlier attempts to rally a mob had failed. Court of Inquiry, Randolph, 109-110. [ci] The attorney general’s file contains a note that: "The following is another bunch of witness who are young men of good famileys [sic] living in Tulsa, who were driving around that evening and saw the show….One of these boys heard Sherrif Wolley [sic] tell a member of the mob to put gun in his back and make him go get the prisoner." AG Civil Case 1017-003. The record contains no further mention of these witnesses, though County Attorney Munroe would later complain about the “lack of support received from the better class of citizens who do not want to testify because it will embarrass them.” “Hush Falls over City on Belton Mob,” Tulsa Tribune, September 4, 1920, 1. [cii] AG Civil Case 1017-039 (use or threats of violence by three or more persons acting together constitutes a “riot" and if crimes such as murder are committed “any person participating in said riot is guilty in the same manner as a principal in such crime.”). [ciii] Court of Inquiry, Basham, 28-30, 33; Court of Inquiry, Slick, 63; Court of Inquiry, Terrell, 71-75 (Woolley hollered “Don’t you boys shoot now.”); Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 132-135. [civ] Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 132 (“Whatever his name was.”). [cv] Court of Inquiry, Basham, 32, 36; Court of Inquiry, Slick, 65; Court of Inquiry, Northrup, 160. [cvi] Court of Inquiry, Basham, 35-37; Court of Inquiry, Slick, 63-4. [cvii] Court of Inquiry, Slick, 62-4; Court of Inquiry, Basham, 35-37. [cviii] Court of Inquiry, Woolley, 144. The only person Woolley recognized was the red-headed Tribune reporter Max Coulter in the company of the invaders. He appeared to concede that not all of the invaders were masked. [cix] Court of Inquiry, Woolley 148. [cx] For original plans to interrogate Tulsa police next, see “Six Testify to Fix Blame for Lynching,” Tulsa Tribune, September 7, 1920, 1; “Call Guards at Trial of Nida Slayers,” Tulsa Tribune, September 8, 1920, 1 (police officers to be center stage). [cxi] For coverage of the supreme court detour, see “High Court Refuses to Oust Woolley,” Tulsa Daily World, September 10, 1920, 1, 13; “Ouster Suit is Dropped by King,” Tulsa Daily World, September 11, 1920, 18 (King says no more testimony available for his Court of Inquiry); “File Suit to Oust Woolley,” Tulsa Tribune, September 9, 1920, 1; “State Quits in Woolley Suit,” Tulsa Tribune, September 10, 1920, 1; “Suit to Oust Woolley is Withdrawn,” Tulsa Tribune, September 11, 1920, 1. The supreme court records contain no indication that an actual ruling was made. The attorney general’s office also filed and then dismissed a companion removal petition in its Oklahoma City lynching case. [cxii] “State Quits in Woolley Suit,” Tulsa Tribune, September 10, 1920, 1. [cxiii] “Faulty Summons Halts Grand Jury,” Tulsa Daily World, September 14, 1920, 16; “Error Halts Lynch Quiz for 10 Days,” Tulsa Tribune, September 13, 1920, 1. [cxiv] “Many Witnesses in Lynch Quiz Monday,” Tulsa Tribune, September 26, 1920, 2; “Grand Jury Adjourns,” Tulsa Daily World, September 26, 1920, 4; “Letter Given Jury May Refer to Cline,” Tulsa Tribune, September 27, 1920, 1 (contempt threatened); “Grand Jury Takes Up New Matters,” Tulsa Daily World, September 28, 1920, 7. [cxv] “Draw Panel for Jury in Lunch Quiz,” Tulsa Tribune, September 12, 1920, 1 (grand jury to identify mob leaders, then move onto Woolley and then police); “Letter Given Jury May Refer to Cline,” Tulsa Tribune, September 27, 1920, 1 (Doc Bissett only police officer questioned). [cxvi] “Sheriff Cleared in Grand Jury Report,” Tulsa Daily World, September 30, 1920, 1-2; “Jury Clears Sheriff Woolley,” Tulsa Tribune, September 29, 1920, 1-2. Judge Owen had vigorously pursued the case, grilling prospective jurors hard for signs of bias. “Accept Ten Men for Grand Jury,” Tulsa Daily World, September 24, 1920, 18. Nonetheless, one of the selected jurors was subsequently dismissed when it was discovered he was a friend of Gustafson. “Seek Evidence Against Officer,” Tulsa Daily World, September 25, 1920, 5. [cxvii] “Full Tally Hikes G.O.P. Lead,” Tulsa Daily World, November 4, 1920, 1, 8. [cxviii] “Raymond Sharp to Seek His Freedom,” Tulsa Tribune, November 17, 1920, 9. [cxix] Ray Hill, “‘Hillbilly Bill:’ Congressman J. Will Taylor,” The Knoxville Focus, July 15, 2015, at knoxfocus.com/archives/hillbilly-bill-congressman-j-will-taylor. In late November 1920, after Taylor’s arrival, habeas corpus motions were filed on behalf of Harmon and Sharp seeking their release. These failed in the face of opposition from the lame-duck County Attorney Munroe’s office. “Harmon Motion Heard by Cole,” Tulsa Daily World, November 23, 1920, 18; “Freedom is Denied to Marie Harmon,” Tulsa Tribune, November 24, 1920, 4; “Harmon Woman Is Back in Jail,” Tulsa Daily World, November 25, 1920, 5; “Habeas Corpus Writ is Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, December 3, 1920, 20; “Marie Harmon Banished over Chief’s Kick,’” Tulsa Tribune, January 18, 1921, 1. [cxx] Statement of Ira Short, 420-21, State of Oklahoma v. Gustafson. [cxxi] “Woman Is Freed in Nida’s Case,” Tulsa Daily World, January 19, 1921, 16 (describes Harmon as having finally “admitted a plot to steal the car from Nida, but denied there was any intention of killing the driver to obtain possession of the car.”); “Marie Harmon Banished over Chief’s 'Kick,’” Tulsa Tribune, January 18, 1921, 1. The “Kick” referred to Police Chief Gustafson’s expressed anger at Harmon’s dismissal. It was the first wedge between the police and Seaver that would evolve into an attorney general investigation that deeply entangled the Evans Administration days before the Tulsa Race Massacre. [cxxii] “To Ask for Death for Slayers of Chauffeur,” Tulsa Tribune, August 28, 1920, 1 (“Harmon’s testimony will be used to make certain the conviction of the others that she may go free.”). Former Assistant County Attorney Homer Montgomery told the Tulsa Tribune he was surprised by Harmon’s dismissal as “the woman could have been used at Sharp’s trial” and that “she could not be prosecuted for murder because we promised her immunity, but we could hold the murder charge against her until she took the stand”; “Marie Harmon Banished over Chief’s ‘Kick,’” Tulsa Tribune, January 18, 1921, 1. [cxxiii] “Woman Is Freed in Nida’s Case,” Tulsa Daily World, January 19, 1921, 16; “Dismiss Second in Nida Murder,” Tulsa Daily World, January 26, 1921, 6. While no one imposed a condition that she return for Sharp’s trial, Harmon is quoted as replying, “Don’t worry judge, I will leave the state just as quick as I can and never return unless you want me.” “Marie Harmon Banished over Chief’s ‘Kick,’” Tulsa Tribune, January 18, 1921, 1. [cxxiv] “Full Tally Hikes G.O.P. Lead,” Tulsa Daily World, November 4, 1920, 1, 8; “General Mix-Up After Elections,” Tulsa Daily World, November 6, 1920, 7 (final count of 12,797 for McCullough versus 11492 for Woolley). Woolley had beaten McCullough by 314 votes in 1914, lost by 148 in 1916, and won by 82 in 1918. The result also likely reflected Democratic factional revenge for Brady’s and Lewis’s support of Evans. This was Woolley’s last run for office. He joined the Tulsa Police Department in 1926 at the age of 58. Ronald L. Trekell, History of the Tulsa Police Department (Tulsa: Tulsa Police Department, 1989), 390. On January 21, 1931, Woolley was called to investigate three heavily armed men sitting in a car. As Woolley approached, one of the men opened fire, striking Woolley in the chest. He returned fire and collapsed. “Oklahoma Law Enforcement Memorial,” accessed November 15, 2019, www.oklemem.com/w.html#James-Wooley. His funeral was attended by three thousand people. “3,000 Attend Rites for Slain Officer,” Daily Oklahoman, January 27, 1931, 1. [cxxv] Both Brady and Lewis qualified as “good citizens” of the day. Both were also implicated in the first of Tulsa’s escalating trilogy of atrocities, the Tulsa Outrage of 1917. Witnesses identified Brady as the master of ceremonies and ringleader of the torture session that followed the kidnapping from police custody of seventeen members of the Industrial Workers of the World. Randy Hopkins, “Birthday of the Klan: The Tulsa Outrage of 1917,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma 97, no. 4 (Winter 2019–20), 429–30, 446. [cxxvi] Redmond S. Cole to Jas. G. Findlay, June 6, 1921, folder 1, box 12, M290, Redmond S. Cole Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK. Judge Cole also named E. S. Macqueen as “the man that fired the first shot” on May 31, 1921. Macqueen’s name also appears on the list of knowledgeable individuals regarding the lynching of Roy Belton. AG Civil Case 0017-004.

by Randy Hopkins An affidavit signed by Dick Roland. Courtesy of Ruth Avery Sigler Collection, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa While most relevant historical and contemporary documents refer to Dick "Rowland,” it is now clear that the correct spelling was “Roland." This is shown by Dick Roland's sworn affidavit of September 16, 1921 (shown above). Apart from direct quotations, the Roland spelling will be used throughout, so as to finally give Dick Roland a “say” in his own history. On May 31, 1921, Dick Roland, described as a nineteen-year-old negro delivery boy, burst onto the public scene in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The afternoon Tulsa Tribune painted him as attempting to assault Sarah Page, described as a seventeen-year-old white elevator operator and orphan. The public was told that he gave his name as “Diamond Dick” to the Tulsa police when arrested and to have admitted that “he put his hand on her arm in the elevator when she was alone.” Allegations of face scratching, torn clothes, and screams were also mentioned. Roland’s reported arrest and unreported incarceration in the Tulsa County Jail triggered the bloodbath of the Tulsa Race Massacre. [1] Throughout the ordeal, Roland scarcely put in another public appearance. He was not quoted; the papers published no pictures. There was no immediate trial as the Tribune’s article promised. Like Sarah Page herself, he moved like a phantom through the proceedings. Members of the public filled in the blanks for both with their own preferences and biases. Thanks to records maintained through the years by the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, it is now possible to track Roland’s travels through the Tulsa criminal justice system. His journey also throws additional light on a major culprit of the Massacre itself, Tulsa police chief John Gustafson. The key is a 110-year old log that lists every man, woman, and child confined in the county jail between December 1911 and September 1921. [2] The lack of evident alteration and the consistency of recordation over the ten-year period gives the ancient document much credibility. The leather-bound behemoth lists the prisoners by name, race, and date of imprisonment. Courtesy of Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office and Randy Hopkins For each prisoner, the log contains 31 tiny boxes per month, marked with an “x” for every day of confinement. Any release date is noted, along with a circled “x.” Handwritten notations record the reason for release, such as acquitted, transferred to McAlester’s state prison, bonded, and more than a few escapes. For example, the log entry for Tom Owens, aka Roy Belton, who was lynched on August 28, 1920, records that he was “released to mob….”[3] Courtesy of Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office and Randy Hopkins Roland shows up as “Rolland, Dick” on the final day of the May 1921 journal. His is the next-to-last name appearing on May 31, consistent with claims by County Sheriff Willard McCullough and City Police Commissioner James Adkison that the prisoner was transferred to County jail around 4:00 p.m. that day. Next to the name is a circled letter “c,” the log’s designation for “colored.” The box for May 31 is marked, but no further explanation is given. [4] Courtesy of Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office and Casey Roebuck There is no listing for this prisoner during June or July. [5] This supports claims that Roland was removed from the jail soon after his arrival. The log is not particularly helpful on exactly when Roland was moved. McCullough and later his deputy Barney Cleaver put it around 8 a.m. on June 1 and the log-keeper could have missed a few hours, especially in the chaos. [6] The log may, however, shed light on where Roland was taken. Roland suddenly reappears there, again as “Rolland, Dick” and again as “colored” on August 3, 1921. [7] Wherever Roland was deposited, the authorities were able to fetch him back. Three destinations have been offered. The most commonly cited is Damie Rowland Ford’s, who told Ruth Avery in 1972 that: "Sheriff McCullough told me that he had secreted him out from the Tulsa County Jail late Tuesday (May 31) afternoon, and had driven him to stay with some of Sarah Page’s friends in Kansas City, Kansas where she had formerly lived with her ex-husband." [8] McCullough could not have driven to Kansas City on the 31st and such solicitousness staggers the imagination. McCullough is reported to have told an investigator for the Black Dispatch newspaper that he had served divorce papers on Page several months earlier that painted her as a “notorious character.” [9] If McCullough believed that why would he deliver Roland into the hands of Page’s friends? That Page said something that helped put Roland in jail makes the Kansas City detour even less likely– if that is possible. Also, if Ford’s version is true, why is Sarah Page listed as one of four witnesses before the Tulsa grand jury that indicted Roland for assault and attempted rape on June 18? [10] If the “hanging” grand jury ignored Page’s pleas on behalf of Roland and indicted him anyway, why did she wait until late September 1921 to send a letter to the Tulsa County Attorney saying she did not want to pursue the case? [11] Courtesy of Ruth Sigler Avery Collection, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa A simpler explanation is offered by Randy Krehbiel, who suggests that Roland had been moved to Cleaver’s farm outside town. [12] The farm was a place they could not afford to reveal. Cleaver almost certainly knew of Roland and expressed to Roscoe Dundee, publisher of Oklahoma City’s Black Dispatch, the conviction of his innocence. [13] Of all the versions of what transpired between Roland and Page on the fateful Memorial Day, attempted rape was the least likely, since the occupants of Page’s elevator were visible to outsiders. [14] For Cleaver and McCullough, who were absolutely resolute to prevent losing a prisoner to a lynch mob, the farm offered a safe space for the teenager and an accessible location for them. [15] Keeping him there not only offered protection from a white mob, but anyone from Greenwood who blamed him for the ruin that had fallen upon them. Cleaver could have also communicated with Dave Rowland, patriarch of the family, regarding the safe-keeping. On June 13, 1921, however, Cleaver told Roscoe Dunjee of Oklahoma City’s Black Dispatch that Roland was in South Omaha, Nebraska and Dunjee printed it boldly. Like Kansas City, it would have been difficult to get him there and to fetch him back, in contrast to Cleaver’s farm. If the deputy was attempting to keep Roland’s enemies from putting two and two together and making for the outskirts of Tulsa, a grand distraction would have been in order. Cleaver appears to have made a similar diversion by telling the Tribune late on June 1 that he didn’t know where his wife was or if she was dead or alive. In 1924, when the heat was off, he suggested that he had already taken “his people” to the farm before the dawn invasion of Greenwood. [16] In short, Cleaver appears to have been prevaricating, but for a good reason, especially if Roland was still farm-bound or nearby. Wherever Roland was stored, he suddenly reappeared in jail on August 3, 1921, again as “Rolland, Dick.” [17] Why August 3? Besides waiting out the grand jury that finally indicted Roland on June 18, the answer appears to be that John Gustafson was still Tulsa police chief. Gustafson was deeply implicated in the 1920 lynching of Roy Belton. The evidence is also powerful that the Chief was involved in the effort to murder Roland on May 31. [18] Even before the Belton lynching, McCullough viewed Gustafson as unsavory and prophetically warned the incoming Mayor and Commission in May 1920 that a Gustafson “police force would be a menace to the City of Tulsa.” [19] As a result, Gustafson’s police may have been targeting McCullough as much as Roland in their pleas that McCullough take the prisoner out of the impregnable jail and make a run for it. These pleas commenced the very moment custody had been transferred to the Sheriff and continued late into the evening. Cleaver also had his own issues with Gustafson, who forced him out of his long-time police job a few months earlier. [20] The grand jury that indicted Roland also initiated proceedings for Gustafson’s removal from office on June 25. [21] Gustafson’s trial commenced on July 11, with a guilty verdict late on July 22. The Chief’s motion for a new trial was overruled on July 27 and reported on the 28th. [22] Only after this was Roland returned to jail. Cleaver, and possibly the Sheriff, may have viewed Roland as innocent, but there was nothing they could do about his indictment. After August 3, the jail log marks a long line of marching x’s next to “Rolland, Dick” for the remainder of Tulsa’s hottest month. The x’s continued to pile up deep into September. while Roland lived in the jail’s so-called “negro dungeon.” [23] The jail log for "Rolland, Dick" on August 3, 1921. Courtesy of Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office and Casey Roebuck Events leading to Roland’s eventual freedom commenced on September 12, when state district court judge Redmond S. Cole initiated efforts to clear the county’s backlogged criminal docket. This resulted in the eye-opening discovery that of forty-four pending murder cases, no more than two defendants were housed in the jail. Murder was then a charge for which bail was not allowed. Many others facing lesser charges and not on bail were also absent. Simply releasing prisoners from the county lock-up appears to have been a usual course of action in the 1910s. [24] However, Roland was the most famous prisoner of all time, and the Sheriff could scarcely just let him go, even if he had been so inclined. Cole’s resulting order placing all the pending cases on a September 28 docket stirred Roland’s lawyers, Washington “Wash” Hudson and Edward “Dynamite Ed” Crossland into action. On September 14, using what turns out to be the correct spelling of “Roland,” they moved to dismiss the grand jury indictment, which Cole granted the next day on technical grounds. County Attorney Thomas Seaver immediately filed an "information", another process by which criminal charges could be laid. Hudson and Crossland quickly filed a motion to quash, accompanied by the affidavit of “Dick Roland.” [25] The affidavit contains the youth's only known signature and the closest he came to a public appearance. The legitimacy of the signature is bolstered by the jail log, which puts Roland in the county jail on that date, and the fact that it was witnessed by a deputy court clerk. Cole overruled the motion. [26] Dick Roland remained in jail An affidavit signed by Dick Roland. Courtesy of Ruth Avery Sigler Collection, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa The matters stood until the September 28 docket call, where both sides were required to announce if they were ready for trial. Seaver issued an attachment summoning Page to appear at the hearing. The next day, the Tulsa Daily World reported in a few sentences buried in a tiny back-page article that the assault charge had been dismissed. A letter from Sarah Page declining to pursue the case was mentioned, though neither Page’s name nor her reasons for so acting were revealed. The jail log confirms the September 28 release date. [27] The Tulsa Tribune, whose May 31 news article had triggered the incineration of Greenwood, did not bother to report Roland’s dismissal. The “Great Forgetting” of Tulsa’s race war was well underway. The jail log for “Rolland, Dick” on his release date of September 28th, 1921. Courtesy of Tulsa County Sheriff’s office and Casey Roebuck Dick Roland was now a free man. Ironically, on that same date, the Tulsa Tribune announced that the city-owned Convention Hall would begin a week-long showing of "The Birth of the Nation." Interest in the movie was reported to have been revived by the Ku Klux Klan, which itself had been energized by the Race Massacre. One door of freedom opened, as another door closed. [28] Courtesy of the Tulsa Daily World What happened to Roland next is currently evidenced only by Damie Roland Ford’s 1972 interview with Ruth Avery. According to Ford, he stayed in Kansas City where McCullough had deposited him, associated there with Sarah Page, the woman who had a hand in his imprisonment, and then moved to Oregon where he may have succumbed to an industrial accident. [29] As the recent discovery of the County Sheriff’s jail log shows, however, new evidence regarding Roland and Page can emerge at any moment. In fact, it already has. To be continued in the forthcoming article: Recovering History: The Notorious Sarah Page Acknowledgements: I would like to express my appreciation to Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, including Sheriff Vic Regalado, Undersheriff George Brown, Sgt. Mike Moore, head of the Criminal Investigations Division, and Communications Director Casey Roebuck for their courtesies and interest in recovering lost history. As mentioned, Sheriff Regalado was the first to discover Tom Owens/Roy Belton’s log notation. I spent an enjoyable time reviewing with them the treasures of information contained in the jail log. I also thank Sheena Perez at the Oklahoma State University-Tulsa's Special Collections department for her repeated courtesies in making the Ruth Sigler Avery Collection available to this long-distance researcher. Endnotes: 1. “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator,” Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, 1 (state edition). 2. Prior to June 1918, there were only regular bars separating the men’s and women’s sections of the jail. The women were then moved upstairs. “Police Headquarters Are To Be Improved,” Tulsa Daily World, June 3, 1918, 2. The presence of children is confirmed by the spectacular jailbreak of twelve prisoners from the county lock-up five days before the Race Massacre. The blame for the escape was originally pinned on two prisoners, age 12 and 14, who had been given privileges to roam the jail’s corridor on account of their youth. “Twelve Escape County Jail, Tulsa Tribune, May 26, 1921, 1. Accused robbers and a safecracker later took credit. “Jailer Slept As Prisoners Made Escape,” Tulsa Tribune, May 27, 1921, 1 (”Those two boys didn’t have anything to do with cutting the outer window bars. We just took them along at the last minute.”). 3. The full notation for Tom Owens, first discovered by current Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado, seems to read “released to mob & hurry.” The meaning of the final part, if that’s what says, is as yet undeciphered. Suggestions are welcome. Tulsa County Jail Log, 509. 4.Tulsa County Jail Log, 556-557. The surrender of the doomed Belton occurred under Sheriff James Woolley. The current Sheriff, Willard McCullough, defeated Woolley’s election attempt in large part because of the latter’s weak response. Woolley told the newspapers that he did not risk his life because he was convinced of the prisoner’s guilt. “Call Jury to Find Lynchers,” Tulsa Tribune, August 30, 1920, 1. 5. There is a “Rolland, Noah” also “colored” listed from June 7 to June 23, then released. Dick Roland was indicted for attempted rape on June 18 and was unlikely to have been released five days later. Tulsa County Jail Log, 560-561. A Noah Rolland, oil supply mechanic, is listed in a city directory. 6. “Story of Attack on Woman Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, June 2, 1921, 14. Relying on unnamed sheriff’s deputies, the Tribune reported that Roland was moved at 2:00 a.m. on June 1. “Dick Roland Is Spirited Out of City,” Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, 6. This is peculiar since McCullough and his deputies were then locked tight in the jail, such that it was difficult to access the Sheriff for his signature on a telegram to the governor. Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Promised Land, (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press 1982), 53-54. Testifying in 1924, Cleaver appeared to support the 8 a.m. transfer. Brief of Plaintiff In Error, William Redfearn vs American Central Insurance Company, No. 15,857, Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma, 43-46. Cleaver did not mention Roland by name, but said that he, the Sheriff, and “another man went way outside of town by the roadhouse.” The invasion of Greenwood had already broken out around 5 a.m. when “the whistle blew.” Presumably, the trio were not conducting a vice raid in the middle of a race war. Cleaver said he got back in town around 9 a.m. In June 1921, however, Cleaver told the Black Dispatch that Roland was not in the jail when the mob appeared. “Dick Rowland [sic] In South Omaha, No Trace of Girl,” The Black Dispatch, June 17, 1921, 1. Perhaps Roland had been moved within the building to a spot not “in” the jail. In an unpublished manuscript, Roland scholar Steve Gerkin has suggested a move to the third floor as a matter of further concealment. Or, perhaps Cleaver was “jerking the chain” of police chief Gustafson with whom Cleaver then had issues and whose police force had been so energetic and suspicious in urging Roland’s removal from the jail. 7. Tulsa County Jail Log, 574-575. The beginning date of August 3 also serves to verify the credibility of the log. If the notations beginning on that date were some kind of falsities, say to fool later investigators, why not make them in June and July as well? The two-month gap looks odd, if not fishy, until it is linked to the malevolent Gustafson’s stay as police chief as discussed below. 8. “Ruth Avery’s Interviews On The Tulsa Race Riot: Damie Rowland Ford,” Avery Collection. There are three versions of the interview in the Collection. Ruth Sigler Avery appears to have edited the interview in the course of preparing a manuscript for hoped-for publication, eliminating some words and modifying others. The broadest first version is used here. 9. “Loot, Arson, Murder,” The Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921, 1. In fairness to Page, the existing evidence does not support her characterization as a “notorious” character, nor does she appear to have lived with her ex-husband in Kansas City, as will be discussed in a forthcoming essay. 10. Avery Collection, Dick Rowland_07 pdf. The indictment describes Roland as having “violently, forcibly, and feloniously, and against her will, attempt(ed) to ravish, rape, and carnally know her, the said Sarah Page.” 11. “Continue Riot Cases,” Tulsa Daily World, September 29, 1921, 7. 12. Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 2019), 59, 77, 82.. Krehbiel relies on the testimony from Cleaver in the 1924 Redfearn litigation regarding a post-invasion visit by McCullough, Cleaver, and “another man” to the outskirts of town. Cleaver also acknowledged having “a place out in the country,” where he had already stashed “some of his people.” 13. Cleaver had been around Greenwood for years and the Roland family was well-known there. Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921, 21-22; John Hope Franklin and John Whittington Franklin, eds., My Life and an Era (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana University Press 1997), 198-199. Cleaver lived at 508 North Greenwood and the Roland rooming house was six blocks away at 505 E. Archer. For Cleaver’s belief in innocence, “Dick Rowland In South Omaha, No Trace of Girl,” The Black Dispatch, June 17, 1921, 1. 14. Avery Collection, “DickRowland_04.pdf,” (per Avery, “The elevator was an open type with wire surrounding the lifting platform, the openness making the occupants at all times visible to anyone on the passing three floors. On the street, passersby could see directly in on all occupants”). Tulsa’s Memorial Day parade was passing right in front of the Drexel Building on the morning of the elevator incident. There were lots of people on the street. 15. For McCullough’s deep aversion to losing a prisoner to a mob, Deposition of W. M. McCullough, Stradford v. American Central Ins. Co.; Superior Court of Cook County, No. 370, 274 (1921), 14-16. He testified, “I had talked to my men and told them my ideas of a man who would give up his prisoners, and that I would rather die than give up a prisoner of mine.” When one of his deputies asked what would happen if the mob got “Uncle Bill” and brought him up the stairs ahead of them, he told them, “It don’t make any difference, because I will be dead as hell when they come…” The deputy responded “we will never open them (doors).” 16. “Negro Officer is Heavy Loser in Race Riots,” Tulsa Tribune, June 2, 1921, 3. 17. Tulsa County Jail Log, 574-575. 18. For the role of Gustafson and the Tulsa police in Belton's lynching, see detailed authorities cited in Randy Hopkins, “Racing to the Precipice: Tulsa’s Last Lynching,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma, 98, no. 3 (Fall 2020). For their role in the attempted murder of Dick Roland and the Race Massacre itself, see detailed authorities in Randy Hopkins, “The Plot to Kill ‘Diamond Dick Rowland[sic],’ to be published in The Chronicles of Oklahoma and now online at centerforpublicsecrets.org. 19. Then a private citizen, McCullough warned Tulsa’s new mayor and commissioners that: "Gustafson has all his life been connected with detective agencies and with the underworld, and knew nothing about working with anybody but snitches and crooks, and that he would have no other kind of men on his force, and that such a police force would be a menace to the City of Tulsa." “Part 1 Attorney Notes of Witness Testimony,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, box 25, record group 1-2, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, 2. McCullough told the Attorney General’s office that he did not want to testify in the removal trial because of his “remonstration” over Gustafson’s appointment. By that point, McCullough was tip-toeing around Gustafson. 20. “Statement Barney Cleaver,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, box 25, record group 1–2, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma City, OK, 2. 21. “Chief Gustafson Indicted,” Tulsa Tribune, June 25, 1921, 1. 22. “Accused Chief on Trial Alone,” Tulsa Tribune, July 11, 1921, 1; “Jury Convicts Gustafson on Both Counts,” Tulsa Tribune, June 23, 1921, 1; “Deny Gustafson Retrial.” Tulsa Daily World, July 28, 1921, 1. 23. Tulsa County Jail Log, 574-575, 580-581. 24. “44 Murder Cases Load One Docket,” Tulsa Tribune, September 11, 1921, 1; “Court Orders $225,000 in Bonds Seized,” Tulsa Tribune, September 12, 1921, 1; “150 Suspects Forfeit Bonds of $750,000,” Tulsa Tribune, September 13, 1921, 5; “Court Forfeits Criminal Bonds,” Tulsa Daily World, September 13, 1921, 3. Pursuant to Cole’s order that all defendants report to him on September 12, the Tribune noted that five negroes charged in connection with the race riot appeared. There was no mention of Roland. This nonappearance was likely due to a desire to keep him in a low profile, lest new threats emerge. Judge Cole, who had described the then-called Tulsa Race Riot in the harshest terms, may have agreed to this in advance. 25. Affidavit of Defendant,” Avery Collection, Dick Rowland_06.pdf. According to the district court’s appearance docket, the defendant was present in court on the day of his affidavit. State of Oklahoma vs. Dick Rowland, No. 2239, contained in the Tulsa County Court Clerk’s archives. 26. References to the court proceedings are drawn from court papers in State of Oklahoma vs. Dick Rowland, No. 2239, reproduced in Avery Collection, Dick Rowland_01-10 pdf and contained in the court file in the Tulsa County Clerk’s archives. 27. “Continue Riot Cases,” Tulsa Daily World, September 29, 1921, 7; Tulsa County Jail Log, 580-581. Also, appearance docket in State of Oklahoma vs. Dick Rowland, No. 2239 contained in the Tulsa County Court Clerk’s archives. 28. “Birth of Nation, Revived by Ku Klux, Here Tonight,” Tulsa Tribune, September 28, 1921, 2. 29. “Ruth Avery’s Interviews On The Tulsa Race Riot: Damie Rowland Ford,” Avery Collection.

By Randy Hopkins The front page of the Tulsa Daily World from Saturday, November 10, 1917, (The Gateway to Oklahoma History, www.gateway.okhistory.org) On November 10, 1917, a birth announcement for the “Modern Ku Klux Klan” appeared in a front-page headline of the Tulsa Daily World. The Klan’s birth pains were colorfully described by the newspaper’s managing editor, who had just witnessed the “Tulsa Outrage”—the kidnapping and torture of seventeen union organizers. The day would cast a long shadow, darker for the likelihood that the midwives of the birth included some of the then most powerful Oklahomans. The imprimatur of atrocity began with Governor Robert Lee Williams. Few men’s talents have better matched their opportunities. Born and raised in Alabama, Williams migrated to Oklahoma in 1896. Beginning as a railroad lawyer, his interests soon ran to banks, mining, insurance, cottonseed oil, and land, which he operated as a post-Civil War plantation owner.[1] Brilliant and driven, Williams’s attention to detail was such that the Daily Oklahoman’s managing editor defied anyone to find one instance “wherein a single department head ever slipped anything through and over ‘Our Bob.’”[2] His skills came with a blistering tongue, bad temper, and an aggressive manner. He was intolerant of those who disagreed with him and little short of abusive with his family. These negative descriptions are given by his admiring biographers.[3] A dominating presence at Oklahoma’s Constitutional Convention, Williams became the state’s first supreme court chief justice. From these positions, he campaigned to curtail black suffrage and promote the interests of his second love, the state’s Democratic Party.[4] When he finally captured the governorship, however, he was pained to be a “minority” winner in both primary and general elections. In the latter, the Socialist Party that Williams despised took 20 percent of the vote.[5] By the end of Williams’s term, the Oklahoma Socialist Party would cease to exist.[6] Williams might have gone down as a rare parsimonious politician— his first two years were dubbed the “cruel economy”—had not the United States entered World War I in April 1917. The state legislature was out of session and could not meet unless Williams called them. Refus ing this because he wanted to “run the show” himself, the “violently patriotic” Williams became Oklahoma’s war governor and, effectively, its dictator.[7] The mechanism Williams molded for his dictatorship was the State Council of Defense, augmented with county councils. Renowned for the meticulous care he took in making appointments, Williams selected all the members.[8] The Oklahoma State Council of Defense’s official history later bragged that its rulings and “the dictates of the county councils of defense have been the supreme law of the land.” [9] Williams’s supreme law was not law at all. The councils were extra-legal—they had no legal basis.[10] The state council’s history conceded it was “endowed with no mandatory or judicial powers under any statute of the commonwealth.[11] "A cover letter accompanying oaths of office told county appointees that “we wish to call your attention to the fact that your position has no legal status.”[12] The official history of the Tulsa County Council of Defense concurred: Oklahoma was one of the States in which Councils of Defense, State, county, and district had neither government nor legal status in fact. The Legislature had adjourned before the declaration of war. With few exceptions, therefore, edicts were issued by these organizations without warrant of law.[13] Robert L. Williams (6307, Oklahoma Historical Society Photograph Collection, OHS). Extra-legality meant that criminal acts committed along the way, and there were many, were just that—crimes.[14] Many of the legal activities, also numerous, were underwritten by intimidation and violence, especially in the field of fundraising.[15] Williams and his councils instead relied on public opinion to determine how far they could go.[16] Many Oklahomans, however, were deaf to the war trumpets. Recruiting was lagging everywhere; “lukewarm ism” was rampant.[17] Inflaming public opinion thus became the first task. Williams, therefore, targeted leading newspaper editors, along with bankers and attorneys, for his county councils.[18] The daily newspapers, the mass media of the day, would be part of Williams’s team and would report according to the team’s agenda.[19] The county councils themselves were encouraged to “feel free to take up whatever emergencies may arise in the county.”[20] In practice, this meant that the councils focused attention on their local enemies.[21] Criminal methods soon followed. Williams’s biographers confess that at times he “almost condoned such acts of violence.”[22] In truth, he went much further. In response to a near lynching in Collinsville, one that implicated his Rogers County Council, Williams told the Daily Oklahoman: "We should not be too quick to condemn the efforts of loyalists, who in some instances have had to resort to strong-arm methods. It is unfortunate that some men have had to be made to feel the will of the community. Where such action is necessary it should be undertaken by the county council of defense...the county councils should be allowed to act as courts of patriotism." [23] Only after the war ended did the state council order the county councils to confine themselves to “action which would be sustained by law.”[24] The Tulsa County Council of Defense would be the state’s most aggressive and powerful county council, and Williams devoted close attention to it.[25] Tulsa’s representative on the Oklahoma State Council was S. R. “Buck” Lewis. Born and raised in Texas, Lewis migrated in1887. A prominent lawyer and self-described capitalist, Lewis was a lifelong Democratic Party operative, helping found the party in the Indian Territory. At the start of his term, Williams named Lewis to his staff as “lieutenant colonel.”[26] Lewis was also close to influential Tulsan and fellow Democratic Party stalwart W. Tate Brady.27 Brady too was a political ally of the governor.[28] The original Tulsa Council of Defense members announced July 11, 1917, were: 1. J. Burr Gibbons. Born in Indiana, raised there and in Missouri, and migrating in 1907, Gibbons was the father of advertising in Tulsa, a profession that grew with the war.[29] Chair of the Tulsa Council, Gibbons would be relentlessly aggressive and castigate other county councils for devoting too little attention to “disloyalty, industrial disturbances, and sedition.” The persecution of such activities, he promised the councils, would enlist public support and “costs you nothing.”[30] 2. Robert McFarlin. An oilman and banker, McFarlin was born and raised in Texas, migrating in 1885. In 1916 he and his partners sold their oil company to a Standard Oil subsidiary for $39 million.[31] In 1917 he was president of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and vice-chair of the Committee of 100, a law and order league composed of prominent men.[32] McFarlin was a money man for the Tulsa Council’s activities, “advancing” the council $20,000, its Home Guard $9,000 to $17,000, and more funds for other “emergency measures.”[33] The Tulsa Council was far and away the best-funded of all the councils, even the states.[34] 3. Glenn Condon. Born in Iowa in 1891, Condon arrived in Oklahoma City at a young age. Extraordinarily well-liked, the one-time newsboy became the youngest member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 1916 and was named managing editor of the Tulsa Daily World in March 1917.[35] While he was a Republican, Williams appears to have been fond of him.[36] By war’s end, however, both his political and newspaper careers in Oklahoma would be at an end. Governor Robert L. Williams, standing in the first row without a uniform, and his staff including S. R. “Buck” Lewis, standing to Governor Williams’ left as indicated by the arrow,1915 (6469, Oklahoma Historical Society Photograph Collection, OHS) 4. H. C. “Harry” Tyrrell. Born and raised in Iowa, Tyrrell was an oilman and president of the Tulsa Young Men’s Christian Association, then a politically influential organization. He became vice-chair of the Tulsa Council. He had been head of a law and order league that folded into McFarlin’s Committee of 100. Since late 1916 Tyrrell dominated Tulsa law enforcement through a younger associate named H. H. Townsend. Under Tyrrell’s influence, Townsend not only became assistant chief of police, to whom the real chief was subservient, but he also became the Tulsa County sheriff’s “right-hand deputy.”[37] In late March 1917, Townsend became the security chief of Carter Oil Company, the largest Standard Oil subsidiary in Oklahoma.[38] 5. Lilah Lindsey. Born and raised in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Indian Territory, Lindsey was head of the Tulsa Women’s Christian Temperance Union and president of the state’s Homemakers Society. She became the council’s secretary-treasurer and was assigned to handle “women’s issues.”[39] At its first meeting on August 4, 1917, the Tulsa Council determined to select a “secret committeeman” in every populated center in the county. They were identified as “men of prominence and unquestioned loyalty,” but their duties were not explained. The identity of Tulsa’s secret committeeman would never be revealed. Condon was named director of publicity.[40] Immediately, the Tulsa Daily World began publishing a series of increasingly bloody-minded editorials against the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W. or Wobblies), a radical, but sometimes successful, union that was the bane of the owners of Oklahoma’s oil companies.[41] These recurrent incitements were distributed to the World’'s daily circulation of twenty thousand readers.[42] Pictured left to right: Charles E. Parker, chief pilot; Andrew Payne; Glenn Condon; and M. R. Harrison of the Claremore Chamber of Commerce at Curtiss Field, Long Island, New York. (20669, Oklahoma Historical Society Photograph Collection, OHS) Things appeared to be coming to a head in late September when Williams appointed a captain of the Tulsa Home Guard (L. W. Rook) at Condon’s “urgent personal request.”[44] Instead, the council’s preparations remained coiled for the next month, likely in deference to a then ongoing and massive Second Liberty Loan campaign.[45] The campaign ended successfully on Saturday, October 27. Following a last Sunday of normality, the coil suddenly sprang. At 4 a.m. on Monday, October 29th, an explosion shattered the house of Mr. and Mrs. J. Edgar Pew at 1443 South Cheyenne Avenue.[46] Pew was vice president and general manager of Carter Oil Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey. Carter was the largest operator in the nearby Mid-Continent Oil Field, with a million acres of oil leases and twenty million barrels of oil in storage.[47] Pew, a production expert, was Standard Oil’s highest-ranking official in Tulsa.[48] Scarcely had the sun risen over the blast site than Monday’s Tulsa Daily World hit the streets. It had gone to press several hours before the bombing.[49] Readers were told of a 2 p.m. meeting where the Tulsa Council would authorize a 150-man Home Guard to replace the state’s National Guard that had been federalized and shipped to war. Volunteers were invited to a meeting that night at the city-owned Convention Hall (later called Brady Theater, now the Tulsa Theater). The Tulsa Council’s official history credits the Pew explosion for giving “birth” to the Home Guard, which it called its “right arm of power.”[50] Recruitment was aided by a front-page headline in the afternoon Tulsa Democrat warning that “Dynamiting of Pew Home May Only Be Start.” This was based on representations by Tulsa Police Chief E. L. “Ed” Lucas and Carter Oil’s security head H. H. Townsend that a “reign of terror” was about to descend. Pew, they said, had been selected because he was a “big pillar” of the oil industry. The allegedly German-controlled I.W.W. was reported to be behind it all.[51] The Pew bombing dominated October 30’s World, with photos of the fractured house captioned “First Destructive Stroke in I.W.W. Plan of Destruction in Tulsa.” The paper told its audience a terror campaign involving “[w]holesale destruction of property without regard to human life” was unfolding. It warned of a “deliberately planned conspiracy... to murder the heads of many big oil producers of Tulsa and to slay and destroy with all the fiendishness of the most deprived minds.” November 1st was even announced as the terror campaign’s intended kick-off date, had not the Pew bombing occurred “prematurely.” The World cited private detectives employed by the large oil companies, said to be “unimpeachable sources” who had “spied on I.W.W. meetings and dogged the steps of the workers for months.” The paper quoted, or rather invented a quotation, from an October I.W.W. newspaper that “plainly interpreted means that a plan to murder some of the most prominent oil men in Oklahoma have [sic] been hatched.” In response, unionists who were said to be willing to die for the cause had “flocked to the city in great numbers in the last two weeks.” The World claimed it too had been “marked for destruction,” citing the receipt of threatening ing letters for four weeks (all emphases added).[52] E. L. Lucas (20288.92.81.2.2, Chickasaw Council House Museum Collection, OHS) The centerpiece of the World’s front page was a notice—“To Loyal Tulsans”—titled “250 Men Wanted at Once to Compete [sic] Tulsa Home Guards.” It opened with a mystery—that “for reasons that can not publicly be stated [sic] it is essential that the Tulsa Home Guard be raised to its full strength immediately” (emphasis added). A new organizational meeting was scheduled that night at Tulsa’s Chamber of Commerce.[55] The culprit(s) at the Pew house remains a mystery. If the I.W.W. did it, they chose a near-perfect moment for their enemies. The Pew home was being remodeled the prior week and thus was accessible to any number of outsiders. Pew said he was aware of no personal enemies, but the same could not be said for Standard Oil, which was casually hated by other oilmen.[56] Near contemporaneous rumors said it was an inside job committed for the purpose of inflaming the public mind or, intriguingly, that “the police operatives of the Carter Oil Co. committed the crime for the express purpose of continuing their employment under enlarged power.”[57] Townsend remained employed at Carter into 1919, longer than Pew.[58] Only one thing seems certain: if the Tulsa authorities believed that the I.W.W. men who later came into their control were responsible, they would have never turned them loose. Regardless of “who done it,” what unfolded was like one of the local drama productions covered by the World’s lavish theater section.[59] Fortunately, because the federal Bureau of Investigation, Justice Department and other records have been preserved, it is possible to contrast what was going on off-stage while a public performance was taking place. The I.W.W. had indeed been heavily infiltrated, such that it was increasingly difficult to tell where the union left off and the spies began.[60] According to Deputy US Marshal John Moran, three detective agencies had men inside the Tulsa branch. One was a Pinkerton man hired by Carter Oil, one from the agency of Foster Burns, and a third from the agency of John Gustafson, who would be Tulsa’s police chief during the 1921 Race Massacre. The three spies were reporting to Moran, although without knowledge that the others were passing their tales to him.[61] Far from proving criminality, the infiltration demonstrated the opposite. In a town awash with detectives, spies, and public relations men, the Pinkerton/Carter Oilman “Jack McCurry” was all three, having become publicity agent for the Tulsa I.W.W.chapter. If there was a spy well placed to confirm a vast plot, McCurry was it. Described as “unusually intelligent and straightforward” and “extremely well posted to report local plans and conditions” by Bureau of Investigation agent T. F. Weiss, McCurry reported that the Tulsa union men were “doing nothing or planning nothing directed against the Government.” There was “no talk of violence.” They were trying to get men employed in the oil fields in order to organize, efforts effectively blunted by oil company informers and the prompt firing of unionists. Moran, draw ing from the reports of all three spies, confirmed that he had learned of no particular plan to “interfere in any way with industries essential to the war effort.” Federal agent Weiss wistfully concluded that “these appear to be the real facts of the situation.”[62] Meanwhile, on stage, the October 30 Home Guard organization meeting went off swimmingly, although it featured two sizable misrepresentations. Captain Rook, Williams’s appointee, told the assembled volunteers that home guards were authorized by act of Congress and that they were of the same status as the National Guard in time of peace. Both of these statements were false.[63] More truthful assertions included Condon’s promise that McFarlin would make sure the Home Guard had proper backing. The city-owned Convention Hall was promised as an armory.[64] Some of the most prominent men in Tulsa were in attendance and Home Guard enlistees included Burr Gibbons, Tate Brady, and Eugene Lorton, owner of the Tulsa Daily World. Buck Lewis later served as the council’s administrator of the Home Guard, managing the group as a lieutenant colonel on Governor Williams’s staff.[65] The Tulsa Daily World’s headquarters would itself function as a recruiting office.[66] October 31st brought more published incitements to kill. The World’s “Oklahoma Notes” column, which sometimes appeared under Condon’s name, claimed that the only relief from the I.W.W. is “a wholesale application of concentration camps. Or, what is hemp worth now, the long foot?” An editorial favorably quoted one citizen’s proposal to treat Wobblies like horse thieves and lynch them. The editorial promised that the “price of folly” for the German-begotten I.W.W. will be “prison or death.”[67] It appears the Tulsa Council finalized plans at its November 3rd meeting. Before this, both Moran and federal Justice Department agent John Whalen requested that the council leave the I.W.W. alone pending the federal investigation. Moran got unhonored assurances.[68] For all its avowed loyalty, the Tulsa Council instead sabotaged the investigation. As with Williams, self-interest was the shore upon which the tide of loyalty to the government ebbed.[69] At approximately 9 p.m. on Monday, November 5th, Tulsa police raided the I.W.W. headquarters located in the New Fox Hotel at Brady and Main Streets. There was no warrant, no resistance, and no discovery of incriminating evidence.[70] Eleven mostly card-playing men were arrested as vagrants. Tulsa Mayor John Simmons was waiting at the jail when the prisoners made their midnight arrival. Federal agent Weiss reinvestigated and found that “there seems to be no evidence on which to convict any of the men on.”[71] The World itself made a hash of vagrancy, noting that at least two men had jobs. Later, the paper exulted that one of them lost his Pressmen’s union card, thereby risking becoming an actual vagrant.[72] Eugene Lorton (20491.18, Oklahoma Historical Society Photograph Collection, OHS) Outside the court, however, November 6th was far from quiet. From Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma State Council warned “traitors” that there are only two types of people—Americans or enemies—and that “a blank wall and firing squad may soon be the remedy for pro-Germanism in Oklahoma.” The state council also urged “enemies among us” only be kept behind bars “until that punishment all traitors deserve can be meted out to them.” The Tulsa Daily World adorned the declaration with the headline, “Day of Wrath Coming.”[74] That afternoon, Williams’s and Lewis’s associate Tate Brady confronted E. L. Fox, owner of the building housing the I.W.W. chapter. For an apparently spontaneous confrontation, the World’s report was strikingly first-person: "Brady . . . has been trying for some time to have the I. W. W. ejected from the Fox building on Brady Street. He met Fox at Brady and Main [Tuesday]...hot words ensued. Brady struck Fox with his fist. The latter rolled into the gutter. A large crowd collected. Brady walked on down the street. Afterward, he declared that Fox belittled the Home Guard and lauded the I. W. W."[75] Wednesday, November 7th, brought a new actor to the stage, Tulsa City Attorney John Meserve, who secured a second trial continuance. Meserve had originally been appointed to office at the urging of McFar lin’s Committee of 100.[76] Behind the scenes, he had sent an inflammatory warning to US Attorney General Thomas W. Gregory about I.W.W. terrorism, though his claims were deemed without merit after the Justice Department investigated.[77] Meserve would join the Tulsa Council by December 1917, serving as its “prosecuting attorney.”[78] Meanwhile, the World broadcast more murder talk. Its “Down the Agitators” editorial was the first of a series advising oil workers to trust their bosses. Said the World’s editorialist: "There has not been in the twenty years of oil history in Oklahoma and Kansas a single disagreement between employee [sic] and the employers which have not been settled or which could not be settled by an individual conference in three minutes. The one remedy for the vicious agitator is to ride him on a rail. If he seriously objects to that he might be used for the decoration of a telephone pole that is slightly out of place in the original design."[79] On the same day, Marshal Moran gave federal agent Weiss eye-opening news, namely: The businessmen had a program agreed upon by them and the Police Dept. by which the men are to be given a hearing tomorrow evening, remanded to jail, and later some businessmen are to escort the men to the City limits and make them leave, with a warning not to return.[80]Moran tried to get them not to do it, but he would again be ignored.[81] The trial finally opened on Thursday, November 8th, but to disappointing reviews. With Glenn Condon in constant attendance, the World complained of Richardson’s long-winded arguments on the niceties of vagrancy and confessed that “nothing of a sensational nature developed.”[82] The prosecutors ignored the actual charges, instead of seeking to learn the defendants’ attitudes toward the government and whether they supported the Liberty Loan drives. The prosecution rested its case on the fact that they were Wobblies.[83] The World claimed that all the witnesses spoke in “broken English,” joining an ongoing chorus that painted the unionists as aliens and outsiders. Moran, in contrast, reported that most of the defendants were “local men.”[84] Friday, November 9th, was far more sensational, starting with the arrival of the Bolshevik Revolution in Tulsa via the World’s bold, black headline. The paper’s now-infamous “Get Out the Hemp” editorial incited hysteria and murder in the starkest terms yet: "Any man who attempts to stop the [oil] supply for one-hundredth part of a second is a traitor and ought to be shot!... If the I.W.W. or its twin brother, the Oil Workers union, gets busy in your neighborhood, kindly take occasion to decrease the supply of hemp. Knowledge of how to tie a knot that will stick might come in handy in a few days...kill’em just as you would kill any other kind of snake. Don’t scotch 'em; kill’em. And kill’em dead. It is no time to waste money on trials and continuances and things like that."[85] Tulsa Daily World, November 7, 1917 (The Gateway to Oklahoma History, www.gateway. okhistory.org) The trial brought matching fireworks. Apparently reacting to Richardson’s cautious, lawyerly approach, a decidedly different defense counsel appeared—Frank Ryan. Ryan was a former secretary of the Tulsa branch of the Oil Workers Industrial Union, an IWW affiliate, who recently married a young stenographer living at the Fox Hotel. Ryan had not been present at Monday’s raid and had already given supporting testimony on Thursday. He could have simply stayed away and avoided what befell him.[86] Instead, he went for the jugular, casting prosecutor Meserve on the witness stand, there to accuse him of telling a Tulsa lawyer named Ed Crossland that the case was fixed. Meserve denied this, but conceded that Crossland had in a “jocular vein” told him, “John, you ought to be able to have it all fixed up,” to which Meserve replied “Sure.” While not mentioned in the paper, Crossland was a recent Tulsa County Attorney and may have had insights concerning Tulsa’s justice system. Ryan next grilled another prosecutor, former police judge E. O. Cavitt. Even the World seemed to comment on Cavitt’s evasiveness. Ryan demanded admission that posters had already been printed warning I.W.W. cardholders to leave town. Cavitt denied this. Such posters appeared around midnight and one was pinned to Richardson’s office.[87] Ryan’s efforts notwithstanding, convictions ensued. Evidence is divided on whether the resultant $100 fines were for vagrancy or failure to own a Liberty Bond, which violated no law. Perhaps Evans himself was not sure, only that they had to be guilty.[88] For good measure, Evans ordered the arrest of other union members/witnesses in the audience, including Ryan. Condon concluded his write-up by observing that the “first tears of the trial were shed when [Ryan’s] young wife clung to his neck weeping as he was led into the jail.”[89] He did not stay there long. Shortly before midnight, the men were loaded into three touring cars driven by three policemen and guarded by six others.[90] The reason given by the authorities for removing the men is also disputed. The World claimed that the men were to be taken to the I.W.W. headquarters and released on promises to leave town. This was also the version given by the Tulsa Council’s official history, which has Evans giving the deportation order.[91] Chief Lucas, however, explained that the fear of a gathering mob led to a scheme to take the men to the county jail, which was allegedly more secure. That the men were taken in the opposite direction from the county jail was explained as a subterfuge.[92] Curiously, the eyewitness report of the secretary of the Tulsa I.W.W. branch said that no reason at all was given.[93] The authorities had to give the public some reason for their actions, though they did not get their stories straight. The caravan proceeded from the alley behind the police station, allegedly to avoid observation if they went up Main Street. This may have minimized witnesses, but it did the I.W.W. men no good. Just past the Frisco railroad tracks, a band of heavily armed men wearing black capes, cowls, and masks rose from behind a pile of bricks and commandeered the procession.[94] Two victims testified that the procession stopped before the gang emerged.[95] The policemen were ordered to turn over their weapons and the guards on the running boards were told to “beat it.” After those six officers fled, there is no evidence that they did anything to respond to the situation. Meanwhile, the I.W.W. men were bound with rope, after which they and the three police drivers were kidnapped, with a gun at the head of every Wobbly. The caravan drove north to the Convention Hall, the Tulsa Home Guard’s city-owned armory, where other black-costumed men awaited.[96] The entourage proceeded west on Easton Street to a “lonely ravine” near Irving Place. Condon and his wife drove out by auto as unmasked “spectators. " [97] The uniformed gang, who announced themselves as the “Knights of Liberty,” had chosen a spot where their autos could be lined up to illuminate the ceremony. A line of Knights was already there, stand ing at “present arms.” Other Knights manned the approaches, turning back cars that tried to reach the area with threats to shoot. The Wobblies were ordered to strip from the waist up. Their shoes went as well. When the men wore union suits, a knife-flashing Knight cut away the upper portion, along with all the men’s bonds. One by one they were tied to an Oak and whipped “until blood ran.”[98] The Knights’ ringleader then stepped forward “with a white-wash brush and pot of boiling tar,” coating them from head to tail, while intoning “in the name of the outraged women and children of Belgium.” The invocation of alleged German atrocities in Belgium itself reflected a fixation of Governor Williams and the state council, who viewed such allegations of sadism as “the greatest stroke to arouse patriotism.”[99] Humiliating feathers came next. While their worldly possessions were covered in gasoline and burned, the Wobblies were lined up facing west with the Knights gathered behind them. The ringleader ordered them to “get,” never to return. The real torture came next. Since the Tulsa Outrage, as the event was soon dubbed, concluded after midnight, Condon must have rushed back to the World. His report, published Saturday morning, November 10th, under the foreshadowing headline “Modern Ku Klux Klan Comes Into Being,” was exultant. He penned, “The frightened and half-naked men ran with their bare feet thru [sic] the brush with the speed of kangaroos,” while “hundreds of rifle and revolver shots were fired into the air [as] they sped into the inky darkness of the night.” Sunday’s World revealed that the union men had “torn thru [sic] barbed-wire fences and all sorts of obstacles in their mad rush,” that the Knights’ gunshots caused them “to break all track records,” and that “pieces of clothing and flesh, and a profusion of feathers, were found entangled” in the wire. Given what the World described as the Knights’ “machine-like preparations,” it is likely that the obstacle course was chosen with the barbed wire in mind.[100] The coverage of the Saturday afternoon Tulsa Democrat, usually more level-headed than the World, was of a similar vein.[101] The union men suffered “the penalty for lack of patriotism” and “scurried like frightened rabbits from cover to cover, the white skin of their naked bodies gleaming in flash from the fire that had been built to light the proceedings.” They were now “half-naked, penniless, without food, their breast and backs smeared with hardened tar and feathers—outcasts from society.” Since Condon was the only civilian journalist present, the Democrat’s article may have been provided by one of the Knights. The paper may have valued an eyewitness view, lest its competitor scores a scoop, especially if it was offered by a former Tulsa Democrat reporter and editor such as J. Burr Gibbons.[102] Meanwhile, about the time Saturday’s Tulsa Daily World was rolling off the press, the Wobblies continued their barefoot flight through the cold, dark, Oklahoma countryside. Incredibly, the Knights appear to have prepared the path of the “outcasts” with more than barbed wire, as some of the farmers they approached turned the “bleeding, shivering, starving men” away with waving weapons while announcing, “In the name of the outraged women and children of Belgium, we refuse food or comfort.”[103] Frank Ryan and another victim finally located a friendly farmhouse where the tortured men used five gallons of coal oil or kerosene to clean their wounds.[104] Who were the Knights of Liberty? Nine police officers were held at gunpoint, their weapons taken, and three were kidnapped. Yet, the World boasted that government agents “were making no apparent effort to discover the identity of the fifty black-robed and hooded men.”[105] They never tried.[106] Mere yokels could not have accomplished or caused such a cover-up. Identification evidence that does exist includes a sworn statement from one of the victims, I.W.W. secretary E. M. Boyd.[107] The I.W.W. also employed L. A. Brown, a Kansas City detective and former investigator for the US Industrial Relations Commission and Federal Trade Commission.[108] Brown interviewed an uncertain number of victims and many Tulsans, including Moran.[109] To his credit, he appears relatively conservative in his use of evidence.[110] The resulting accusations are not conclusive, but it is possible to assess their plausibility. The strongest evidence centers on Tulsa’s Police Chief Ed Lucas. According to Brown, Lucas was one of two men emphatically fingered as Knights.[111] Boyd added eyewitness testimony that gowns and masks were brought for Lucas and other detectives and that he personally witnessed Lucas and detective George Blaine, a later three-time Tulsa police chief, putting on “the rigs.”[112] Boyd avowed that Lucas was “easily recognizable by six of us at least” and regulated the number of lashes each victim received.[113] The men likely had an opportunity to observe Lucas during the trial and his job as regulator suggests he may have spoken or acted. Brown also named H. H. Townsend, Lucas’s dominating assistant chief, and Tulsa policeman Carl Lewis, Buck Lewis’s brother.[114] For the role of the Knights leveling guns near the railroad tracks, those two could have been sent from central casting. From 1916 to early 1917, Townsend, Lewis, and three other officers constituted the Tulsa police’s “wrecking squad” for their methods of enforcing prohibition, and its “purity squad” when dealing with sex and vice. In January 1917, Townsend, Lewis, and the others had risen from behind another pile of bricks to ambush and kill a twenty-year-old taxi driver. Murder charges ensued, though all but Townsend, hired by Carter Oil at a substantial raise, remained with the department pending trial.[115] City Attorney John Meserve was alleged by Brown to be the Knight who applied “the rope that had been soaked in brine to the backs of the victims.”[116] If so, one of his victims included the man who had just flung him onto the witness stand and accused him of conspiring against justice. It would help explain why Frank Ryan was singled out for special treatment. A witness report says he was “beaten unmercifully.”[117] As Condon described it: "[Ryan] was the first to feel the sting of the whip and the burn of the tar, according to the officers who were present. They must have wanted to give him an especially strong dose for he was whipped again after the tar had been applied, thus forcing the hot liquid into the flesh."[118] Meserve’s subsequent activities reveal a lawyer throwing off the rule of law, conducting hundreds of star chamber prosecutions, in which he appears to have functioned as prosecutor and judge. Eighty-four of these involved “disloyalty” and resulted in “many” persons imprisoned in an “insane asylum.”[119] The “manhunts” were frequent and under cover of the strictest secrecy.[120] US Marshal Moran told Brown that “you would be surprised at the prominent men in town who were in this mob” and he was well-positioned to know them.[121] The second of the enthusiastically identified culprits, Tate Brady certainly qualified as prominent.[122] Brady was the accused “ringleader”—the Knight who applied the boiling tar while intoning “in the name of the women and children of Belgium.” This Knight did a lot of talking that night and Brady had recently demonstrated his loud, violent ways right in front of the I.W.W. headquarters.[123] If Brady or Carl Lewis were involved, it increases the odds that Brown correctly named Buck Lewis as a Knight.[124] If Williams’ lieutenant colonel was present it elevates the likelihood that other Tulsa councilors, such as Gibbons and Tyrrell, were there, though they are unnamed in the available reports. The presence of any of the inter-linked network of police, city officials, Tulsa councilors, and elite businessmen discussed here at least implicates the others.[125] Regarding the name “Knights of Liberty,” Nigel Sellars has suggested that it was borrowed from an affiliate of the Copper heads, northern Democratic Party groups opposed to the Civil War.[126] If so, it points to the involvement of southern Civil War sympathizers. Few could better fulfill that description than Tate Brady and Buck Lewis unless it was Governor Williams himself. Brady may have designed a mansion after Robert E. Lee’s Arlington, but Williams went further. At the age of ten, the lad born “Robert Williams” declared that he would henceforth be known as “Robert Lee” in honor of his greatest hero, and so he was. Williams was said to have “loved daring raids and hazardous exploits” of the Confederacy.[127] No one accused Eugene Lorton of being there, but his paper always took great pride in the Knights.[128] This continued long after Condon resigned from the paper.[129] Even when Lorton turned his back on the atrocious tactics his paper had promoted, the Daily World defended the Knights: "There is quite a difference between the drunken mob recruited from saloons that killed the Illinois offender and the quiet and orderly method of Oklahoma’s “Knights of Liberty.” Tho [sic] both were without legal authority, the Oklahoma way was at least humane and spilled no blood. And it was accomplished coolly and deliberately by men of brains and discretion [emphasis added]."[130] Lorton, however, was not all that discreet on the subject. On December 14, 1917, his paper bragged that the tar and feather party had been “administered” by the Home Guard, of which Lorton was a member along with Tate Brady and Burr Gibbons.[131] Robert McFarlin was also of unqualified prominence, though the surviving accusations do not name him. But if the Tulsa Council’s Home Guard was involved, as Lorton’s paper boasted, then McFarlin’s money helped pay for the Tulsa Outrage, or at least its weaponry.[132] McFarlin remained a vigorous councilor to the end and nothing in his subsequent behavior suggests the slightest objection to what had happened.[133] One defense to his presence at the lonely ravine, however, is that he was otherwise occupied that day. For the World’s “modern Ku Klux Klan” shared Saturday with another birthday—the grand opening of McFarlin’s Exchange National Bank. The building at Third Street and Boston Avenue was known to later generations as part of the National Bank of Tulsa and, later still, as the Bank of Oklahoma.[134] At the moment, it was the “pride of Tulsa,” the finest building in the Southwest and the state’s tallest building. Within a month, the Exchange Bank would be Oklahoma’s largest bank. A glittering palace, the air-conditioned building’s centerpiece was a seventeen-ton vault door, at least one ton for each tortured Wobbly, so balanced that a child could operate it.[135] It was, however, more than just a bank building. Carter Oil occupied the top three floors, as well as the sixth. J. Edgar Pew’s office was in the penthouse. Prairie Oil, the Standard subsidiary that bought McFarlin’s oil company, had the eighth floor, and Standard Oil of Indiana the fourth.[136] There was no more fitting symbol of Upton Sinclair’s claim that “in Oklahoma, everything is Standard Oil” than the Exchange Bank’s monument to wealth and power.[137] Regardless of who wore the cowls and masks, the Knights’ status as a tentacle arm of Williams’s councils was confirmed by their second and final performance on October 11, 1918. The latest of the endless Liberty Loan drives was staggering to the finish line, well short of hugely inflated targets.[138] Loath to see Oklahoma fail, a three-act play was performed. First, the Oklahoma State Council of Defense telegraphed an alert attributing the bond shortfall to “wild rumors of allied success,” which bore the mark of “insidious German propaganda” designed to injure the sale of Liberty Bonds. The Tulsa Council then issued a “Note of Warning” reminding citizens that “no one is above suspicion” and that anyone not buying the bond limit is “making himself a traitor.”[139] Act three occurred at 7:30 p.m., when the Knights, wearing their original uniforms, paraded in the streets of Tulsa as a “Liberty Loan slackerism warning.” The World’s prose, in bold black print, was equal to the occasion: "Dressed in black and thoroughly masked, the “Knights of Liberty,” as they termed themselves, gave an ominous warning to men whose patriotism is subject to criticism. Efforts to trace the party to its origin failed. They came out of the darkness, loaded into automobiles when through, and melted back into the night as they came. Warnings during the past day or two that slackerism in Tulsa would not be tolerated may have a hidden meaning."[140] Both official histories brag that the Liberty Loan campaign promptly went over the top.[141] While the Tulsa Council otherwise abandoned masked forays, its methods led inexorably to killing when one of its private investigators, S. L. Miller, shot and killed a Tulsa waiter for allegedly disloyal statements. A hearing was held before Justice of the Peace Lee Daniels. While Daniels might have rested his decision on Miller’s allegation that the waiter appeared to reach for a weapon, he instead announced what the World called “a new unwritten law that makes it justifiable for a man to slay one who speaks against the country.”[142] Even though the waiter could not give his version, Daniels ruled that “his crime is the most damnably reprehensible that a man could commit...I can’t help but say that he deserved his fate.” Daniels received an ovation from the packed audience, including members of the Tulsa Council.[143] Three weeks later, Miller organizing a Knights-style beating of an alleged adulterer. This accomplished what a killing had not—the council promptly accepted Miller’s resignation. It also issued a condemnation of mob spirit and “secret enforcement of the law,” though it did not mention that Miller was its operative and it did not apply the condemnation to its own operations.[144] Lorton’s paper added a front-page editorial denouncing “hasty Ku Klux Klan parties,” though most of its words were expended explaining why the Knights were “necessary” and their assault on the I.W.W. was of “wholesome effect.”[145] The qualified disclaimers were already too late. Other groups with different targets were eyeing the Knights’ “system” and would continue to do so.[146] That some of Tulsa’s “big-brained busy men” and the city authorities appeared to promote and legitimize atrocity made the virus that much more potent.[147] In the Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Scott Ellsworth wrote that the Tulsa Outrage was “an important step along the road to the race riot...an important precedent for more such activities in the future.”[148] So, too, the Knights of Liberty were a pre-echo of the later white-clad Oklahoma KKK, a different franchise from the Knights perhaps, but with overlapping membership and a similar propensity for showy and sadistic violence.[149] Even the name “Ku Klux Klan” had been blessed in newspaper headlines. What would unfold had, ironically, been predicted by Lorton’s newspaper just two days after the Tulsa Outrage—that “class appeals and advocacy of violence beget hatred and violence undreamed of.”[150] For Tulsa, the violence undreamed of was just beginning. Randy Hopkins is a retired trial lawyer residing in Portland, Oregon. Born and raised in Oklahoma, he is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas School of Law. Originally published in Chronicles of Oklahoma, Volume 4, Winter 2019-20 The Chronicles of Oklahoma is a quarterly publication of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Please consider supporting their work to make Oklahoma history reporting possible. The Chronicles of Oklahoma magazine can be purchased here: https://pay.apps.ok.gov/okhistory/store/app/item_description.php?item=1166. Become a member of OHS here: https://pay.apps.ok.gov/okhistory/store/app/membership.php. Endnotes: 1. E. E. Dale and James D. Morrison, Pioneer Judge: The Life of Robert Lee Williams (Cedar Rapids, IA: Torch Press, 1958), 60–67, 83–101, 383. The authors, who were professional historians, knew Williams for four decades and were allowed unprecedented access to his records. While their work reflects many of the same biases as their subject—for example, the Constitutional Convention “courageously resisted” proponents of women’s suffrage (p. 171)—it is invaluable for the facts of Williams’s life and deep insight into his personality. See also Garin Burbank, When Farmers Voted Red (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 91–107. 2. Walter M. Harrison, “‘Never say die’—Judge Bob,” Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, OK), January 19, 1919. 3. Dale and Morrison, Pioneer Judge, 2, 89–90, 227–28, 256–57, 382–83, 395–97. 4. Ibid., 149, 162–71, 192–96, 250–53. For Williams’s rise in the Democratic Party, see ibid., 102–19. The Democratic Party’s election chicanery helped cement its control and Williams was likely the brains behind these tactics. Jim Bissett, Agrarian Socialism in America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 112–16, 131–41, 177–78; James R. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895– 1943 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), 317–23, 353–54; Burbank, When Farmers Voted Red, 85–86, 89n53; James Scales and Danney Goble, Oklahoma Politics: A History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982), 83–87; “How State’s Crooked Election Machinery Was Used to Defeat a Fair and Honest Law,” Tulsa (OK) Daily World, October 7, 1917, 33–34. 5. Dale and Morrison, Pioneer Judge, 208, 224–27, Green, Grass-Roots Socialism, 289– 93, 374–75. 6. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism, 346–47, 372–81; Burbank, When Farmers Voted Red, 113–25; Howard L. Meredith, “A History of the Socialist Party in Oklahoma” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oklahoma, 1969), 196–97. 7. For “run show himself” and “violently patriotic,” see Martin H. Lutter, “Oklahoma and the World War, 1914–1917: A Study in Public Opinion” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oklahoma, 1961), 535–36 (quoting an interview with and a personal letter of E. E. Dale). For refusal to call a special session, see Dale and Morrison, Pioneer Judge, 257, 266, 275. For the label “war governor,” see William T. Lampe, ed., Sooners in the War (Oklahoma City: State Council of National Defense, 1919), 8. For Williams’s meticulous care in making appointments, see Dale and Morrison, Pioneer Judge, 230–36, 257, 263. The State Council’s chair was his business partner, J. M. Aydelotte. Williams’s oldest and closest friend, William Utterback, was a member. Williams also relied on his close relationship with the University of Oklahoma, appointing its president, Stratton Brooks, as council secretary. A university journalism professor and council publicity man, Chester Westfall, became the executive secretary to both the governor and the state council. Dale and Morrison, Pioneer Judge, 270–71; Lampe, Sooners in the War, 7–15; “Hist! Williams May Be Itching to Wear Senator Gore’s Toga,” Tulsa Daily World, September 11, 1917, 1; “Westfall New Secretary,” Tulsa Daily World, September 22, 1917, 3. 9. Lampe, Sooners in the War, 14. 10. The federal Council of National Defense (CND) “requested” that the states create councils, but it had no legal authority to demand it or to confer power on them. Lampe, Sooners in the War, 4 (lists CND statutory powers); Second Annual Report of the Council of National Defense (Washington, DC: Council of National Defense, 1918), 10 (state and local Councils were “voluntary”); Report on Organization and Activities of State Councils of Defense (Washington, DC: Council of National Defense, 1917), 1–7. The legality of state councils depended on state authorization, of which there was none in Oklahoma. James A. Robinson, Anti-Sedition Legislation and Loyalty Investigations in Oklahoma (Norman: Bureau of Government Research, University of Oklahoma, 1956), 1. The CND urged states to secure statutory standing for their councils, albeit with “moderate power and moderate methods.” William J. Breen, Uncle Sam at Home (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), 18. The CND provided a model statute. Second Annual Report of the CND, 12. 11. Lampe, Sooners in the War, 14 (the council “often neglected to look up the legal status of questions and it has always ignored precedent.”); also, Dale and Morrison, Pioneer Judge, 270–71. On November 2, 1918, just days before World War I ended, the state council finally decided to appoint a committee to investigate and present the “right kind of bill” to the Oklahoma Legislature. Minutes of State Council, November 2, 1918, in Lampe, Sooners in the War, minutes 47. Page numbering begins again in Lampe, Soon ers in the War, in the section with the Minutes of the State Council of Defense. This will be indicated with the word “minutes” before the page numbers. 12. Undated letter and oath, 20696, folder 1, box 1, M2001.037, Oklahoma State Council of Defense Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society Research Center, Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City, OK (hereafter cited as State Council Collection, OHS). 13. William T. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War (Tulsa, OK: Tulsa County Historical Society, 1919), 59. 14. For crimes of the Oklahoma councils, see Bissett, Agrarian Socialism, 157–65; Green, Grass-Roots Socialism, 345–82; Breen, Uncle Sam at Home, 106–07; O. A. Hilton, “The Oklahoma Council of Defense and the First World War,” The Chronicles of Okla homa 20, no. 1 (March 1942): 18–42; Robinson, Anti-Sedition Legislation, 2–7; James H. Fowler, “Extralegal Suppression of Civil Liberties in Oklahoma During the First World War and Its Causes” (master’s thesis, Oklahoma State University, 1974), 59–84; James H. Fowler, “Tar and Feather Patriotism: The Suppression of Dissent in Oklahoma Dur ing World War I,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma 56, no. 4 (Winter 1978–79), 379–430; Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 69–77, 91–95, 151–54, 157–59, 221–25; Lampe, Sooners in the War, 6–15, 25–65, 86–87; Minutes of the State Council of Defense, May 16, 1917, to January 4, 1919, included in Lampe, Sooners in the War, minutes 4–6, 9–10, 16, 20, 22, 26–27, 29–30, 32, 38, 40–41, 43, 51–52. 15. In addition to authorities in footnote 14, Carter Blue Clark, “A History of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oklahoma, 1976), 23–25, 44; “No Mercy is Shown for Bond Slackers,” Tulsa Daily World, April 12, 1918, 8. Oklahoma contributed more than $150 million to the war effort. Roy Hoffman, “Oklahoma’s Contribution to the War Effort—A Full Pack,” Daily Oklahoman, April 6, 1937, 10. This does not include the value of Oklahoma’s oil that was sent to war never to return. 16. Undated letter from Oklahoma State Council of Defense, 20696, folder 1, box 1, M2001.037, State Council Collection, OHS; Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 59. Also, Paul L. Murphy, World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1979), 116 (absence of legal authority not a great handicap to officials who understood “the potentialities inherent in war psychosis”). 17. Lampe, Sooners in the War, 8; Bissett, Agrarian Socialism, 149–50 (less than half expected draft registrants registered and 72 percent of those claimed exemption); Lutter, “Oklahoma and the World War,” 534–35 (“preponderant majority” viewed the war with “profound reluctance and disquietude”); “‘More Men’ is Cry of Recruiting Officers,” Tulsa Daily World, June 7, 1917, 2; “Recruiting Still Lagging,” Tulsa Daily World, June 28, 1917, 1. In 1916 Congressman William H. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray’s advocacy of “preparedness” cost him his US House of Representatives seat. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism, 350–51; Burbank, When Farmers Voted Red, 111–12. 18. For public opinion management, see Lampe, Sooners in the War, 6, 8–10; Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 60; Hilton, “The Oklahoma Council of Defense,” 21. For targeting leading editors, lawyers, and bankers, see Hilton, “The Oklahoma Council of Defense,” 21–22 (citing Aydelotte); letter from State Council, July 3, 1917, 20681, folder 1, box 1, State Council Collection, OHS. 19. “Printer’s Ink is Wise Investment,” Tulsa Daily World, November 7, 1917, 2 (per head of Tulsa’s Advertising Club’s Vigilance Committee, “If a person reads at all, h reads the daily newspaper. It is part of the everyday life of the American people. . . . The daily newspaper can best give the constant repetition that wears away forgetfulness and forces attention.”). 20. Undated letter from Oklahoma State Council of Defense to county executive committee appointees, 20698, folder 1, box 1, State Council Collection, OHS. 21. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism, 374–75. 22. Dale and Morrison, Pioneer Judge, 272. 23. “Governor Warns Against Mob Rule,” Daily Oklahoman, April 21, 1918, 1A. For attempted Collinsville, Oklahoma, lynching, see ”Police Save Alien Hanged at Collins \ville,” Daily Oklahoman, April 20, 1918, 1; “Mob Heeds Plea for Trial and Relents,” Tulsa Daily World, April 20, 1918, 1. The state council itself openly praised another state’s vigilance committee who “wait on persons making unpatriotic remarks”; “We Must Win the War,” Tulsa Daily World, September 19, 1917, 4. Williams’s executive secretary Westfall reported that “perhaps a few [men] shot, would mean the absolute stamping out of pro-Germanism in Oklahoma”; Minutes of State Council, December 29, 1917, in Lampe, Sooners in the War, minutes 6. 24. Minutes of State Council, November 30, 1918, in Lampe, Sooners in the War, minutes 48. The motion was made by state council member Stratton Brooks, president of the University of Oklahoma, and seconded by S. R. Lewis, the Oklahoma State Council of Defense’s Tulsa representative. 25. Hilton, “The Oklahoma Council of Defense,” 35, 42; Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 60: “State Council of Defense Wants Three Tulsans to Direct Work from Capital,” Tulsa Daily World, January 6, 1918, 10. For Williams’s close control, see R. L. Williams to S. R. Lewis, April 24, 1918, 89702, folder 5, box 28, M1982.115, Robert L. Williams Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society Research Center, Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City, OK (hereafter cited as R. L. Williams Collection, OHS). For the ]eventual composition of the Tulsa Council, see Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 60–62. 26. For Lewis’s biography, see Rex Harlow, ed., Makers of Government in Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: Harlow Publishing Company, 1930), 788; Luther B. Hill, A History of the State of Oklahoma, Vol. II (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1909), 426. Lewis’s mother was an “outaluck,” a Cherokee descendant who was not an enrolled tribal member. Like his friend Brady, Lewis was influential within the Cherokee Nation. Lewis was secretary to the then last chief, W. C. Rogers. For his appointment to the state council, see “S. R. Lewis Named on Defense Board,” Tulsa Daily World, May 13, 1917, 1. Lewis, with coal mining interests, was also on the Raw Materials, Minerals, and Metals Committee of the state council and headed its Finance Committee. Undated letter from Oklahoma State Council of Defense, 20698, folder 1, box 1, State Council Collection, OHS. 27. Born and raised in Missouri, Brady arrived in 1890. For Brady’s biography, see J. T. White, ed., National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. XX (New York: James T. White and Co., 1929), 134–35; Hill, A History of the State of Oklahoma, Vol. II, 486–87. Besides their links through the Cherokee Nation and the Democratic Party, Brady was state commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, while Lewis, whose father had been a Texas cavalryman, was commander of the Sons in Indian Territory. “Tate Brady Commander,” Oklahoma Leader (Guthrie, OK), July 14, 1910, 8. They were also social friends. “Oklahoma Vets Invade the City of Memphis,” Claremore (OK) Progress, June 22, 1922, 4; “O. M. A. Band Boys Return Home,” Claremore Progress, June 29, 1922, 1. 28 R. L. Williams to Tate Brady, October 23, 1913, 34478, folder 3, box 4, R. L. Williams Collection, OHS (requesting Brady’s help in getting Kate Barnard’s support for Williams’s gubernatorial campaign). Brady succeeded Williams as Democratic Party national committeeman. 29. For Gibbons’s biography, see Gaston Litton, History of Oklahoma at the Golden Anniversary of Statehood, Vol. IV (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1957), 627–28; Men of Affairs and Representative Institutions of Oklahoma (Tulsa, OK: World Publish ing Co., 1916), 232. Gibbons had been a journalist and press agent for US Senator Robert L. Owen and was at the time manager of an insecticide company. Gibbons would operate an influential Tulsa advertising firm well into the 1950s. For World War I and the growth of the advertising profession in Tulsa, see “Never Again to be an ‘AD Clubless’ City,” Tulsa Daily World, August 15, 1917, 1. 30. J. Burr Gibbons to Oklahoma State Council of National Defense, January 23, 1918, 87304, folder 2, box 27, R. L. Williams Collection, OHS. 31. Carl N. Tyson, James H. Thomas, and Odie B. Faulk, The McMan (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977), 106–11. The sale was the largest such transaction in the oil business until the 1950s and closed shortly before the federal income tax took effect. 32. For McFarlin’s biography, see Tyson, Thomas, and Faulk, The McMan, 5–18. Regarding McFarlin’s wartime work, see ibid., 112–16. For election to the chamber of commerce, see “M’Farlin to Lead Parent Civic Club,” Tulsa Daily World, February 11, 1917, 4. For Committee of 100, see “Fight is Opened to ‘Clean’ Tulsa,” Tulsa Daily World, February 11, 1917, 1, 7; “100 Committee Holds Election,” Tulsa Daily World, February 23, 1917, 4. 33. Lampe, Sooners in the War, 87; Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 64. He also owned the lot at Fourth Street and Main on which the building that housed the Tulsa Council was built. “Navy League to Put Up a Home,” Tulsa Daily World, May 23, 1917, 11; Colonel Clarence Douglas, History of Tulsa, Vol. 1 (Tulsa, OK: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1921), 382. McFarlin’s money was used to purchase uniforms, rifles, ammunition, and other equipment, including two machine guns. “Automobiles to Aid Home Guard,” Tulsa Daily World, November 6, 1917, 7. The Tulsa guard was so overstocked with factory-fresh weapons that Gibbons sought to sell them to other counties. J. Burr Gibbons to Oklahoma State Council of Defense, January 24, 1918, folder 19, box 3, 8-C-4- 2 State Council of Defense—Home Guard “Tulsa County,” Governor Williams Collection, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma City, OK. 34. Since the Oklahoma Legislature was not in session, public dollars could not be appropriated for the councils, which survived on contributions. The Tulsa Council was also aided by a privately subscribed “war fund” of at least $30,000. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 199–200. This allowed McFarlin to be repaid for his patriotic gestures. “Wisdom and Tact in Council of Defense,” Tulsa Daily World, August 27, 1918, 9. For McFarlin’s “advancements,” see Lampe, Sooners in the War, 87 ($9,000 to the Home Guard); Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 64 ($20,000 to the Home Guard), 74 ($17,000 to the Home Guard); Tyson, Thomas, and Faulk, The McMan, 113 ($20,000 to the Tulsa Council). It is possible these amounts overlapped. 35. For Condon biography, see Men of Affairs and Representative Institutions of Oklahoma, 232. While he was named managing editor in March, his name first appeared in the Tulsa Daily World’s masthead in July, four days before he was announced as a member of the Tulsa Council. “Your Indulgence for a Moment Please, While We Toot Our Own Horn,” Tulsa Daily World, March 25, 1917, 1 (Condon had “complete charge” of editorial department); Tulsa Daily World, July 7, 1917, 4 (name to masthead). Condon was also head of the state council’s “Four Minute Men.” Lampe, Sooners in the War, 79; “Compliments Four Minute Men on Oklahoma Result,” Tulsa Daily World, October 28, 1917, 3. 36. Immediately after Condon resigned from the Tulsa Daily World in late November 1917, Williams appointed him and two others to travel to the European war zone. R. L. Williams to Glenn Condon, December 10, 1917, folder 7, box 27, R. L. Williams Collection, OHS; “Oklahomans Will Go to War Front,” Tulsa Daily World, November 26, 1917, 2; “Condon Departs for Europe Tomorrow,” Tulsa Daily World, December 2, 1917, 1. Upon Condon’s return, Williams appointed him delegate to a Philadelphia convention seeking to prevent a “premature” peace. “Condon is Named as Oklahoma Delegate,” Tulsa Daily World, May 3, 1918, 3. 37. Townsend had been boys secretary at the YMCA prior to joining the police. For “dominating” chief, see “Create New Role on Police Force,” Tulsa Daily World, Septem ber 21, 1916, 2; “How Many Bosses Have Tulsa Cops?,” Tulsa Daily World, September 28, 1916, 8 (Townsend as “real head” of police); “Two Detectives Get Official Ax,” Tulsa Daily World, November 1, 1916, 1; “Jail Officers, Is Plea of Mother,” Tulsa Daily World, January 25, 1917, 1, 5 (Lucas called a “figurehead,” reporters know to talk to Townsend); “Townsend Quits Police Position,” Tulsa Daily World, March 31, 1917, 1. For County sheriff’s “right-hand deputy,” see “Deputies Resent Sheriff’s Action,” Tulsa Daily World, October 3, 1916. 1; “Jim Woolley Dead is Latest Rumor,” Tulsa Daily World, October 6, 1916, 1; “Press Agent for Woolley is Busy,” Tulsa Daily World, October 28, 1916, 1. 38. “Townsend Quits Police Position,” Tulsa Daily World, March 31, 1917, 1 (Townsend hired to protect Carter from “foreign invasion”). 39. “Tulsans Are Recommended for Council of Defense,” Tulsa Daily World, July 11, 1917, 1; Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 61, 63, 67–69. For Lindsey’s biography, see Linda D. Wilson, “Lindsey, Lilah Denton,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=LI008; Harlow, Mak ers of Government in Oklahoma, 789. 40. “Defense Board Holds Meeting,” Tulsa Daily World, August 5, 1917, 13. By advertising its secret component, the council created a force multiplier, as the public could not be sure who would be watching them. See Murray B. Levin, Political Hysteria in America: The Democratic Capacity for Repression (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1917), 148–51, 174–75. 41. For the I.W.W. in Oklahoma, see Nigel Sellars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma, 1905–1930 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998). For the I.W.W. nationally, see William Preston, Aliens, and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903–1933, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Murphy, World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties; Jay Feldman, Manufacturing Hysteria: A History of Scapegoating, Surveillance, and Secrecy in Modern America (New York: Pantheon Books, 2011), 39–65. 42. The editorials were published on the editorial page adjacent to Lorton’s and Con don’s names on the masthead. “Unblushing Treason,” Tulsa Daily World, August 6, 1917, 4 (advocating “execution” for Wobblies who are deported but return); “A National Menace,” Tulsa Daily World, August 7, 1917, 4 (“drastic measures should be undertaken to eliminate the I.W.W. element as an enemy of the nation”); “Industrious Disturbers,” Tulsa Daily World, August 10, 1917, 4 (advocating a “few death sentences” for “our secret enemies”); “Give Them The Limit,” Tulsa Daily World, August 18, 1917, 4; Tulsa Daily World, September 10, 1917, 4 (World would “support a movement to shoot a few of the plotters.”); Tulsa Daily World, September 26, 1917, 4 (“They should send a good-sized firing squad over to Portland, Ore. Four thousand shipbuilders have struck for higher wages.”); “Labor and Sedition,” Tulsa Daily World, October 1, 1917, 4. For a view of the I.W.W. as low class or even subhuman, see Tulsa Daily World, August 13, 1917, 4 (tortured and lynched I.W.W. Frank Little not “a man that amounted to anything” and I.W.W. “a filthy lot.”); “They Have Them, Too,” Tulsa Daily World, August 23, 1917, 4 (I.W.W. as “fungus outgrowth”). 43. “Military Honor for Draft Army,” Tulsa Daily World, August 26, 1917, 3. A nascent home guard, already organized by L. W. Rook and consisting primarily of Spanish-American War veterans, was absorbed into the council’s guard. “The Home Guards,” Tulsa Daily World, May 7, 1917, 4; “Heroes of ’98 in Home Guard,” Tulsa Daily World, August 13, 1917, 1; “Tulsa Home Guards Will Meet Tonight,” Tulsa Daily World, August 16, 1917, 3; “Officers Elected by Home Guards: To Drill at Once,” Tulsa Daily World, August 21, 1917, 4; “Defense Council to Meet This Afternoon,” Tulsa Daily World, August 25, 1917, 12. Supervision of the home guards was originally assigned to the state’s adjutant general, who presided over Oklahoma’s National Guard before its federalization in April 1917. On November 1, 1917, direct responsibility for the home guards was shifted to the governor. Governor Williams’s chief clerk to L. W. Rook, November 1, 1917, folder 19, box 3, 8-C-4-2 State Council of Defense—Home Guard, Governor Williams Collection, Oklahoma State Archives, Oklahoma Department of Libraries, Oklahoma City, OK. 44. “Rook is Appointed Homeguard Captain,” Tulsa Daily World, September 29, 1917, 4 (“A press of business in the governor’s office had held up the issuance of the commission so long that the county council sent Condon to the capital to speed the thing along.”). 45. “Governor Names Officers,” Tulsa Daily World, October 22, 1917, 3 (Collinsville Home Guard reserving action due to loan drive). 46. The explosion was alternatively attributed to nitroglycerin or dynamite. For the extent of damage, see “Dynamiting of Pew Home May Only Be Start,” Tulsa (OK) Democrat, October 29, 1917, 1; “I. W. W. Plot Breaks Prematurely in Blowing Up of Pew Residence,” Tulsa Daily World, October 30, 1917, 1. Pew later testified that he smelled glycerin fumes, collected pieces of fuse, and put them in a box that was given to Townsend. Redmond Cole trial notes, October 23, 1919, M290, folder 2, box 49, Redmond S. Cole Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (hereafter cited as October 23, 1919, trial notes, Cole Collection, WHC). The box and fuses did not survive for later litigation on the matter. Redmond S. Cole trial notes, May 24, 1920, M290, box 52, Cole Collection, WHC (hereafter cited as May 24, 1920, trial notes, Cole Collection, WHC); also, list of state and defense exhibits from said 1919 and 1920 trial notes, Cole Collection, WHC. 47. “History of Frame-Up in Interest of the Oil Companies,” New Solidarity (Chicago, IL), May 3, 1919, 3. For Pew biography, see “The Story of a Useful Life,” American Petroleum Institute Quarterly, April 1947, 3–16. Pew was also a member of the Executive Committee of McFarlin’s Committee of 100. “Committee of One Hundred Denies Charges [illegible] Has Not Co-Operated in Clean-Up,” Tulsa Daily World, April 2, 1918, 2. 48. Report from John Meserve to US attorney general, January 16, 1918, “Oklahoma State Council, January” folder, box 730, Record Group 62: Records of the Council for National Defense, Entry Pl 2, 339: General Correspondence, 1917–1919, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC (hereafter cited as Meserve to US attorney general, January 16, 1918). 49. The Tulsa Daily World’s press time was around 2 a.m. See “Newspaper History Made By the World,” Tulsa Daily World, November 12, 1918, 1. 50. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 66, 73. 51. “Dynamiting of Pew Home May Only Be Start,” Tulsa Democrat, October 29, 1917, 1. 52. “I. W. W. Plot Breaks Prematurely in Blowing Up of Pew Residence,” Tulsa Daily World, October 30, 1917, 1. The World cited a “highly inflammatory” article written by a Gallagher in the I.W.W. newspaper Solidarity. Gallagher was quoted as writing, “We want to get the head of all these big concerns.” This was fiction. The only recent Gallagher articles in Solidarity were August 11 and October 6, and neither promoted violence nor contained the quoted language. Instead, Gallagher encouraged members to go to work in the oil fields, to organize, and “then when we are thoroly [sic] organized make John D. [Rockefeller] come across with more of the good things of life.” “News from the Oil Fields,” Solidarity (Chicago, IL), August 11, 1917, 4; “News from Oil Worker,” Solidarity, October 6, 1917, 2. 53. Townsend knew about Carter Oil’s infiltration of the I.W.W. Report of John A. Whalen dated October 30, 1917, in Randolph Boehm, ed., United States Military Intelligence Reports: Surveillance of Radicals in the United States, 1917–1941 (Frederick, MD.: University Publications of America, 1984), reel 6, frame 276 (hereafter cited as USMIR reel 6). Pew himself told a federal Bureau of Investigation agent about the infiltration by Carter and other oil companies. Report of T. F. Weiss dated November 7, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frame 270. For information about Carter’s security force, see May 24, 1920, trial notes, Cole Collection, WHC. 54 “Nitro Blows Up Home of Oil Man,” Tulsa Daily World, October 30, 1917, 1; “Dynamiting of Pew Home May Only Be Start,” Tulsa Democrat, October 29, 1917, 1. For “later dropped” as a suspect, see “Two Held As Slackers,” Tulsa Daily World, November 9, 1917, 6. Carter Oil’s long and unsuccessful effort to convict the I.W.W. of the crime is outside the scope of this article. For particulars, see Sellars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies, 122–33; Oklahoma Leader, May 10, 1919, 2; Eugene Lyons, Assignment in Utopia (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1937), 13–17; “Standard Oil Frame-Up in Tulsa,” New Solidarity, March 8, 1919, 5; “Charles Krieger Trial Exposes Prosecution As Conspira tor To Frame On Victim,” New Solidarity, November 1, 1919, 1, 3; “Final Day of Krieger Trial,” New Solidarity, November 29, 1919, 4 (all Lyons’s articles). 55. “250 Men Wanted at Once to Compete [sic] Tulsa Home Guards,” Tulsa Daily World, October 30, 1917, 1. 56. “Approval of Carter Oil Lease Bad Precedent,” Tulsa Daily World, July 18, 1917, 1; Lyons, Assignment in Utopia, 15–16. For competition between Standard and other Oklahoma oilmen, see John Thompson, Closing the Frontier: Radical Response in Oklahoma, 1889–1923 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986), 63–67, 116, 119–21. Prairie Oil’s 1916 purchase of McFarlin’s oil company appears to be in partial response to anti-Standard Oil moves by other oilmen. 57. “The Charles Krieger Case,” Oklahoma Leader (Oklahoma City, OK), May 10, 1919, 2. 58. “Tulsa City Directory, 1919” (Tulsa, OK: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Co., 1919), 509. Pew would leave Carter by June 1, 1918, if not sooner. For June 1, 1918, see October 23, 1919, trial notes, Cole Collection, WHC. Pew’s necrology from the American Petroleum Institute, of which he had been founder and president, indicates he left Carter in 1917. “The Story of a Useful Life,” American Petroleum Institute Quarterly, April 1947, 6–7. 59. See, e.g., “Great Play, Says Chief E. L. Lucas,” Tulsa Daily World, September 3, 1917, 3. 60.This situation was not limited to Tulsa or the oil industry. Anaconda Copper ordered its paid inside agents to organize strikes as a ruse to indict/eliminate radicals, a fact confirmed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation reports. Preston, Aliens and Dissenters, 2nd ed., 113, 327n97. A bureau agent later bragged about “a whole setup for forming an I.W.W. local—forms, membership cards, literature.” Thus, the bureau could catch the “criminals” they created. Murphy, World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties, 231n112. 61. Report of T. F. Weiss dated November 7, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frame 270–71. Burns was a disgraced former Tulsa police chief, expelled from office in 1915. Shelly Lemons, “Down on First Street: Prostitution in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1900–1925,” (Ph.D. diss., Oklahoma State University, 2004), 100–06. 62. Report of T. F. Weiss dated November 9, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frames 267–69. Mc Curry did report that the men had no respect for “the Government,” viewing it as “directed all together by Wall Street and the Capitalists, and has no ends in view for the good of the common people.” This itself constituted a near capital crime to Williams and his creations. 63. “Two Hundred in Home Guard Now,” Tulsa Daily World, October 31, 1917, 1. The Home Guard was created, legally or not, by the governor. The National Defense Act of June 3, 1916, did not authorize them. See www.legisworks.org/congress/64/publaw-85. pdf. In 1917 Congress authorized the secretary of war to loan weapons to “home guards who may be organized under the direction of governors,” www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes at-large/65th-congress/session-1/c65s1ch28.pdf (emphasis added). Williams himself confirmed the state-level creation of the guard. Williams letter to (federal) chief of ordnance dated August 9, 1917, folder 1, box 36, R. L. Williams Collection, OHS. Nor did the Home Guard remotely have the status of the National Guard, which the NDA did authorize. The act imposed a long list of standardized training, discipline, and qualification requirements on the National Guard so that it might serve quickly to expand federal armed forces. National Defense Act, Sections 61–116. Lacking age, physical condition, training, and other requirements, the Home Guard was useless for that purpose. Even Williams described it as “semi-military.” R. L. Williams to Wm. Beaty, August 8, 1917, folder 6, box 25, R. L. Williams Collection, OHS. The Home Guard members could not be federalized. “Tulsa Home Guards Will Drill Three Times a Week,” Tulsa Daily World, August 25, 1917, 6. They could resign at will. When new Oklahoma National Guard units were authorized, it was necessary to “perfect” them from scratch, rather than relabeling the Home Guard. “Tulsa Will Help To Make New Regiment,” Tulsa Daily World, March 29, 1918, 1; “Reorganization of Home Guard Will Be Delayed,” Tulsa Daily World, April 14, 1918, 2. Just as Williams created them, so he disbanded them. General Order from Williams, January 8, 1919, in Lampe, Sooners in the War, 80. He could not have done that if they held the status of the National Guard. See Sections 68 and 72 of the 1916 National Defense Act. 64. “Two Hundred in Home Guard Now,” Tulsa Daily World, October 31, 1917, 1, 6. The Simmons Administration approved the use of the Convention Hall. “Two Companies Home Guards Now on Duty,” Tulsa Daily World, November 3, 1917, 2. 65. “Rooney Named Captain of Tulsa Guard,” Tulsa Daily World, January 19, 1918, 11. Lewis was also charged with making sure the Guard was supplied with needed arms and equipment. “Council of Defense Will Supply Guards,” Tulsa Daily World, January 3, 1918, 14. 66. “Automobiles to Aid Home Guard,” Tulsa Daily World, November 6, 1917, 7. 67. “Patience Has An End,” Tulsa Daily World, October 31, 1917, 4. 68. Report of John A. Whalen dated October 30, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frame 276; Report of T. F. Weiss dated November 7, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frames 270–73. 69. In addition to ignoring federal admonitions to secure legislation for his councils, Williams slow-played War Department urgings to form a second state National Guard unit. Dale and Morrison, Pioneer Judge, 262, 269. The existence of a full contingent of the National Guard would lessen the need for Williams’s privately controlled home guards. The CND also encouraged states to establish a Council of Defense for African Americans. By war’s end, Oklahoma was the only state failing to have one. Linda D. Wilson, “Oklahoma Council of Defense,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, www. okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=OK038. 70. Earl Bruce White, “The I.W.W. and the Mid-Continent Oil Field,” in James C. Foster, ed., American Labor in the Southwest (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982), 73. Curiously, Police Chief Lucas told Weiss that no documents were seized, though a large volume of material was turned over to Moran, who said that “there was not one word of disloyalty in it and [the Tulsa authorities] had nothing on them and couldn’t get it.” Report of T. F. Weiss dated November 7, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frame 270; White, “I.W.W. and Mid-Continent,” 74; L. A. Brown to Roger Baldwin, December 29, 1917, 97, vol. 36, 1917–1918, Oklahoma, American Civil Liberties Union Records: Subgroup 1, The Roger Baldwin Years, MC001.01, Public Policy Papers, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ (hereafter cited as Baldwin Papers). 71. Report of T. F. Weiss dated November 3, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frames 274–75. 72. “Hill Expelled By Pressmen,” Tulsa Daily World, November 13, 1917, 3. 73. For speculation, see “I. W. W. in Tulsa Raided by Police,” Tulsa Daily World, No November 6, 1917, 1; for Richardson, see “Continue I. W. W. Cases,” Tulsa Daily World, November 8, 1917, 5. 74. “Defense Council Warns Traitors,” Tulsa Daily World, November 7, 1917, 8. 75.“North Siders in Fight on Street,” Tulsa Daily World, November 7, 1917, 12. Also on Tuesday, the Tulsa police team of Carl Lewis and George Blaine arrested another “vag” at I.W.W. headquarters. “I. W. W Offices Are Raided by Detectives,” Tulsa Daily World, November 7, 1917, 8. Nigel Sellars has concluded that this man, named Morris or Morrison, was the John Gustafson spy in line to become secretary of the I.W.W. chapter. Sellars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies, 106, 232n38. If so, the arrest was likely a “sheep dipping” to ingratiate the spy to the unionists. Morris/Morrison was culled out before the Tulsa Outrage. Home Guard commander Rook was present at the possibly contrived arrest and used it to promote his guard. “I. W. W. is Arrested Prowling Close to Main Part of City,” Tulsa (OK) Weekly Democrat, November 15, 1917, 4. 76. John Meserve to US Senator J. W. Harreld, December 10, 1921, folder 4, box 7, John Bartlett Meserve Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society Research Center, Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City, OK. For Meserve biography, see Douglas, The History of Tulsa, Vol. 3, 281–82; Harlow, Makers of Government in Oklahoma, 796; Joseph B. Thoburn and Muriel H. Wright, Oklahoma: A History of the State and its Peoples (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., 1929), 128–30; Grant Foreman, “John Bartlett Meserve,” The Chronicles of Oklahoma 21, no. 2 (June 1943): 121–22. 77. Meserve telegraphed the US attorney general hours after the Pew explosion, ascribing the “work of dynamiters” to the I.W.W. Melvyn Dubofsky, ed., United States Department of Justice Investigative Files, Part I: The Industrial Workers of the World (Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1989), reel 5, frame 64. When Justice Department agent John Whalen queried him in response, Meserve confessed that “he had no specific information on these subjects except that it seemed to be the opinion of the public that these acts were inspired by the I.W.W.” Meserve also referred to a “threatening letter” sent to the Tulsa Daily World, but Whalen found it contained “no threats.” Whalen investigated Meserve’s suggestion that the I.W.W. was behind the disastrous Mayo Hotel fire of October 23, 1917, but concluded the causes may have been natural. Report of John A. Whalen dated November 3, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frames 274–75. The fire, which killed two firemen, broke out in cleaning supplies at a paint store. At the time, none of the Tulsa authorities, including Meserve, treated it as anything other than rank carelessness. “Half Million Dollar Fire Razes Ohio Building; Damages Mayo’s,” Tulsa Daily World, October 24, 1917, 1, 18; “Ruins of Fire Give Back Dead,” Tulsa Daily World, October 25, 1917, 1, 16; “Will Arrest Dealers for Gasoline Danger,” Tulsa Daily World, October 26, 1917, 6, 13; “Theaters Improperly Equipped for Flames,” Tulsa Daily World, November 10, 1917, 4; “Will Investigate Hazards in Business Part of City,” Tulsa Daily World, December 22, 1917, 3. 78. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 71–72, 93; “John Meserve Advisor for Council of Defence [sic],” Tulsa Daily World, December 4, 1917, 10 (special legal advisor); “Tulsa Defense Council Re-Elects Its Officers,” Tulsa Daily World, January 22, 1918, 14 (a member of Tulsa Council). 79. “Down the Agitators,” Tulsa Daily World, November 7, 1917, 4. While Condon ran the editorial department, it is not safe to assume he or Lorton wrote all the editorials. “Cy,” Logsdon wrote an odd editorial page column titled “Dope,” originally adorned with a drawing of a smoking opium pipe. The reference to “decoration of a telephone pole . . . original design” is consistent with Logsdon’s proto-hipster writing style. See, e.g.: “Cy” Logsdon, “Dope,” Tulsa Daily World, August 12, 1917, 24. For members of the paper’s editorial department, see “Your Indulgence for a Moment Please, While We Toot Our Own Horn,” Tulsa Daily World, March 25, 1917, 1. Gibbons, a former journalist, may have submitted writings. 80. Report of T. F. Weiss dated November 7, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frame 272. 81. The “Knights of Liberty” Mob and the I.W.W. Prisoners at Tulsa, Oklahoma (New York: National Civil Liberties Bureau, 1918), 14 (hereafter cited as NCLB Pamphlet). Moran paid a price for not playing ball. In April 1918 the Democrats captured the city government and Moran was initially declared police chief, an appointment quickly undone by factional politics. “John Moran Resigns Federal Job to be Chief of Police,” Tulsa Daily World, April 10, 1918, 1; “M’Nulty Will Be Mayor of Tulsa,” Tulsa Daily World, May 1, 1918, 1; “M’Nulty Is Made Mayor of Tulsa,” Tulsa Daily World, May 4, 1918, 1, 9. 82. “I. W. W. Tried in Night Court,” Tulsa Daily World, November 9, 1917, 3. The defense agreed to designate a defendant and let his verdict serve for the rest. None of the testifying police officers could offer adverse evidence save for the defendant’s I.W.W. membership. NCLB Pamphlet, 11–12. 83.Richardson repeatedly said if there was any evidence of disloyalty he would withdraw, to which the police court officials responded with an ominous silence. According to one witness, Meserve said that “Tulsa was a big town, a wonderful town, but not big enough for all the good people and any I.W.W.s to live in at the same time.” Statement dated December 21, 1917, 100–03, Baldwin Papers. 83 NCLB Pamphlet, 11–12; “I. W. W. Tried in Night Court,” Tulsa Daily World, November 9, 1917, 3. 84. Report of T. F. Weiss dated November 7, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frame 272. This is supported by December 21, 1917, witness statement, Baldwin Papers, 100–03. The author of the statement is not identified. It was written from the viewpoint of a bystander who observed the trial and happened to follow the mob. Condon’s article, however, suggests that trailing autos were prevented from following. It is possible that the statement was actually written by a victim wishing to conceal his identity. At least one victim returned to his residence and family in Tulsa, only to be repeatedly harassed by the police and Police Judge Evans. NCLB Pamphlet, 14. 85. “Get Out the Hemp,” Tulsa Daily World, November 9, 1917, 4. 86. Ryan is sometimes labeled secretary of the I.W.W. chapter, but the secretary of the associated Oil Workers Industrial Union appears more accurate. “Local I. W. W. Offices Raided,” Tulsa Daily World, September 6, 1917, 1; Sellars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies, 24, 69, 100. He was also a Socialist and participant in the party’s “free speech” movements in Tulsa and Muskogee. “Red Shirt Orator Brink in Muskogee,” Tulsa Daily World, Oc tober 9, 1914, 4. He does not appear to have been licensed to practice law. “I. W. W.’s are Convicted,” Tulsa Daily World, December 13, 1916, 3. But Judge Evans allowed him to represent the defendants and should have treated him as such. 87. “I. W. W. Members Flogged, Tarred and Feathered,” Tulsa Daily World, November 10, 1917, 1; L. A. Brown to Roger Baldwin, December 29, 1917, 97, Baldwin Papers. 88 E. M. Boyd, I.W.W. branch secretary and one of the tortured men, wrote that “as near as anyone could judge from the closing remarks of Judge Evans [the lead defendant] was found guilty and fined $100 for not having a Liberty Bond.” NCLB Pamphlet, 6; Baldwin Papers, 112. For a conviction on vagrancy, see December 21, 1917, witness statement, 102, Baldwin Papers; NCLB Pamphlet, 12–13. 89. “I. W. W. Members are Held Guilty,” Tulsa Daily World, November 10, 1917, 2. Mrs. Ryan, a stenographer, kept notes of the trial. “Oklahoma Mob Leaders Discovered by the I. W. W.,” Industrial Worker (Seattle, WA), February 9, 1918, 1. Brown attempted to locate them, with unknown success. 90. White, “I.W.W. and Mid-Continent,” 73. Another historical dispute is whether sixteen or seventeen Wobblies were taken “for a ride.” The majority of sources, contemporary and later, report seventeen. See, e.g., “I. W. W. Members Flogged, Tarred and Feathered,” Tulsa Daily World, November 10, 1917, 1; NCLB Pamphlet, 13. I.W.W. branch secretary Boyd, however, counted sixteen and Sellars agrees. NCLB Pamphlet, 8; Sellars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies, 108, 232n41. Confusion over the removal of arrested “spies” and the number of courtroom arrests make a final determination problematic. 91 Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 221–22. 92. “‘Go-And Stay,’ Commanded Black-Robed Ringleader of ‘Knights of Liberty’ as He Pointed to Hills,” Tulsa Democrat, November 10, 1917, 1, 8. 93. Report of E. M. Boyd, NCLB Pamphlet, 8–9. 94. The description of the Tulsa Outrage is a synthesis of Condon’s eyewitness report in “I. W. W. Members Flogged, Tarred and Feathered,” Tulsa Daily World, November 10, 1917, 1; an apparent eyewitness report in “‘Go-And Stay,’ Commanded Black-Robed Ringleader of ‘Knights of Liberty’ as He Pointed to Hills,” Tulsa Democrat, November 10, 1917, 1, 8; Tulsa Council’s official history in Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 221–22; the statements of E. M. Boyd and December 21, 1917, witnesses located in Baldwin Papers, 100–15, and sworn testimony of Joe French in Harrison George, The I.W.W. Trial (Chicago, IL: The Industrial Workers of the World, 1918), 197–99. 95. NCLB Pamphlet, 6–7 (Boyd’s version); George, The I.W.W. Trial, 197–98 (Joe French testimony). 96. December 21, 1917, witness report refers to ten or a dozen cars joining the entourage. Condon’s version says six. The Tulsa Democrat version lists three. 97 NCLB Pamphlet, 10. The business of having news reporters accompany outrages was a later tactic of the Oklahoma Ku Klux Klan. Charles C. Alexander, The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965), 48. A theatrical style atrocity served a limited purpose unless the public knew about it and drew the proper meaning. 98. Descriptions of the “whip” range from a “cat-o’-nine-tails” (Condon), a double piece of new rope, five-eighths or three-fourths hemp (Boyd), a heavy piece of rope (December 21 statement), and a half-inch piece of pipe (French). Brown described it as “hemp soaked in brine.” 99. Williams and the state council went to great, but unsuccessful, lengths to prove that the alleged German atrocities were something more than Allied propaganda. Hilton, “The Oklahoma Council of Defense,” 29–30. In frustration, the state council had the effrontery to demand that the US State Department publish atrocity evidence. Aydelotte to the state council, August 6, 1917, folder 2, box 1, State Council Collection, OHS. When that failed, Williams’s executive secretary wrote President Wilson’s executive secretary asking to be sent “half a dozen of these mutilated [Belgian] children . . . to help draw crowds, etc. We feel certain it would be the greatest stroke to arouse patriotism possible.” Westfall to J. P. Tumulty, November 12, 1917, document 85000, folder 5, box 26, R. L. Williams Collection, OHS. This too was fruitless. 100. Joe French testified that the wire was about fifteen feet from where the men were lined up, but it was dark and not visible. French and the others “cut ourselves all to pieces.” George, The I.W.W. Trial, 198. For “quickly dubbed” the Tulsa Outrage, see Sel lars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies, 109. “I. W. W. Members Flogged, Tarred and Feathered,” Tulsa Daily World, November 10, 1917, 1; “I. W. W. Danger in Tulsa Not Ended,” Tulsa Daily World, November 11, 1917, 1. 101. “‘Go-And Stay,’ Commanded Black-Robed Ringleader of ‘Knights of Liberty’ as He Pointed to Hills,” Tulsa Democrat, November 10, 1917, 1, 8. Perhaps Condon and Gibbons engaged in a friendly journalists’ competition to see who could write the most colorful depiction of terror. 102. For Gibbons’s prior employment by the Tulsa Democrat, see “Why I Remember,” Tulsa (OK) Tribune, October 8, 1939, 8. It is possible that Gibbons also provided the Democrat’s editorial of Sunday, November 11, 1917, “Oil and the Industrial Workers,” painting the Oklahoma I.W.W. as proven dynamiters of Pew, speakers of broken English, and suggesting they may end by “decorating trees in the oil fields and in the vicinity of the city.” 103. “Who is to Blame for Tulsa,” Industrial Worker, November 24, 1917. 104. Report of E. M. Boyd, NCLB Pamphlet, 8; Baldwin Papers, 114. 105. “I. W. W. Danger in Tulsa Not Ended,” Tulsa Daily World, November 11, 1917, 1 (in contrast the Tulsa police were “continuing their search for I.W.W.’s and will arrest them as fast as they are discovered.”). A lookout was kept for the victims’ wanderings and when they were discovered, the local authorities were encouraged to assist the deportation process. Sellars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies, 109. Other Wobblies also were targeted. “I. W. W. Danger in Tulsa Not Ended,” Tulsa Daily World, November 11, 1917, 1 (“In Drumright, Bartlesville and elsewhere, I.W.W.’s were arrested or run out of town. The “Knights of Liberty” have apparently started a movement that will lead to the breaking up of the organization.”). 106. Brown report, January 30, 1918, NCLB Pamphlet, 15; Douglas, History of Tulsa, Vol. 1, 469–73 (“because of the results obtained and the breaking up of an infamous nest of sedition and disloyalty no serious attempt was made to apprehend the members of . . . Tulsa’s Knights of Liberty.”). City attorney Meserve explained that he was powerless to act since what had happened “was not covered by any city ordinance,” though that had not prevented his prosecutorial focus on union cards, disloyalty, or “good” people versus bad. “‘Go-And Stay,’ Commanded Black-Robed Ringleader of ‘Knights of Liberty’ as He Pointed to Hills,” Tulsa Democrat, November 10, 1917, 8. 107., For Boyd's statement, see Baldwin Papers, 104–15. It is augmented by a further Boyd statement in the NCLB Pamphlet, 8–9. 108. For Brown’s background, see folder 15, box 3, series L0031-78, National Civil Liberties Bureau SUBPOENAED FILES, New York State Archives, 134–35, 99 (hereafter cited as NYSA). The Industrial Relations Committee was created by the US Congress in 1912 to study labor law and conditions. 109. Unfortunately, not all of Brown’s reports have been located. What does exist is as follows: – December 29, 1917, letter to Roger Baldwin of the NCLB, Baldwin Papers, 93–97. – January 22, 1918, letter quoted in part in “Oklahoma Mob Leaders Discovered by the I. W. W.,” Industrial Worker, February 9, 1918, 1.– January 30, 1918, report quoted in part in NCLB Pamphlet, 11–15. – L. A. Brown to Roger Baldwin, March 29, 1918, at NYSA, 134–35. A report said to be attached, is unavailable. – An “undated” report quoted in part in White, “I.W.W. and Mid-Continent,” 75. The full report is also unavailable. 110. Brown’s March 29, 1918, letter acknowledged that, of the thirty names he unearthed, most allegations were of the “I believe” or “I am satisfied” variety. Brown also conceded that some witnesses were not willing to repeat their claims in court and his own doubts as to whether he could prove his allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, at least “in a court in Oklahoma at this time.” NYSA, 134–35. He instead opined on the basis of the preponderance of the evidence. White, “I.W.W. and Mid-Continent,” 75. Brown also noted that “justice to the people of Oklahoma demands that this report attempt to correct another newspaper falsehood; that is, that this mob violence met with general approval. Your investigator talked with more than 200 citizens both women and men, none of whom approved the mob outrage.” NCLB Pamphlet, 15. 111. L. A. Brown to Roger Baldwin, March 29, 1918, the letter at NYSA, 134. This letter also claimed that Lucas had been fired along with most of the police force. Historian Ronald L. Trekell, however, claims that Lucas remained chief until May 30, 1918, after his health failed at the first of May. Ronald L. Trekell, History of the Tulsa Police Department, 1882–1990 (Tulsa, OK: R. L. Trekell, 1990), 43. Neither claim appears completely accurate. Tulsa’s April 2, 1918, election resulted in the defeat of Simmons’s Republican Administration. The second of Lucas’s one-year terms ended when the Democrats took over on May 3, 1918. “Tulsa Capitulates to Wets; Open-Town Victory at Polls,” Tulsa Daily World, April 3, 1918, 1; “M’Nulty Is Made Mayor of Tulsa,” Tulsa Daily World, May 4, 1918, 1. At the time, a change in political administrations resulted in a “decapitation” of the police department, as existing officers were replaced with more politically trustworthy and controllable ones. 112. E. M. Boyd, “Tulsa, November 9th,” Liberator, April 1918, 15–17. Blaine’s name is replaced by a blank line in the version of Boyd’s statement quoted in the NCLB Pamphlet. After the Tulsa Race Massacre, Blaine was implicated in breaking into the McGee hardware store and dealing out guns to the mob. Scott Ellsworth, Death in a Promised Land (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 54, 129n21. He nonetheless became Tulsa Police chief from July 1921 to April 1922, April 1929 to May 1930, and November 1941 to May 1943. “TPD History ‘The Chiefs,’” Tulsa Police Department, www.tulsapolice.org/content/history/chiefs.aspx. 113. Brown also places policeman “Patten” in the mob. White, “I.W.W. and Mid-Continent,” 75. There was no “Patten” in the Tulsa police roster, only “James W. Patton, 1913– 1922.” Trekell, History of the Tulsa Police Department, 386. James Patton had either just been named chief of detectives (plainclothesmen) or would be immediately after the Tulsa Outrage. “Patton at Head of Detective Bureau,” Tulsa Weekly Democrat, Novem ber 15, 1917, 5. If Patton was there, it was likely bad news for the Wobblies, as he has left an odious reputation. Lemons, “Down on First Street,” 161–65 (Tulsa Police matron testified in 1921 that Patton beat a black female prisoner with a rubber hose and told a white Canadian woman who allegedly served as a police sex slave that she was “not as good as a nigger; all these sons-o-bitching foreigners ought to be killed. You are nothing but a whore.”). The matron was dismissed, while Patton was still boss of the detectives during the Tulsa Race Massacre. Brown named officer “Carmicle.” There was a “Henry Carmichael” serving on the force, who would be one of the officers who arrested Dick Rowland on May 31, 1921. Trekell, History of the Tulsa Police Department, 379; “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in an Elevator,” Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, State Edition, 1. 114. “Oklahoma Mob Leaders Discovered by the I. W. W.,” Industrial Worker, February 9, 1918, 1. 115. Brown’s letter in the Industrial Worker does not identify the other three “wreckers.” They were William Shue, Ramsey Miller, and Richard Nelson. Brown incorrectly says that all five were indicted for murder, whereas Nelson was not. Brown correctly notes that bail was paid by the “RIGHT people,” an apt description of Harry Tyrrell. “Townsend, Shue, and Miller Held to Higher Court,” Tulsa Daily World, January 24, 1917, 1. 116. “Oklahoma Mob Leaders Discovered by the I. W. W.,” Industrial Worker, February 9, 1918, 1. Brown reports that Meserve was assisted by Bill Barber, described as out on bond after having been convicted of murder. This may be William J. “Bill” Baber, who was police chief in 1906–07. He lost his job (then “city marshal”) after pistol-whipping a man who had been “telling stories” about him. In 1914 he shotgunned to death two US deputy marshals (including Moran’s predecessor) who appeared at his front door searching for liquor. He was finally convicted of manslaughter for one death in April 1917 but appears to have remained out on bail until 1918. Trekell, History of the Tulsa Police Department, 28–29, 40–41. F. W. LaFallette, a business agent of the Tulsa’s plumbers union, was another alleged whip hand. “A Sketch of the Activities of Agricultural Workers Industrial Union No. 110,” Industrial Solidarity (Chicago, IL), June 10, 1922, 2; Sellars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies, 101, 107–08, 230n23, 233n43. LaFallette was associated with C. E. Lahman in the pursuit of disloyalty. Report of John Whalen dated September 8, 1917, USMIR reel 6, frame 286. Lahman was a director of the Tulsa branch of the American Protective League (APL). The league, organized by yet another advertising man, was a collection of amateur “G-men” who conducted Stasi-like surveillance. The Tulsa Council and APL cooperated closely in the hunt for disloyalty. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 92, 151–54. For APL, see Joan Jensen, The Price of Vigilance (Chicago, IL: Rand McNally, 1968). Burr Gibbons was also an APL captain. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, Gibbons’s photo caption after page 60. 117. Baldwin Papers, 103. 118. “I. W. W. Members Flogged, Tarred and Feathered,” Tulsa Daily World, November 10, 1917, 1. 119. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 69–70. Prior to Meserve’s appointment, loyalty investigations were handled by Gibbons; Wash Hudson, a future member of the KKK and leader of the Democratic Party in the Oklahoma Senate; and Earl Sneed, future Tulsa city attorney. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 71–72. For Hudson, see Alexander, The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest, 45. For Sneed, see “Earl Sneed is Slated to be Tulsa’s New City Attorney,” Tulsa Daily World, April 12, 1918, 3 (Sneed stands well with the “better element”). 120. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 75; also, Hilton, “The Oklahoma Council of Defense,” 35n42. Brown also claimed that a preponderance of evidence showed that police judge T. D. Evans was “parties criminis [sic] to the outrage.” White, “I.W.W. and Mid-Continent,” 75. Evans’s orders to arrest witnesses and to remove the men from jail are certainly suggestive. It is unlikely, however, that Evans traveled to the “lonely ravine” and no one accused him of being there. He owed his judgeship to the controversy over his predecessor’s practice of attending police raids. “Will Oliphant Succeed Cavitt?,” Tulsa Daily World, April 28, 1917, 4; “City Fathers to Appoint Officers,” Tulsa Daily World, May 1, 1917, 3; “T. D. Evans Named Municipal Judge,” Tulsa Daily World, May 2, 1917, 4. The former judge was the aforementioned E. O. Cavitt. Brown claimed that “all those who conducted the prosecution were the same ones who conducted the outrage,” which would include Cavitt. “Oklahoma Mob Leaders Discovered by the I. W. W.,” Industrial Worker, February 9, 1918, 1. That would be consistent with Cavitt’s “judicial” practices and prior association with Townsend in controlling police work. “Policemen Learn Under Cavitt Plan,” Tulsa Daily World, October 22, 1916, 3; “Jail Officers, Is Plea of Mother,” Tulsa Daily World, January 25, 1917, 1, 5. 121. NCLB Pamphlet, 14. The December 21 witness statement adds that the Knights were mostly men of “good society in Tulsa, business and professional men.” NYSA, 100– 03 (emphasis in original). For Moran’s knowledge and background, see Trekell, History of the Tulsa Police Department, 32–33, 385 (assistant police chief in 1911–12); “John Moran Resigns Federal Job to be Chief of Police,” Tulsa Daily World, April 10, 1918, 1. His brother Rees was chief in 1915–16 following Foster Burns’s ouster. “TPD History ‘The Chiefs,’” Tulsa Police Department, www.tulsapolice.org/content/history/chiefs.aspx. Moran’s sister Mary would be the first woman elected to Tulsa city office, becoming chief auditor. “Evans and Bigger Tulsa Ticket Win,” Tulsa Daily World, April 7, 1920, 1. 122. NYSA, 134–35. 123. The I.W.W. paper Industrial Worker of November 24, 1917, claimed in an article titled “Who is to Blame for Tulsa” that an unnamed Tulsa minister “is said to have helped apply the boiling tar to the raw flesh of the beaten men.” Assuming Brady was the ringleader, it is possible that the minister was associated with him. 124. “Oklahoma Mob Leaders Discovered by the I. W. W.,” Industrial Worker, February 9, 1918, 1. If he was there, Lewis must have had a busy day on Friday. The then last chief of the Cherokee Nation, W. C. Rogers, was buried that afternoon near Skiatook. “Last of Cherokee Chiefs Committed to Earth Again,” Tulsa Daily World, November 10, 1917, 1, 5. Lewis had been Rogers’s secretary. 125. Sellars says that J. Edgar Pew was named as a Knight in Brown’s letter in Industrial Worker. While Brown’s letter refers to Pew as having “taken over” Townsend after the murder indictment, it does not actually accuse Pew of being in the “lonely ravine.” Compare Sellars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies, 108, 233n43 and “Oklahoma Mob Leaders Discovered by the I. W. W.,” Industrial Worker, February 9, 1918, 1. 126. Sellars, Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies, 233n42. In fairness, the Copperhead’s “associates” were the “Sons of Liberty” and “Knights of the Golden Circle.” Nicole Etcheson, “A Union Awash in Conspiracies,” New York Times, October 8, 2014, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/a-union-awash-with-conspiracies. The Tulsa Council was already awash with military affectations, including McFarlin’s “Army of Liberty” and Lindsey’s “Army of Economy.” “$5 a Month Will Now Buy a Bond,” Tulsa Daily World, October 18, 1917, 1; Lilah D. Lindsey, “Tulsa County Army of Economy,” Tulsa Daily World, October 31, 1917, 1. Still, the Knights adopted the atrocity tactics of the original southern KKK. Ironically, the original “Knights of Liberty” were involved in an effort to overthrow slavery. “Moses Dickson and The Knights of Liberty,” Phoenix Masonry, www.phoenixmas onry.org/moses_dickson_and_the_knights_of_liberty.htm. 127. Dale and Morrison, Pioneer Judge, 10–11 (name change and deep devotion to the South), 31 (loved raids and hazardous exploits), 58, 274, 359, 379, 402 (devotions to Southern/Civil War history). 128. “I. W. W. Danger in Tulsa Not Ended,” Tulsa Daily World, November 11, 1917, 1; “The Penalty,” Tulsa Daily World, November 12, 1917, 4 (Knights a “sterling element of citizenship, that class of taxpaying and orderly people who are most of all committed to the observance of the law”) and (“we see no reason why they should not continue the good work.”); “True Side of Tulsa,” Tulsa Daily World, November 13, 1917, 4 (Knights a “patriotic body”); “Muskogee Forms Secret Vigilance Organization,” Tulsa Daily World, November 14, 1917, 14 (Muskogee mayor and businessmen form Knights chapter); “Rope as Well as Tar,” Tulsa Daily World, November 16, 1917, 4 (only criticism is Knights did not go far enough and should listen to newspaper suggestions to lynch). 129. Condon resigned around November 26 to devote himself to war work. “Oklahomans Will Go to War Front,” Tulsa Daily World, November 26, 1917, 2. For subsequent editorial praise for the Knights, see Tulsa Daily World, December 4, 1917, 4 (the Tulsa Outrage gave the city “considerable satisfaction from the nocturnal turn-out and as it was Tulsa’s party nobody cares much what [a New York newspaper] thinks about the incident.”); “Quite a Different Matter,” Tulsa Daily World, December 20, 1917, 4; “Drastic Treatment,” Tulsa Daily World, December 28, 1917, 4 (“a wise application of extra-legal methods is often a benefit.”); Tulsa Daily World, March 30, 1918, 4 (there should be as many units of Knights as of I.W.W.); “The Aegean Stables,” Tulsa Daily World, April 6, 1917, 4 (I.W.W. has “no liberties to be considered, except the liberty to reform and behave themselves.”). 130 “Must Avoid Excesses,” Tulsa Daily World, April 10, 1918, 4. Lorton was born in Missouri and raised there and in Kansas, arriving in Oklahoma in 1911. Harlow, Makers of Government in Oklahoma, 790–91, Thoburn and Wright, Oklahoma: A History of the State and its Peoples, 52–53; Charles Barrett, Oklahoma After Fifty Years: A History of the Sooner State and its People, 1889–1939 (Hopkinsville, KY: Historical Record Association, 1941), 749–50. 131 “Grand Ball New Year’s Eve Is Planned by Tulsa Home Guards to Raise Funds,” Tulsa Daily World, December 14, 1917, 7. Lorton was not alone in indiscretion. In his report to the US attorney general, Meserve ascribed the lack of injuries at the Pew house to the fact that the whole family was sleeping at a remote part of the house, calling into question the newspaper reports that Pew’s wife and one child were sleeping in a front bedroom directly above the blast. Compare “Nitro Blows Up Home of Oil Man,” Tulsa Daily World, October 30, 1917, 6 and Meserve to US attorney general, January 16, 1918, 1–2. Also, Lyons, Assignment in Utopia, 14 (Mrs. Pew was not there). 132. Brown quotes an unnamed Home Guard lieutenant that the guard was ordered to bring “down their arms and stack them at their armory [the Convention Hall].” According to Brown, it was there that the Knights “made up and secured their arms.” NCLB Pamphlet, 14. Within the guard itself, Williams’s appointee Rook was the top of the chain of command. The Knights standing at “present arms” and guarding the approach demonstrated military training. While the Home Guard was still being organized, it incorporated an existing “guard” of war veterans headed by Rook. 133. According to Brown, Colonel Clarence Douglas, executive secretary of McFarlin’s Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, declined an invitation to attend. NCLB Pamphlet, 13–14. This demonstrates the “caliber” of men considered for “Knighthood.” Colonel Douglas may have had his reasons, but they did not include opposing the Tulsa Outrage. He wrote the head of Sacramento’s Chamber of Commerce urging “the Tulsa treatment be applied locally in the vicinity!” “Capitalist Press Counsels Violence,” Industrial Worker, February 2, 1918, 1. His History of Tulsa lauds the Knights for their “quick and effective methods” in stamping out disloyalty, penning that “under darkened shadows in an oak forest was held Tulsa’s famous coming-out party.” Douglas, History of Tulsa, Vol. 1, 469–73. 134. The 1917 structure represents the smaller shoulder of the current building. The larger shoulder and the iconic tower were added in 1929. For building background, see “The Bank at 320 South Boston,” Historic Tulsa (blog), historictulsa.blogspot. com/2011/02/bank-at-320-south-boston.html. 135. “Door to Bank Vault Weighs 17 Tons in Stocking Feet,” Tulsa Daily World, November 11, 1917, 65. The World’s lavish review of the Exchange National Bank building was included as a special insert. “Exchange National Bank Section,” Tulsa Daily World, November 11, 1917, 55–66. 136. “Great Wealth Found on the Upper Floors,” Tulsa Daily World, November 11, 1917, 66. 137. Nigel Sellars, “Wobblies in the Oil Fields: The Suppression of the Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma,” in Davis D. Joyce, ed., “An Oklahoma I Had Never Seen Before”: Alternative Views of Oklahoma History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 133. 138. Tulsa County’s goal was the highest per capita in the United States. “Tulsa Never Fails,” Tulsa Daily World, October 17, 1918, 4. 139. “Council of Defense Sounds Bond Alarm,” Tulsa Daily World, October 12, 1918, 3. Oklahoma papers had been headlining the German collapse for weeks and no paper fell so hard for the “German propaganda” as the Tulsa Daily World. 140. “Knights of Liberty Bobbed Up in Liberty Bond Sale Program,” Tulsa Daily World, October 12, 1918, 1. 141. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 222; Lampe, Sooners in the War, 87 (also placing Robert McFarlin’s picture beside the write-up of Tulsa’s Knights of Liberty). 142 “Miller Exonerated in Sring’s Killing,” Tulsa Daily World, March 27, 1918, 1 (quoting Daniels: “his act is what every loyal American would have been forced to do by the blood in his veins”). No one considered whether there was a weapon found where the waiter was said to have reached. Ironically, the very next column in that day’s World reported the rejection of another killer’s self-defense claim because no weapon accessible to the decedent was located. That case did not involve alleged disloyalty. “Check Leads to Fatal Shooting,” Tulsa Daily World, March 27, 1918, 1. 143. The council prefaced the hearing with a public warning that “open-season” had been declared by infuriated Tulsans and that evidence of disloyalty would not be tolerated. “Council of Defense Warns Aliens Not to Tempt Fate by Hun Remarks,” Tulsa Daily World, March 26, 1918, 1. 144. “Mob Victim Places Self in Hands of Sheriff McCullough,” Tulsa Daily World, April 18, 1918, 1, 2; “Council of Defense Condemns Mob Attack on John Kubecka,” Tulsa Daily World, April 19, 1918, 1, 5. Miller was drunk, got himself identified, and the alleged adulterer turned out to be innocent. “Woman in Knights of Liberty Case Not Ted White’s Wife,” Tulsa Daily World, April 20, 1918, 1; “Kubecka Enlists in Service of Country,” Tulsa Daily World, April 21, 1918, 10. Nonetheless, the Tulsa Council’s 1919 official his tory lauded Miller as an “efficient detective” of the council’s “well-organized” investigative department. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War, 69. 145. “Let Law and Order Reclaim Tulsa from Masked Mob’s Rule,” Tulsa Daily World, April 18, 1918, 1. 146. “Plans Made to Make Thefts Unpopular,” Tulsa Daily World, November 15, 1918, 8 (new anticar theft Vigilance Committee to use “same system that stamped out I. W. W. activities in Tulsa” or “a few feet of rope and a convenient tree,” as with horse thieves). A year earlier, a World editorial had itself invoked the horse thief remedy in justifying action against the I.W.W. “Patience Has an End,” Tulsa Daily World, October 31, 1917, 4. 147. The phrase “big-brained busy men” is borrowed from Colonel Douglas, who used it to describe McFarlin, Lewis, Condon, and others who attended Governor Williams on Belgium Day in Tulsa. Clarence B. Douglas, “The Answer,” Tulsa Daily World, August 12, 1917, 24. For the role of “legitimization” of violence by the “best people,” see Levin, Political Hysteria in America, 6–8, 127 148. Scott Ellsworth, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot, 2001), 50. 149. Scales and Goble, Oklahoma Politics: A History, 108; Clark, “History of the Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma,” viii-ix, 44–47 (“Klan-initiated outbursts were carried out by the same individuals who precipitated violence earlier in non-Klan guises as wartime members of councils of defense or as law officers.”); Thompson, Closing the Frontier, 192–93 (“The Klan, like the council [of defense], dominated the prosperous urban areas of the northeast. Seventy of the Klan’s 102 violent raids occurred in Tulsa County, and another 25 occurred in neighboring Okmulgee and Creek counties.”). 150. “The Penalty,” Tulsa Daily World, November 12, 1917, 4.

By Randy Hopkins A scene from the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 courtesy of the Tulsa World Part 3: War Comes to Tulsa James Hirsch, writing in Riot and Remembrance, reports that by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31, 1921, Tulsa police officials “feared the explosive combination of forces” resulting from the news of Diamond Dick Rowland’s arrest.[i] If so, the police did a good job of concealing their fears. Besides allowing the off-duty police to stay in bed, they neglected to summon a force that could have easily prevented trouble - the Tulsa contingent of the state’s national guard which that very day was preparing for summer encampment. In his after-action report, Byron Kirkpatrick, later Tulsa County Attorney, wrote that he was “well acquainted with both Tulsa police and county officials,” who failed to say anything about mobilizing the guard at a time when “we could have mobilized a sufficient force to have handled the situation.”[ii] Brigadier General Barrett claimed that the presence of a mere six uniformed guards would have prevented the riot.[iii] Certainly, six uniformed guardsmen outside the courthouse, bayonets gleaming, would have dampened everyone’s ardor. Without the possibility of a show, the audience would have little reason to stay, and the disastrous chain reaction less likely to ensue. It was not the only time Tulsa city authorities catastrophically slow-played the national guard. When the police did venture out that night, they may as well have been blindfolded. Gustafson claimed that he and Patton drove to the county courthouse around 7:30 p.m. and found a “not very large” crowd.[iv] He offered the first of a series of excuses that the audience was not a mob, but merely curious and not ill-spirited. This was not a good sign, as Gustafson well knew. Nine months earlier another curious crowd was treated to a devil’s passion play near Red Fork. Some attendees stripped Roy Belton’s lynched corpse bare for souvenirs. Now, an encore appeared in the offing. Adjutant General Barrett described it as the hope for a “Roman Holiday.”[v] Gustafson and Patton left those who had assembled to their anticipations, returning to the station “without stopping.”[vi] At least in its initial stages, the growing audience might have been viewed as placing pressure on McCullough to run from the courthouse with his prisoner in tow. James Patton, Chief Detective of the Tulsa Police Department courtesy of the Tulsa Tribune In his 1922 deposition, Gustafson explained that about 8 p.m. a “Dr. Cook called me on the phone and told me he had had a report that they were going to try to take the nigger out of the county jail at eight-thirty.” Gustafson ordered Patton to call McCullough and remind him “if he needed any help to let us know.”[vii] The off-duty police remained at home. Possibly in response to Cook’s call, Gustafson decided to retest the waters, testifying that “about 8 o’clock” or “sometime after eight o’clock,” he and Patton returned to find the still peaceable assembly had grown to two to three hundred. Remaining “just a few minutes,” they again returned to the station.[viii] Their passivity was fatal and again Gustafson knew the risks. Nine months earlier, he stood “a few feet” from one masked Belton killer when he ordered the police to stand down for fear, he said, of causing harm to innocent men, women, and children. The growing crowd also triggered a risk absent in Belton - the arousal of an armed constituency opposing mob rule and “the actions of Judge Lynch.”[ix] By placidly driving away, Gustafson and Patton condemned Greenwood without lifting a finger. Dr. Cook’s warning was well-given. Around 8:20 p.m., three men, apparently unarmed, entered the County courthouse for their famous confrontation with McCullough and his shotgun-wielding sidekick Ira Short. McCullough testified in 1922 that he recognized one of them.[x] More clues are provided by state District judge Redmond S. Cole. Assuming that a federal investigation would ensue, Cole reported to former associates in the U. S. Justice Department that: "Beyond peradventure of a doubt the same group of rough necks and hoodlums who mobbed Belton last September planned this outrage. As nearly as I can get it some 15 or 20 of them went to the Court house; it was known throughout town what they expected to do." [xi] Cole also named a name: "There is a party in Tulsa known among the underworld as Yellow Hammer who is supposed to have been the leader in the Belton mob and who was whitewashed by the Belton grand jury. It is common talk around Tulsa that he was one of the ring leaders in this bunch; his correct name is Cranfield." Yellow Hammer Cranfield was listed in the attorney general’s file as a ringleader in Belton’s execution, along with his older brother William. It was William Cranfield who assured the Tulsa assistant county attorney that “the police had agreed them to help them lynch this boy (Belton) and that they had some good citizens in addition to that.” Of the hundreds that Adkison and Gustafson specially commissioned, only two names have survived. One is Cranfield.[xii] Dick Rowland, in the center holding the ball, courtesy of Booker T. Washington High School The three-man invasion was a last, forlorn throw of the dice to get McCullough to run or cave under pressure. The police had failed to roust Rowland; the street gang took its turn, such as it was. Their meek performance notwithstanding, the closing act of the plot to kill Dick Rowland was the first overt act of the Tulsa Race Massacre.[xiii] Rumors flew. The crowd grew. After the three were shown the door, they rejoined their allies outside and engaged in a shouting match with McCullough, who had followed them. Hooting and hollering spread to the no longer just-curious assembly.[xiv] None of this phased the police. Not until 9 p.m., a full hour after Dr. Cook called, did Gustafson, accompanied by captain George Blaine and detective Doc Mondier, venture back to the courthouse, still just four blocks away.[xv] The occasion for this visit was the blockbuster news that armed men from Greenwood were mobilizing and even driving past the police station. Gustafson “found a great crowd of spectators surrounding the courthouse, including women, men and children.” Blaine quantified this as two thousand people “packing the street.” Joining the mix now were “many armed negroes on foot and in cars,” said by Blaine to be in an “ugly mood.” The foul temper was shared by the whites, as “each (negro) car was followed by 200 or more whites who screamed and shook their fists.”[xvi] On the courthouse stairs, Gustafson and Blaine had their “practically suicide” conversation, yielding they claimed to a sudden realization that the audience of innocents meant they were powerless to act - it would have meant “death to scores.”[xvii] The remorseless Evans read from the same script in his post-Massacre report.[xviii] Evans also blamed a “shot fired by a fool black person” for the “racial war” and that the “uprising was inevitable.” He had certainly helped make it inevitable on May 31. By 10 p.m., the Tribune estimated the number of “armed negroes at between 100 and 200” and “probably 100 of the whites in the crowd had procured arms.”[xix] Captain George Blaine and his family courtesy of the Tulsa Tribune The outbreak of shooting caused Adkison and Gustafson finally to request help from the local national guard.[xx] Even then, duplicity reigned. Having been told, or rather reminded, that permission from the Adjutant General Charles Barrett in Oklahoma City was required, Gustafson swore under oath that he called Barrett for help.[xxi] Barrett wrote that it was he who placed the call to Gustafson, who “replied with the assurance that the civil authorities could control the situation.”[xxii] Gustafson may have desired help from the local national guard, but the out-of-town contingent, with its connection to Barrett and Governor Robertson, was anathema. Under Oklahoma law, local authorities were required to request the calling out of the national guard. By failing to do this, Tulsa’s city authorities kept Barrett’s Oklahoma City guard at arm’s length. Had a request been made when the shooting first broke out, Barrett’s men would have arrived hours earlier, perhaps in time to disarrange Wednesday’s dawn invasion of Greenwood. Yet, in spite of Barrett’s repeated pleas, no such request was made until Barrett and Kirkpatrick initiated the process at least three hours after the fighting began. The resulting 1:46 a.m. telegram finally allowed the “full mobilization” of Barrett’s Oklahoma City city guard.[xxiii] Barrett’s trainload of men arrived at the Frisco station sometime after 8 a.m., “ready for instant action.”[xxiv] Under Oklahoma law, however, Bartlett was first required to report to local authorities and secure their “orders” or the invocation of martial law.[xxv] In spite of knowing when he was arriving, Gustafson, Adkison, and the others stayed away, forcing Barrett and his guard to wander ridiculously south away from the action in search of constituted authority. They went first to the unavailable Sheriff and then to city hall.[xxvi] The attitude of city officials during the resulting meeting was likely revealed when Adkison later bragged that he and the police had “the city pretty well in hand before Adjutant General Barrett arrived.”[xxvii] As it was, they agreed to martial law just in time to get help cleaning up the mess they had created. Barrett finally took control at 11:29 p.m., about three hours after his arrival, during which time Greenwood continued to burn and people continued to die, many in the flames.[xxviii] Afterward, Mary E. Jones Parrish disclosed the loud praise of “the State Troops who so gallantly came to the rescue of stricken Tulsa,” who used “no partiality in quieting the disorder,” and that many lives and valuable property would have been saved “if they had reached the scene sooner.”[xxix] Yet, from start to finish, Tulsa’s city officials impeded the arrival and deployment of the only institution in the state that might have saved the day, or at least part of it. If those government officials had desired to murder Greenwood, they could have implemented no better policy.[xxx] Was the plot to kill Diamond Dick Rowland also a prearranged set-up for the destruction and ethnic cleansing of Greenwood and its replacement by train stations and real estate developments? Or, did the failure to get Rowland simply create a sudden target of opportunity, empowering city officials and others who “made up their minds between Tuesday and Wednesday morning to drive the Negroes from the town.”[xxxi] Either way, the destruction would have been an intentional crime, or rather, many of them. Randy Krehbiel argues out that a carefully planned scheme would have found a better pretext than shooting-up downtown and killing white people.[xxxii] Another question is whether Gustafson and the others would have concocted a plan where their own lives would be at risk from a hothead’s bullet?[xxxiii] Police bravery was in short supply that night. Commissioner Younkman, the only one to cover himself in the least bit of honor, accused the police of being “yellow” and that Gustafson was terrified that the police station was going to be stormed by the white mob.[xxxiv] Self-preservation may have been one reason why the police were so quick to fling out “handfuls of badges like trinkets from a float in the Mardi Gras parade.” While the newspapers missed it, the lights were turned out at the station, the better to keep the police safe.[xxxv] Patton left the station right after the shooting started and spent the evening atop the Tulsa ice plant. Twelve to fifteen other officers spent time around the plant, which offered an air-conditioned safe space.[xxxvi] Others scattered elsewhere and eyewitness Gene Maxey, later Tulsa County Undersheriff, said, “there wasn’t any police around.”[xxxvii] The initial vacuum at the police station was such that a former chief deputy U. S. marshall testified that an actor from the Orpheum Theater took charge in front of the station shortly after the riot broke out.[xxxviii] The Tulsa Ice Company served as Detective Patton's retreat during the Massacre. Courtesy of Col. Clarence Douglas' History of Tulsa Yet, when Sheriff McCullough finally emerged around 9 a.m. Wednesday morning, he found the police back in charge and “engineering” the round-up of negroes, all with hands held high including “old women who couldn’t hurt anyone.”[xxxix] According to Gustafson, the police station was the coordinating headquarters between the police and the “militia.” Gustafson was described as exercising “complete charge” during the evening’s events, handing out orders, and working the telephones all night long.[xl] Apart from Barrett pleading with Gustafson to call the state guard, most of the persons on the other end of those lines are presently unknown.[xli] Control had been restored to the police, city officials, and anyone above or behind them by the prompt arrival of reinforcements. At 10:45 p.m., Lt. Col. L. J. F. Rooney, commander of Tulsa’s national guard contingent, placed himself and his men at Gustafson’s and Adkison’s disposition.[xlii] It was a professional force capable of defeating armed resistance, part of which was itself war-trained.[xliii] Organized veterans of the World War assembled in formation to await orders.[xlvi] Member of Tulsa’s wartime Home Guard, who had also been commanded by Rooney, mustered under arms and arrived as well.[xlv] Numerous eyewitnesses describe this reassembled Home Guard playing a coordinating role in Greenwood’s destruction, enticing people to leave their homes under unfulfilled promises that their property would be protected, as well as engaging in sadistic behavior. Just as praise for Bartlett’s late-arriving national guard contingent was “on every tongue,” so was “denunciation of the Home Guards on every lip,” according to Mary E. Jones Parrish.[xlvi] The specially commissioned police, loaded with badges and guns, provided yet more foot soldiers, along with the outraged, hateful, thrill-seeking, or just greedy thousands who joined the party and helped make the terror so multi-faceted. By dawn, sixty or seventy automobiles filled with armed men formed a “circle of steel” about “Little Africa” accompanied by “many reports” that they planned to range through Greenwood and “clean it out.”[xlvii] The police department even had its own air force, or “air police” as the Tribune called it. The airplanes were owned by the Curtiss Southwest Aeroplane company and flown by war-experienced pilots.[xlviii] Having previously winged “back and forth through the smoke” over the Mid-Continent refinery in search of radicals, they would buzz low over Greenwood in the first seconds of Wednesday’s dawn invasion, spreading terror in their wake.[xlix] Tulsa’s air police tracked the location of armed resistance to the invasion, the spread of fires, and the roads “crowded with fleeing negroes,” which intelligence was communicated to the police station via dropped messages.[l] Described in the press as “heavily armed,” both the planes and the pilots were specially commissioned when in city operation.[li] That meant that any weapon dropped, thrown, fired, or shot from any of those airplanes constituted official ordnance of the City of Tulsa. Tulsa had long been preparing for battle, though when it came the enemy was not the Germans, or radicals, or crooks, but part of itself. In November 1917, the Daily World announced a plan designed by “prominent citizens, the Tulsa police, (Tulsa) council of defense and the Home Guard” whereby “Tulsa will soon be in a position to become a bristling arsenal upon a moments (sic) notice.” The scheme centered on a “peculiar signal of the fire whistle at the Public Service plant,” which would be “distinguished from the regular fire alarm.” Upon hearing the signal, regardless of the hour, “citizens all over town would hasten to the street with firearms.”[lii] By November 1920, the Public Service fire whistle was upgraded so that it could be heard for twenty miles.[liii] By dawn on Wednesday, June 1, 1921, only the want of a signal stood between Tulsa’s bristling arsenal and a holocaust on the other side of the tracks. J. C. Latimer, the architect and contractor whose new Booker T. Washington high school was one of the few buildings to survive, later told Mary Parrish what happened then: "Early in the morning, between 5 and 6 a.m., a “riot call” was given; that is the city whistle gave one long blow, and then looking through windows, I could see the Whites, armed with high-powered rifles, coming from the hill and surrounding the colored district."[liv] Endnotes: [i] James S. Hirsch, Riot and Remembrance, 81. [ii] “Letter Major Byron Kirkpatrick to Lieut. Col. L. J. F. Rooney,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 3: I wish to further state that at no time during the day or night of May 31st, 1921, did I receive any intimation of trouble to be apprehended. I am well acquainted with both police and county officials of Tulsa County, Oklahoma. None of these said anything whatever about mobilizing the guard or getting ready for possible trouble. If such information could have been had, I have no doubt that we could have mobilized a sufficient force to have handled the situation. Coming as this order did, after 10:00 at night, after the men had gone home, it was a matter of great difficulty to get word to them. [iii] “Tulsa in Remorse to Rebuild Homes; Dead Now Put at 30,” New York Times, June 3, 1921, quoted in Tom Streissguth, ed., Reporting: The Tulsa Riot 1921, 70; Robert D. Norris, Jr., ”The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” 44. [iv] “Chief Tells His Own Story about Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, June 19th, 1921. 1; also, “Chief and Officers Take Witness Stand,” Tulsa Daily World, July 20, 1921, 1 (crowd at 300). [v] Charles F. Barrett, Fifty Years, 206. [vi] “Chief and Officers Take Witness Stand,” Tulsa Daily World, July 20, 1921, 1, 8. [vii] Gustafson 1922 deposition, 2. Gustafson may have referred to the same conversation in his trial testimony but said the caller did not leave his name. Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 8. Dr. Cook appears to be Fred S. Cook, who worked for a Standard Oil subsidiary, Prairie Oil. Dr. Cook, who had accompanied Rev. Cooke, Townsend, and J. Arthur Hull on their tour of Greenwood, also witnessed the shooting of Ed Wheeler during the Massacre. “Sheriff Slept Through Tulsa Riot,” Tulsa Daily World, July 15, 1921, 8; “Police Accused From Stand,” Tulsa Tribune, July 15, 1921, 9. [viii] Gustafson 1921 testimony, 11-12; “Chief Tells His Own Story about Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, July 21, 1921, 1 The Tulsa Daily World’s version seems to suggest that Gustafson estimated the crowd as “over a thousand,” but this may relate to his later post-9 p.m. visit. “Chief and Officers Take Witness Stand,” Tulsa Daily World, July 20, 1921, 8. [ix] Charles F. Barrett, Fifty Years, 206. [x] McCullough 1922 deposition, 16 (“Tom Bailey, was the only one I recognized”). On the other hand, McCullough was quoted by a reporter that he did not recognize the three. “Sheriff Says Telephone Call Started Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, 1. [xi] Cole to Findlay letter. Judge Cole also named E. S. Macqueen as “the man that fired the first shot” on May 31, 1921. Ironically, the shot appears to have been fired beneath the window of the County Attorney's office, out of which Macqueen worked at the behest of the wartime Committee of 100. McCullough 1922 deposition, 18. The Tribune reported that Macqueen then “fired point blank” into the negroes. “Seven Battles Rage During the War of the Races,” Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, 3. Macqueen’s name also appears on the list of knowledgeable individuals regarding the lynching of Roy Belton. AG Civil Case 0017-004. [xii] “Part 1 Police Officer Notepad,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 15. [xiii] The entry into the station was the first legal violation of the evening, assuming that it did not occur when Adkison urged McCullough to take flight. It was a “rout,” a misdemeanor under the state’s riot statute. The next violations were those of the white crowd who refused McCullough’s requests to leave. These were an “unlawful assembly” and a “failure to disperse,” also misdemeanors. This is important because a consultant to the 2000 Race Riot Commission argued that the brandishing of arms by Blacks constituted the first legal violation (also a misdemeanor). Robert D. Norris, Jr., ”The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” 83-86, 92, 311-12. This, in turn, supported the argument that has existed since 1921, namely that the arrival of armed Blacks “caused” the disaster. That starts too late in the chain of events. The opening of the “riot” stage of the Massacre, involving felonies, may have occurred with the attempted storming of the National Guard Armory which triggered reactions in Greenwood. Whenever the “riot” started, it meant that all participants were as guilty of murder, maiming, robbery, or arson as if they had fired guns, threw torches, or dropped bombs with their own hands. “Oklahoma’s Riot Statute,” Black Dispatch, June 17, 1921, 4. Roscoe Dunjee printed the statute to demonstrate the “ground of action” for murder against the rioters. “Read what the law says," he pleaded, but to no avail. [xiv] “Sheriff Says Telephone Call Started Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, 1. Everyone assumed that Rowland was inside the county jail at this point. Deputy Barney Cleaver, however, was later quoted in the Black Dispatch that Rowland “was not in the jail when the mob appeared there, but we could not afford to tell where he was.” Had McCullough somehow slipped his targeted prisoner to a hiding place unbeknownst to the police and mob? If Rowland had been transported to Cleaver’s farm outside of town, as Krehbiel suggests, it would explain why they could not tell anyone where. The Tulsa Tribune said that the transfer occurred on Wednesday at 2 a.m. and McCullough was quoted that the removal came at 8:00 a.m. Adding to the unreality of the situation, Cleaver also told the Black Dispatch that Rowland was in South Omaha, having been released without charges. Rowland’s indictment occurred on June 18, 1921, and the available court papers suggest, but do not confirm that Rowland remained in custody until his late September 1921 dismissal. Compare, “Dick Rowland in South Omaha, No Trace of Girl,” Black Dispatch, June 17, 1921, 1; “Dick Rowland Is Spirited Out of City,” Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, 6 (2:00 a.m.); "Story of Attack on Woman Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, June 2, 1921, 14 (8:00 a.m.); Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921, 77, 82 (taken to Cleaver farm). [xv] “Chief Tells Own Story about Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, July 19, 1921, 1. At 9 p.m., Greenwood businessman Tolly J. Elliott called Evans to warn him of a “dangerous and excited crowd” gathering in Greenwood. Evans replied that “he had just finished a conference with the police department head and that they had the situation in hand and no serious trouble could occur.” “Mayor Warned of Uprising Negro Avers,” Tulsa Tribune, June 6, 1921, 1. [xvi] Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 16; “Chief Tells Own Story about Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, July 19, 1921, 1. For Blaine's testimony, see “Chief and Officers Take Witness Stand,” Tulsa Daily World, July 20, 1921, 1. [xvii] “Chief and Officers Take Witness Stand,” Tulsa Daily World, July 20, 1921, 1, 8. [xviii] “Message Mayor to Commissioners,” Record of Commission Proceedings, City of Tulsa, Vol. XV, June 14, 1921, 24-6; “Riot Statement Made by Mayor,” Tulsa Daily World, June 15, 1921, 1 (per Evans, to have fired upon the negroes when they first visited the courthouse would have meant lives of innocent men, women and children). [xix] “Many Shots are Fired in Clash at the Frisco,” Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, 5. [xx] “Chief Tells Own Story About Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, July 19, 1921, 1 (“when the shooting began, Adkison and I talked it over at the police station and decided the best thing to do was to get the assistance of the local national guard”). Gustafson and Adkison testified that the chief made the call, but Major Bell’s after-action report claims that he made that call. “Letter Major Jas A. Bell to Lieut. Col. L. J. F. Rooney,” 1921 July 2, Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 2. Even then, Gustafson did not make a formal request for help from the state national guard. [xxi] “Chief Tells Own Story About Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, July 19, 1921, 1. [xxii] Charles F. Barrett, Fifty Years, 207. [xxiii] Robert D. Norris, J., “The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” 136-137, 146-147 (request by local authorities was mandatory in order lawfully to call out the guard); “Letter Major Byron Kirkpatrick to Lieut. Col. L. J. F. Rooney,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 2. As a result of Tulsa’s delayed request for help, Barrett could only tell the Frisco railroad that a train to Tulsa would probably be needed, but that he could not yet make a definitive order. A round-up of troops was also delayed. The official orders were given at 3 a.m. and the train finally departed "at five something.” Charles F. Barrett, Fifty Years, 212. [xxiv] Charles F. Barrett, Fifty Years, 212 (shortly after 8 a.m.). [xxv] Robert D. Norris, Jr., ”The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” 212-213, 221-224, 337. [xxvi] For Barrett’s tour south, “Arrival of the State Troops,” Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, map 9. [xxvii] “Arsenal Urged for City Hall,” Tulsa Tribune, June 29, 1921, 1. Gustafson was aware of the arrival time because Kirkpatrick had been stationed at the police station by Barrett's orders. Kirkpatrick knew of the arrival time and met the train. Police inspector Charles Daley was there as well. Robert D. Norris, Jr., ”The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” 224. [xxviii] Kirkpatrick’s after-action report puts Barrett's arrival at 9:15 a.m. If so, then "only" two hours were lost due to the added obstructionism by city officials. “Letter Major Byron Kirkpatrick to Lieut. Col. L. J. F. Rooney,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 2-3. [xxix] Mary E. Jones Parrish, Race Riot 1921: Events of the Tulsa Disaster, (Tulsa, OK: Out on a Limb Publishing 1998), 31. [xxx] Robert D. Norris, Jr., ”The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,”137, 224-225 (“a sorry, inexcusable, and probably disastrous loss of time which could have been avoided if the civil authorities had made a timely call for assistance from the Governor”). [xxxi] George W. Buckner, “Riot Victims are Neglected,” St. Louis Argus (MO), June 24, 1921, cited in Tom Streissguth, ed., Reporting: The Tulsa Riot 1921,125. [xxxii] Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921, 47. [xxxiii] In contrast, an ambush would have placed Rowland and McCullough at primary risk. During the 1917 Deep Fork Valley ambush, Gustafson positioned himself well down the line in the second rank of ambushers, armed with his weapon of choice, a shotgun. “Tulsa Detective Tells of Fight,” Tulsa Daily World, January 20, 1917, 1. [xxxiv] “Arsenal Urged for City Hall,” Tulsa Tribune, June 29, 1921, 2. Younkman’s accusations came at the June 28, 1921 city commission meeting. After hearing Younkman call his police “yellow,” Adkison demanded to know where Younkman was that night. Younkman replied with a withering critique of Gustafson’s performance. The water commissioner was probably looking at Adkison when he disclosed that he gave orders to the Fire Chief to loose water hoses on the courthouse mob, adding “I don’t know why that was not done.” After this, “Younkman was not questioned further.” As Fire Commissioner, Adkison also ran the fire department. [xxxv] “Miscellaneous Witness List,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062 (names and addresses of witnesses to the lights at the Police Station being turned off), 1. For Mardi Gras trinkets, Robert D. Norris, Jr., "The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” 227. [xxxvi] “Miscellaneous Witness List,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062 (per Norman Bickers, night operator at ice plant First and Cheyenne), 1; “More Police on Stand at Chief’s Trial,” Tulsa Tribune, July 20, 1921, 1; Scott Ellsworth, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 70-71 (one-fifth of police force at ice plant). [xxxvii] ”Maxey_Interview_Copy_1.pdf, Avery Collection, 9-11. Maxey also reported that on the afternoon of June 1, he saw “truck load after truck load of colored people stacked-up like cord wood” driving south on Main Street for disposal. He also said they used “trucks owned by the City of Tulsa, for they’d hold a lot of people.” Byron Kirkpatrick, serving as the Adjutant General’s aide, acknowledged reports of bodies being removed by trucks operated “by citizens.” “Dead Estimate at 100; City is Quiet,” Tulsa Daily World, June 2, 1921, 1. J. Burr Gibbons, head of the wartime Tulsa Council of Defense, lent support for this claim in his 1946 interview with Loren Gill. Loren L. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 45, n63. Gibbons was in charge of the Tulsa Convention Center when it was a collecting center for captives during the Race Massacre. [xxxviii] “Sheriff Tells of Plans to Guard Negro,” Tulsa Tribune, July 14, 1921, 11. [xxxix] McCullough 1922 deposition, 26 (“It looked to me like everybody had guns; some of them in uniform, but the police seemed to be engineering it”). The failure to hold hands high could be a capital offense, as eyewitness Dr. Jack Smitherman claimed that a man was shot on Brady street for that very reason. Dr. Smitherman also reported that four men were shot in front of Convention Hall, though he gave no reason, if there was a reason. “Dick Rowland in South Omaha, No Trace of Girl,” Black Dispatch, June 17, 1921, 1. [xl] “Keep Off the Streets, Plea of Police Boss,” Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, 2 (Gustafson says working in co-operation with the “militia"). “Sheriff Slept Through Tulsa Riot,” Tulsa Daily World, July 15, 1921, 8 (Gustafson in complete charge per Dr. Fred Cook); “Instruction is Denied by Court,” Tulsa Daily World, July 16, 1921, 2 (Gustafson “completely in charge” and conferring with the head of Tulsa national guard contingent per police inspector Charles Daley); “More Police on Stand at Chief’s Trial, Tulsa Tribune, July 20, 1921, 1 (Gustafson in control per Doc Mondier). [xli] One known telephone contact occurred when J. P. Roberts, principal of the Sequoyah school in north Tulsa, called Gustafson at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday morning to report that three or four policemen could prevent the burning and sacking of the “best negro residential district” if sent at once. Roberts said Gustafson promised he would send them “immediately,” but they never came. Very shortly afterward, four or five men arrived and began to “systematically fire the houses.” Roberts said that a “few armed policemen could have easily dispersed these men.” A looting party of forty or fifty men followed the firebrands, dashing in and carrying out everything of value they could find. Finally, one guardsman appeared at 10 a.m. “after the arson and looting had ben (sic) accomplished.” “School Chief Says Officers Failed in Duty,” Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, 5. [xlii] This was the command passed on by Bartlett. Charles F. Bartlett, Fifty Years, 209; Robert D. Norris, Jr., ”The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” 139. Both Robertson and Barrett chose to overlook the fact that city authorities had not yet asked for help as required by the law. However well-intentioned, it meant that Gustafson received an augmentation of power notwithstanding his own calculated failure to seek it. Rooney expressed his view of affairs when he described the crowd of armed whites mobbing the police station as a “friendly one.” “More Police on Stand at Chief’s Trial,” Tulsa Tribune, July 20, 1921, 1, 5. [xliii] For the role of Rooney’s Tulsa national guard contingent, Scott Ellsworth, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 66-81; Robert D. Norris, Jr., “The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.” Police Inspector Charles Daley testified that Rooney and Gustafson conferred during the night. “Instruction is Denied by Court,” Tulsa Daily World, July 16, 1921, 2. [xliv] “More Police on Stand at Chief’s Trial,” Tulsa Tribune, July 20, 1921, 1, 5. In addition to the “great mob” in front of the station, Rooney also found 125 or 150 armed men drawn up in military formation, which he discovered to be American Legion men. He marched them through downtown. The presence of these war veterans refutes Gustafson’s later alibi that an extra fifty trained men would have allowed the police to “prevent the wholesale rioting and burning.” “Ex-Yanks on Guard; O. N. G. Troops Gone,” Tulsa Tribune, June 4, 1921, 1. [xlv] William T. Lampe, Tulsa County in the World War (Tulsa, OK: Tulsa County Historical Society, 1919), 66, 73-77 (“The Tulsa County Council of National Defense recognizes that Captain Rooney and his Home Guard have been its own right arm of power”). The Council of Defense’s official history describes the paramilitary force as armed, trained, available on “immediate” notice for “any emergency,” and that few emergencies could have arisen which could not have been “handled on the spot.” The ranks of the Home Guard was said to be made up of soldiers of fortune, men who served in many wars, adventurers, old Indian fighters, ex-Mounties, dead shots, ex-lawmen, gunmen, rough-riders, ex-guerrillas, and former secret service officers “eager for more mysteries to uncover.” [xlvi] Mary E. Jones Parrish, Race Riot 1921: Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 31, 37, 39, 49, 55-56, 59, 86; “Loot, Arson, Murder!” Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921, 1; Bob Hower, Angels of Mercy, 3, 211. While there were many men with uniforms running about, many of these witnesses had lived in Tulsa during the World War when Rooney’s Home Guard had been a heavy presence. The Home Guard had also worn uniforms distinct from U. S. Army or national guard uniforms. Robert D. Norris, Jr., ”The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” 243. They also wore distinctive scarlet stars on the sleeves of all uniforms, shirts, and coats. “Small Red Star Indicates Tulsa Home Guard,” Tulsa Daily World, October 3, 1918, 5. The consistent eyewitness identification of their tormenters as the “Home Guard” merits some respect. [xlvii] “White Advancing into ‘Little Africa;’ Negro Death List is About 15,” Tulsa Daily World, June 1, 1921, 1 (3rd edition). [xlviii] “Air Police Sworn in by Mayor,” Tulsa Tribune, May 1, 1920, 1. [xlix] For buzzing and terror at Wednesday’s dawn, Mary E. Jones Parrish, Race Riot 1921: Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 20 (“daylight had a depressing surprise in store for us…we heard such a buzzing noise that, on rushing to the door…the sights our eyes beheld made our poor hearts stand still for a moment. There was a great shadow in the sky and, upon a second look, we discerned that this cloud was caused by fast approaching aeroplanes. It then dawned up us that the enemy had organized in the night and was invading our district, the same as the Germans invaded France and Belgium”), 22, 37, 45, 62, 65, 87. [l] “Air Observers Watched Blacks for the Police,” Tulsa Tribune, June 2, 1921, 3. One of the commissioned pilots flying the 1920 May Day patrol, D. A. McIntyre, was general manager of Curtiss Southwest during the Massacre and a Gustafson supporter. “Much Surprise Expressed Over Gustafson Verdict,” Tulsa Daily World, July 24, 1921, 1 (McIntyre could not see a thing in the evidence to convict Gustafson). Sinclair Oil may have had involvement as well. Richard S. Wilson, “Airplanes and the Riot,” Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, 104-06. [li] “Air Police Sworn in by Mayor,” Tulsa Tribune, May 1, 1920, 1. The aviation company's lawyers would have insisted that city government authorities issue special commissions for both airplane and pilot, lest company property be at risk of loss or the corporation exposed to vast liability if something went wrong. What if a plane went down while weaving through the smoke over the Mid-Continent refinery in search of radicals or while flying low over the Tulsa police station to deliver intelligence? [lii] “Signal to Call Tulsa for Duty,” Tulsa Daily World, November 18, 1917. [liii] “Innovation Here in New Whistle,” Tulsa Daily World, November 21, 1920, 6. [liv] Mary E. Jones Parrish, Race Riot 1921: Events of the Tulsa Disaster, 60-61. Before he retired to the ice plant for the evening, James Patton took time to take Doc Mondier to the public service plant to provide security, even though five or six policemen had already retreated there. It is possible that the detective they called Popcorn Shorty was the one who blew the whistle. “More Police on Stand at Chief’s Trial,” Tulsa Tribune, July 20, 1921, 1.

By Randy Hopkins Article from the Tulsa Tribune state-edition on June 1st, 1921 courtesy of The Oklahoma Historical Society. Part Two: The Police Nab A Negro Shortly after 3 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31, 1921, anyone who picked up a copy of the afternoon Tulsa Tribune newspaper was exposed to a front-page article titled “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator.” The odds that the reader’s attention would be drawn to the article was heightened by the outcries of the paper’s newsboys, who used it to hawk the paper. The article was both false and, where literally true, misleading. The article opened by proclaiming that “A negro delivery boy who gave his name to the police as “Diamond Dick” but who has been identified as Dick Rowland was arrested…” for attempting to assault the 17-year-old white elevator operator in the Drexel building on Monday. Off the bat, the reader learned that the culprit boldly gave the now incriminating nickname to the police, requiring them to unwind his identity. There is, however, only the thinnest chance that the police were unaware of the real Dick Rowland.[i] Rowland’s shoe stand was in a popular pool hall at the northeast corner of Third and Main, the hub of downtown Tulsa. Tulsa Police Chief John Gustafson’s detective agency was right across the street on the northwest corner in the Bliss Building. The police station was around the corner on Second between Main and Boulder. Half a block to the south was the Drexel building and two more blocks south stood the Ketchum Hotel, where Gustafson lived. The chief, whose routine term for negroes was “niggers,” would have passed the intersection commuting between home and work.[ii] Even allowing for exaggeration, surviving descriptions of Rowland wearing a diamond ring, flashing cash, hanging out at jazz clubs where he was “one of the best dancers in Tulsa’s negro quarter,” and, of course, having an “eye for the ladies” would have turned heads and raised eyebrows.[iii] The corner of 3rd St. and Main St. in Tulsa circa 1922-1923 courtesy of The Oklahoma Historical Society Also described as jovial and outgoing, he appears to have been well-known and well-regarded by his white businessman clientele.[iv] If his pictures are shown in the 1921 Booker T. Washington yearbook, he dressed well enough to stand out even by white businessman standards. As a star football player and powerful center on the basketball team, he stood out even further.[v] The 1921 Tulsa police, steeped in the racism of the day, missed all this? They knew enough to single him out for arrest. Claiming them to be dens of iniquity, the police had long cast a suspicious eye on negro rooming houses and the Rowland family ran a large one at 505 East Archer, just blocks from the police station. That was where Dick Rowland was living and supposedly hiding after the affair of the elevator.[vi] The April 1921 Federal Report on Vice identified this “colored house” at a place of prostitution.[vii] Damie Rowland, Dick’s adoptive “mama,” and her brother Clarence Rowland had themselves ran afoul of the police on liquor charges at a so-called “negro resort.”[viii] If even a part of Rowland’s historical reputation is true, he would have had a target on his back and the police would have known right where to get their man. “Nab Negro” next informed the public that Diamond Dick had been arrested Tuesday morning on South Greenwood. The Tuesday arrest has long been accepted as gospel, but Gustafson insisted that he was arrested on Monday, both at his 1921 removal trial and in his 1922 deposition where he testified: "On Monday May 30th we arrested a negro for an attempted assault on a white girl; I don’t know his name, but believe he was known as “Diamond Dick,” We had him in jail Monday night and his trial was coming up on Tuesday afternoon in the Police Court."[ix] Had the police made and disclosed an arrest on Monday, Tuesday morning’s Tulsa Daily World would have the scoop. A Tuesday arrest, whether real or invented, handed it to Richard Lloyd Jones’ afternoon Tulsa Tribune. “Nab Negro” reported that Diamond Dick had been “charged” with the attempted assault and would be tried that afternoon in municipal court, also known as the “Police Court.” Both Gustafson and the Tulsa Daily World later confirmed that a charge was filed.[x] Attorney General Freeling also acknowledged that the police filed charges.[xi] The filing of an assault charge flies in the face of historians’ oft-repeated claims that the Tulsa police suspected Rowland was innocent and were just going through the motions or were picking him up to protect him, reactions that would have been completely “against type” for the 1921 police department.[xii] “Nab Negro” also reported that the municipal court trial involved “state charges,” highlighting the seriousness of the offense. This was misleading as the municipal court had no jurisdiction over state charges; it handled municipal citations. State charges were in the domain of County Attorney Seaver, as Adkison admitted.[xiii] When Rowland was indicted for assault and attempted rape in early June - further contradicting claims that the authorities were not serious in pursuing him - it was done in state court.[xiv] A municipal court filing, however, lent weight to the newspaper writeup and avoided having to deal immediately with Seaver, with whom the police were then at odds.[xv] The Tribune’s “Nab Negro” next described Page’s claim that Rowland was skulking outside her elevator, which the reader would see as nothing but threatening, but which is said to have gone over her head. The bombshell then dropped – after entering the elevator Diamond Dick attacked the white girl by scratching her face and hands and tearing her clothes. Apart from “Nab Negro,” there is no evidence that either Page or the Renberg’s clerk ever claimed facial or other scratches or torn clothes. Page’s neighbor, Anna Green, made no mention of them to reporters and she had seen Page an hour after the fracas.[xvi] After Greenwood was in ruins, the Tulsa Tribune’s managing editor Victor Barnett admitted that part of the article was untrue, though one would have to read New York or Chicago newspapers to discover that.[xvii] James Patton, in charge of the investigation, denied it, as did Page through Patton. Adkison and Attorney General Freeling effectively denied it as well.[xviii] The allegation is rendered more implausible by the fact that the elevator’s occupants were visible to those outside.[xix] Whoever gave that information to the Tribune appears to have made it up out of whole cloth.[xx] The single most important declarative sentence in Tulsa’s history was false. The article next revealed that an unnamed clerk in Renberg’s clothing store ran to Page’s assistance and that he and Page identified Rowland on Tuesday. The clerk, name still unrevealed, was later interviewed by a detective hired by Roscoe Dunjee, publisher of Oklahoma City’s newspaper The Black Dispatch. Dunjee described his investigator as “a white man of unquestioned honesty and integrity,” who reported: "He talked with the white man who went to the girl when the difficulty happened. “SHE WAS NOT BRUISED OR HER CLOTHING DISARRANGED IN ANY WAY” stated this honest man.” (emphasis in Dunjee’s original)."[xxi] The Renberg's clerk appears to have been Clarence A. Poulton, 34, a tailor and salesman who worked at the store until at least 1935.[xxii] He was one of the four grand jury witnesses.[xxiii] Dunjee’s investigator also interviewed the “gentleman who owned” the Drexel building, who replied, “that (the elevator incident) was considered of such little consequence, so trifling, that he, himself, had not heard about it until the riot was on.” The owner of Drexel was Grant McCullough, president of the First National Bank, whose building adjoined and would later replace the Drexel. The statement may have been made by Fred E. Voorhies, building superintendent of McCullough’s Bank.[xxiv] Along with Poulton, Voorhies was a grand jury witness. Either they changed their stories from that reported in the Black Dispatch or the grand jury brushed them aside. “Nab Negro” article reached its climax with Rowland’s alleged admission that he “put his hand on her arm in the elevator when she was alone.” While possibly literally true, the context of those times was such that the prosecution could have climaxed a ringing closing argument with Rowland’s “confession.” Who was the source of all this misleading and inflammatory falseness? Buck Franklin was later told by a source connected to Gustafson that “a fresh, cub reporter without any experience” gave out the erroneous version.[xxv] The Tulsa Tribune, however, was staffed by experienced, professional journalists.[xxvi] Randy Krehbiel, himself a professional journalist, explains that a reporter’s submission on a story like this would “be checked, certainly by one copy editor and probably by two.”[xxvii] Tim Madigan’s novelized version says that Richard Lloyd Jones came up it with himself, fueled by racism.[xxviii] While Jones’ obvious racism might have generated a bellowing editorial, where would he get the front page “facts?” Jones was about to teach racists a hard lesson - racism also damages the racist and in this case, it set up Jones’ reputation for a deep and permanent stain. The prime suspect in the peddling of bad information was the Tulsa police department itself. It was the police, and only the police, who handled the investigation, knew what was alleged and what was not, handled the arrest, and filed municipal court charges. The police are identified as the source and their representations would have been accepted not only by some starry-eyed young reporter, but by the “old hands” back at the Tribune building. The only part of the article identified as coming from anybody else was the poignant line that Sarah Page was an orphan working to better herself. Even that might have come from a police-connected source.[xxix] The 1921 police also had at least two motives to fabricate or embellish the story. The first was to create public zeal for a replay of Roy Belton’s 1920 lynching, one that would send a message not to hijackers, but to “uppity” and supposedly uprising-inclined Black people. If that sounds like madness to the modern ear, what word better describes the Belton murder in which the same police played such a cooperative role? Second, by reserving the fake news for the Tulsa Tribune, the police set up their archenemy’s newspaper to take the fall for any adverse consequences, such as Rowland’s death. One day later, the police leaped to do exactly that, pointing fingers at the Tribune, the only white institution that came in for the least blame. While the embers were still smoking and belching sparks in Greenwood, and its people were being corralled, James Patton issued a Wednesday night statement to the Tribune’s competitor, the Tulsa Daily World. This was printed Thursday morning under the headlines “Story of Attack on Woman Denied” and “Girl Admitted to Police That One Published Story Was Not True in Details.”[xxx] Patton’s explained that the “only assault made by Rowland upon the girl occurred when he grabbed her arm.” He attributed the race riot of Tuesday night “to what he termed yellow journalism.” The police, Patton primly continued, were quietly conducting an investigation “before taking any decided action,” ignoring the fact that the police had already filed charges in police court. He claimed that the Tribune article caused the police to transfer Rowland to the county jail, contradicting Adkinson and Gustafson, who said it was triggered by an anonymous phone call.[xxxi] Patton called Tulsa Tribune article “colored and untrue,” which it was, as inciting racial spirit, which it did, and that: "If the facts in the story as told the police had only been printed I do not think there would have been an (sic) riot whatever.” If that is true, it means that whoever gave the Tribune the misleading information was directly responsible for the Tulsa Race Massacre.[xxxii] If Jones had been set up, wouldn’t he have done something rather than take the blame? Apparently, he did. The police may also have been shaken into a more conservative stance by the sheer and perhaps unexpected scope of the destruction. The day after the Daily World article, the Tulsa Tribune printed Patton’s meek mea culpa. Under a front-page article entitled “World Statement False,” Patton’s signed statement declared the Daily World’s “purported interview” was untrue, that he did not say the race riot was due to “yellow journalism,” or that the Tribune had published “a colored and untrue account,” or that Rowland was placed in the county jail because of it. He denied saying that the Tribune article incited racial feelings on the part of whites or caused “armed blacks to invade the business district.”[xxxiii] Jones’ Tribune thereafter continued its campaign of scathing criticism against the Evans Administration and the police no doubt continued to loathe the sanctimonious Jones.[xxxiv] Nothing had changed, except for the people of Greenwood and Tulsa’s legacy. Damaged as well was the historical reconstruction of Greenwood’s destruction. In spite of his shifting story and all the suspect police behavior, historians have taken Patton’s original declarations at face value. Testifying at Gustafson’s removal trial, Adkison said his first clue that something was up was a 4 p.m. phone call on Tuesday threatening a lynching.[xxxv] This was one of similar calls, one to Greenwood’s Dreamland Theater, which stirred passions there, and an unknown caller of Gustafson.[xxxvi] Whether these were good faith warnings, incitements of hysteria, or communications among allies is an open question. Adkison’s caller boasted, “we are going to lynch that negro tonight, that black devil who assaulted that girl.” Why call the man who could stop it? There are reasons to doubt Adkison’s testimony, however, and they come from Gustafson himself. Adkison testified that after the 4 p.m. warning call, he went to the police station where he first learned of the Tribune article which “misrepresented the facts of the occurrence.” He then arranged Rowland’s transfer to the county jail before calling the Sheriff.[xxxvii] Adkison neglected to mention that he and Gustafson had already rehearsed this an hour earlier. During his removal trial, Gustafson testified that he was in Adkison’s office at 3 p.m. where they talked about the lynching rumors and determined to transfer Rowland.[xxxviii] Adkison then arrived at the station at 4 p.m. to commence communications with Sheriff McCullough. This makes more sense than Adkison’s version, which has him getting the call, going to the station, arranging and completing the transfer, and then calling McCullough all at 4 p.m.[xxxix] There was a lot going on at 3 p.m. aside from the Adkison-Gustafson get-together and the looming arrival of “Nab Negro.” It also happened to be the exact moment of the police department’s monthly shift change, where police officers working the day shift moved to night and vice versa. As a result, from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Tulsa’s most fateful Tuesday, the Tulsa police department was materially understaffed. Regular night police beats were uncovered on Boulder, South Main, and West Archer, which left unmanned much of the area between the courthouse and Greenwood. The police station was essentially denuded of personnel.[xl] The shift-change was one of the alibis that surfaced after the Race Massacre. Gustafson used it repeatedly, bemoaning to the attorney general’s investigator, “that day of all days a shift was made.”[xli] He testified that it was “extremely unfortunate for the police,” that there were “very few officers at that time” and that “a good many officers had left the station to go home to sleep until eleven o’clock that night.”[xlii] Adkison echoed this, explaining that there were “few policemen available” and that “there were not more than 10 police officers on duty between the courthouse and the negro district.”[xliii] Yet, in spite of their claimed alarm over rumors and the growing disorder, no recall of the missing officers occurred until minutes before the gunfire.[xliv] As soon as Rowland arrived at the county jail, Adkison, Gustafson and the police devoted themselves to one thing – getting McCullough to remove Dick Rowland from the jail and take him on the road to uncertain safely. As long the Sheriff was stood firm, Rowland was safe inside the jail, as even Gustafson later admitted.[xlv] The road, however, allowed for ambush or pursuit and the odds would change dramatically. In 1917, masked vigilantes rose up from behind a pile of bricks and effortlessly lifted seventeen union men from a Tulsa police caravan that was taking them from then-Police Judge Thaddeus Evans’ police court. The Knights were no mere ruffians, but included men among Tulsa’s elite. Tate Brady was widely identified as the master of ceremonies of the tarring and feathering that followed. Tulsa police Captain George Blaine was one of those meekly surrendering custody of his prisoners and eyewitnesses described him “putting on the rigs,” meaning the Knights’ costume. James Patton was also an accused Knight, as was Henry Carmichael, one of Rowland’s arresting officers. It is possible that Gustafson, whose detective agency had infiltrated the union chapter with a spy, was present for the Tulsa Outrage.[xlvi] There were many piles of bricks between the Tulsa county courthouse and wherever McCullough chose to flee, though not as many as a day later. At least the Outrage was an inside job. The police may have even manned the brick pile. A replay would be a more serious affair. Yet, Gustafson claimed a history of planning the violent ambush, and if McCullough accepted the offer of police assistance, then half the job would be done. If McCullough meekly surrendered, which may have been thought likely, his reputation would be as tarred as his longtime rival for the Sheriff’s post, James Woolley. If the outcome were more extreme and Tulsa needed a new Sheriff, Tate Brady and Buck Lewis’ close associate Jim Woolley might be positioned for a comeback. It could all be blamed on Richard Lloyd Jones. Willard McCullough would be just another tragic victim of his yellow journalism. A Willard (nee William) McCullough campaign ad courtesy of the Tulsa World The police made at least four calls Tuesday afternoon urging Rowland’s removal.[xlvii] Adkison’s call to McCullough at 4 p.m. was the first.[xlviii] Adkison then traveled to the courthouse to repeat the advice directly to the Sheriff and to offer the support of the “entire police force.”[xlix] Gustafson made a phone call offering the services of “the entire police department to the sheriff” and may have accompanied Adkison on the 4 p.m. visit.[l] It is unknown if either man mentioned the shift-change or police understaffing. In addition to four phone calls and Adkison's personal intervention, McCullough may have received similar advice from the unnamed police officer who delivered Rowland to the jail at 4 p.m. and during the “two or three times” that police officers visited the courthouse to report lynching rumors.[li] Gustafson testified he talked to an undersheriff named Price about 7 p.m. to report rumors and directed Patton to call the Sheriff about 8 p.m. to offer help.[lii] Adkison and Gustafson had reason to expect their recommendation to run would be taken. Transferring targeted prisoners out-of-town was standard practice.[liii] McCullough’s fourth-floor jail had also just been exposed as preposterously insecure. Five days earlier, twelve prisoners sawed through three cell doors, a corridor gate, and steel window bars before climbing down a rope of sixty or more tied blankets to the street below.[liv] On the morning of May 31, no more than five hours before Rowland and Page’s encounter, six more prisoners sawed through the same cell, the same window, avoided the same unobservant jailer, and escaped presumably using the same blankets tied in the same knots.[lv] McCullough assumed a casual attitude, dismissing the break as “inevitable,” and appearing in the press as weak and incompetent.[lvi] If any public trust in the jail’s security remained after Belton, it was doused and crushed on the cusp of the Race Massacre.[lvii] The sincerity of the police department’s efforts to get Rowland on the road is eviscerated by Gustafson’s admission that Rowland was safe inside the county jail.[lviii] The efforts are rendered more suspect by what the police did after McCullough refused to run, even as rumors flew and spectators gathered. To be continued in Part 3: War Comes to Tulsa Endnotes: [i] Dick Roland, as his name was signed and notarized while in apparent custody, left a variety of names in his wake, including James Jones, Jimmy Jones, Johnny, John Roland, Dick Rowland, and “Diamond Dick Rowland.” The “Rowland” spelling will be used in an attempt to minimize confusion. Confounding matters, a gravesite for James Jones is located adjacent to the Rowland family cemetery plot and carries a death date two months before the Massacre. The grave is located in a City of Tulsa cemetery, so perhaps the city’s current investigation of graves should be expanded by one. Steve Gerkin, “Diamond in the Rough,” and Steve Gerkin, “Is This the Face of the Man at the Center of the Tulsa Race Riot?” Race Reader (Tulsa, OK: This Land Press 2017), 43-51. For Dick “Roland,” “Affidavit of Defendant,” Avery Collection, DickRowland_06.pdf. (signature witnessed by a deputy court clerk Lucile Linton). [ii] “Ruth Avery’s Interviews On The Tulsa Race Riot: Damie Rowland Ford,” Ruth Sigler Avery Collection, Special Collections and Archives, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa (hereafter “Avery Collection”) (shine stand located in the basement of building on the northeast corner at Third and Main); “Dick Rowland_10.pdf,” Avery Collection (Third and Main was the “hub of Tulsa” where streetcar tracks crossed in all directions); The Tulsa police station was on Second Avenue, between Main and Boulder. Ronald L. Trekell, History of the Tulsa Police Department, 1882-1900 (Tulsa, OK: Tulsa Police Department 1989), 36. For Gustafson’s agency at the Bliss Building at Third and Main, “Tulsa City Directory 1921,” (Tulsa, OK: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Co., 1921), 676-77. For Gustafson’s residence, Gustafson 1922 deposition, 1. The Ketchum Hotel was located at 509 S. Main on the same side of Main as Rowland’s stand. “Tulsa City Directory 1935” (Tulsa, OK: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Co., 1921), 681. [iii] “Ruth Avery’s Interviews On The Tulsa Race Riot: Damie Rowland Ford,” Avery Collection; also Hirsch, Riot and Remembrance, 78, “RobertFairchild-version4.pdf,” Avery Collection (something of a ladies’ man); Madigan, The Burning, 49. As inflammatory as the name “Diamond Dick” was in the context, it may have had a more prosaic explanation. “Dashing Diamond Dick” was a pulp fiction hero when Rowland younger. The character wore a diamond-encrusted costume. This could explain Rowland’s affinity for diamonds, an unusual attraction for a teenage male of any race, and the name “Dick,” which was such a favorite that Rowland adopted it for his own. Ironically, Dashing Diamond Dick’s face was extremely pale white because of an injury he received when his enemies attempted to lynch him. https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Diamond_Dick. [iv] Buck C. Franklin, My Life and an Era, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997), 195-196 (quoting a white lawyer, “Why, I know that boy and have known him a good while. That’s not in him”). This evidence, which casts Rowland in a different light than the crude stereotype presented in “Nab Negro,” was not available to the public. [v] For three Booker T. Washington yearbook photos, Steve Gerkin, “Is This The Face of the Man At the Center of the Tulsa Race Riot?” Race Reader (Tulsa: This Land Press, 2017), 49-51. [vi] US Census Bureau, Fourteenth Census of the United States, Edmond, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1900), ancestry.com (Rolands, including adopted son “John Roland,” living at 505 Archer, Ollie Roland as manager); “Tulsa City Directory 1921,” (Tulsa, OK: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Co., 1921), 598 (D. R. Roland (c) furnished room at 505 Archer). “Ruth Avery’s Interviews On The Tulsa Race Riot: Damie Rowland Ford,” Avery Collection (Rowland in hiding). [vii] “Federal Report on Vice Conditions,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 2 (“I saw a piano just inside the entrance, and an old colored woman as the madame, and four inmates. I was solicited by a young colored yellow woman to go to bed. Price $3.00”). [viii] “Police Raid Negro House,” Tulsa Daily World, December 12, 1917, 2 (“25 negroes, men and women, were marched to police headquarters” in second raid in two weeks); “City News in Brief,” Tulsa Daily World, December 16, 1917, 2. Damie was there identified as “Damie Jackson,” but Clarence Rowland was Damie’s younger brother. US Census Bureau, Thirteenth Census of the United States, Edmond, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1900), ancestry.com (1910 census listing Damie, 25, and brother Clarence Rolland, 18). [ix] “Gustafson Testimony District Court State of Oklahoma v. John A. Gustafson, Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 6 (“He was arrested the day previous and kept in the city jail during the night”) (hereafter “Gustafson 1921 trial testimony”); Deposition of J. A. Gustafson in Stradford v. American Central Ins. Co.; Superior Court of Cook County, No. 370,274 (1921), 1 (hereafter “Gustafson 1922 deposition. The city jail records are not available. [x] Gustafson 1922 deposition, 1. The Tulsa Daily World reported that Rowland’s preliminary trial was set in municipal court on Tuesday, June 7. “Arrest of Young Negro on Statutory Charge Caused Battle Between the Races,” Tulsa Daily World, June 1, 1921, 1 (second edition). [xi] “Letter Attorney General to James E. Markham, 1921 November 2,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 1 (A negro boy was charged, arrested, and delivered to Sheriff). Freeling’s letter was attempting to accomplish an extradition from Minnesota. Freeling contrasted the curious white crowd which was “orderly” and made not the “slightest sign of any attempt at mob violence” with the “actions of the negroes” which precipitated the shooting. He wrote that “there is no prejudice in Tulsa County,” that a “perfectly fair trial could be had in Tulsa as in St. Paul,” and that the white citizens “immediately began to repair the damage which had been done and the very best men in Tulsa County took charge of the situation.” This casting of events was consistent with Van Leuven’s statement to the Gustafson removal jury that the whites had done nothing wrong. “Chief Found Guilty on Two Counts,” Tulsa Daily World, July 23, 1921, 1 (“The state has never contended that any law was violated after that trouble at the courthouse. After those armed negroes had started shooting and a white man was killed—then those who armed themselves for the obvious purpose of protecting their lives and property violated no law”). [xii] Loren Gill’s 1946 thesis first made this point, repeating Patton’s June 1, 1921 press statement to the Tulsa Daily World that the police attached so little importance to the event to even file the girls’ name. Loren L. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 21, 105. Gill also relied upon 25th Anniversary interviews he brilliantly secured with Adkison, Evans, and Blaine, scarcely objective witnesses. Hirsch and Madigan claim the police were skeptical and taking action on Tuesday either to create the appearance they were taking it seriously or to protect (Rowland) from reprisals. James S. Hirsch, Riot and Remembrance, 79, 82; Tim Madigan, The Burning, 68-69. Hirsch also writes that Page hedged her accusations on Tuesday and suggested she would not press charges. The Tribune, however, reported that as of Wednesday morning officers were promising a speedy trial for Rowland and full punishment if found guilty. “Dick Rowland is Spirited Out of City,” Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, 6. Both Page and Rowland’s arresting officers, Henry Carmichael, testified at the June grand jury that indicted Rowland for assault and attempted rape. “Indictment filed stamped June 18, 1921,” Avery Collection, DickRowland_07.pdf. Page’s decision not to prosecute does not appear to have occurred until after September 16, 1921, when Judge Redmond S. Cole refused to dismiss Rowland’s case. “Journal Entry,” Avery Collection, DickRowland_04.pdf. Page’s declination to pursue charges then led to to the dismissal on September 28, 1921. “Continue Riot Cases,” Tulsa Daily World, September 29, 1921, 7 (“the dismissal followed receipt of a letter by the county attorney in which she stated that she did not wish to prosecute the case”). [xiii] “Inefficiency of Police Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 1 (per Adkison, one reason for transfer to county jail was because “the case was in reality a county case”); “To Open Police Tribunal Again,” Tulsa Daily World, January 11, 1917, 1 (state charges and jail sentences off-limits to municipal courts). [xiv] “Indictment filed stamped June 18, 1921,” Avery Collection, DickRowland_07.pdf. [xv] The municipal court file has not been located. It is possible that there was no filing, in which case “Nab Negro” was even further removed from the truth, as were the police. [xvi] “Girl Attacked by Negro Not at Home Today,” Tulsa Tribune, June 1, 1921, 4. [xvii] Walter F. White, “Tulsa Riot Based on Girl’s Mistake,” New York Evening Post, June 8, 1921, 5 (Victor F. Barnett, managing editor or the Tribune, stated that his paper had since learned that the original story that the girl’s face was scratched and her clothes torn was untrue); Walter F. White, “Tulsa’s Shame Due to Race Prejudice and Corrupt Rule,” Chicago Defender, June 18, 1921, 3. [xviii] For Patton’s and Page’s denials, “Story of Attack on Woman Denied, Tulsa Daily World, June 2, 1921,14 (Patton says, “Negro boy did nothing more than seize her arm)”; “World Statement False,” Tulsa Tribune, June 2, 1921, 1 (per Patton, at police station girl asserted the negro grabbed her arm, she screamed and he fled). For Adkison’s denial, “Inefficiency of Police is Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 1 (Adkison learns of Tribune story “which misrepresented the facts of the occurrence”). For Freeling, “Letter Attorney General to James E. Markham, 1921 November 2,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 1. [xix] “DickRowland_04.pdf,” Avery Collection (per Avery, “The elevator was an open type with wire surrounding the lifting platform, the openness making the occupants at all times visible to anyone on the passing three floors. On the street, passersby could see directly in on all occupants”). [xx] Regarding Page, historians have been quick to seize on McCullough’s pronouncement that a divorce petition described her as a “notorious character.” Seventeen years was not much time to reach “notorious character” status and it does not fit the only existing description of Page, that of the Tulsa High School senior boy’s club which met weekly on the fourth floor of the Drexel Building. “DickRowland_09.pdf,” Avery Collection, 3. If her legend is correct, the 17-year old chose to put over two hundred miles between herself and her not-yet-ex-husband. She left him. His perhaps overheated petition had to chase her down. If Sarah Page had been the victim of spousal abuse, it might explain her response to an unexpected, but otherwise innocent touching, as from a trip and fall. A purse-swinging reaction, or overreaction, would also be hard to explain later. There are, of course, other possibilities for what did or didn’t happen in the elevator. [xxi] "Loot, Arson, Murder,” Black Dispatch, June 10, 1921, 1. [xxii] The 1913 Tulsa City Directory identified him as a tailor. “Tulsa City Directory 1913,” (Tulsa, OK: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1935), 303. He is first listed as working for Renbergs in 1916. “Tulsa City Directory 1916,” (Tulsa, OK: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1916), 356. He was still there as of 1935. “Tulsa City Directory 1935” (Kansas City, MO: R. L. Polk & Co., 1935), 445. [xxiii] “Indictment file stamped June 18, 1921,” Avery Collection, DickRowland_07.pdf. [xxiv] “DickRowland_09.pdf,” Avery Collection. The Tulsa high school senior boys' club met weekly at the Drexel building in the office of “Carroll’s father who owned the building and was president of a bank.” Grant McCullough was president of First National Bank located next to the Drexel building and had a teenage son named Carroll. US Census Bureau, Fourteenth Census of the United States, Edmond, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1900), ancestry.com; “G. R. McCullough, A. L. Farmer and C. F. Hopkins on Water Board,” Tulsa Tribune, November 30, 1920, 1 (president of First National). The Drexel building was sold and demolished in the 1920s for an expansion of the Bank building to its present size. For Voorhies as superintendent of First National Bank, “Tulsa City Directory 1922,” (Tulsa, OK: Polk-Hoffhine Directory Company, 1922), 607. [xxv] John Hope Franklin & John Whittington Franklin, My Life and An Era, 199. Franklin’s source was assistant county attorney Sam Crossland, who assured him that after a thorough and painstaking investigation the alleged assault was untrue. Sam’s brother and later law partner was Ed Crossland, who represented Dick Rowland. Ed Crossland was called the attorney for bootleggers and testified favorably for Gustafson in May 1921. “Impeachment of Police Falls Flat,” Tulsa Daily World, May 20, 1921, 1 (Crossland testifies he knows of no evidence of open vice). After Gustafson had been removed from office, Ed Crossland rallied to the defense of the man he called “Old Gus.” “Much Surprise Expressed Over Gustafson Verdict,” Tulsa Daily World, July 24, 1921, 1. Franklin’s source was reworking the police department’s alibi that “the Tulsa Tribune did it.” As for the painstaking investigation, it did not prevent the county attorney’s office from pursuing rape charges against Rowland and defeating Ed Crossland’s efforts to dismiss the case until September 1921, when Sarah Page’s letter ended the prosecution. [xxvi] L. Edward Carter, The Story of Oklahoma Newspapers (Muskogee OK: Western Heritage Press 1984), 207; https://okjournalismhalloffame.com/1975/victor-f-barnett/ [xxvii] Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press 2019), 36. [xxviii] Tim Madigan, The Burning, 68-70. Madigan’s book has many fictionalized elements. He admits making up dialogue for the purpose of “maintaining the narrative.” Ibid., xviii. The tale describes the inner thoughts of his characters and describes events not supported by the available evidence, such as Sheriff McCullough’s hand wringing over failing to heed police warnings to flee the jail. Jimmie L. Franklin, review of The Burning by Tim Madigan, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 70 (1) (2004-02-01), 188-89 (“Unfortunately, Madigan’s literary license permits him to embellish persons and events to such a degree that his narrative often resembles psychoanalysis.”). [xxix] This information reportedly came from tenants of the Drexel building. One fourth-floor tenant, where the only “colored” toilet in downtown Tulsa was said to be located, was Harry Kiskaddon, an oil producer and social worker. “Tulsa City Directory 1921,” (Tulsa OK: Polk-Huffhine Directory Company 1921), 678. Said to be “closely associated with the police,” Kiskaddon held a special commission in Gustafson’s department. He also testified on their behalf in May, claiming that he knew of “no gambling, prostitution or whisky selling” and “praised the officers highly for their efforts.” “Impeachment of Police Falls Flat,” Tulsa Daily World, May 20, 1921, 2; “Police Clean-Up Blocked,” Tulsa Tribune, May 20, 1921, 2. Curiously, the attorney general’s listing of alleged Gustafson crimes contains a note that “Billy Sunday, the go-between between the police department and Ella in Loomis Cafe; collector Harry Kiskaddon.” “Miscellaneous Witness Notes,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 2. Billy Sunday was Gustafson’s secretary. “Charges Cops Beat, Robbed Him of Purse,” Tulsa Tribune, July 19, 1921, 1. Kiskaddon succeeded Adkison as Tulsa Police Commissioner and served four years in that capacity under Mayor Newblock (1922-26). “Ex-Secret Service Officer, 75, Dead,” Miami News-Record (Miami, OK), August 4, 1947, 3. Along with Adkison and Newblock, Kiskaddon’s name is listed in a late 1920s Ku Klux Klan roster. Ku Klux Klan ledger, Ku Klux Klan Papers, University of Tulsa Special Collections; Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921, 203. [xxx] “Story of Attack on Woman Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, June 2, 1921, 14. [xxxi] ‘Inefficiency of Police is Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 1; Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 6-7; Gustafson 1922 deposition, 1-2. Patton did not mention any Tribune editorial regarding a lynching. Since he was smearing Jones, Patton should have leaped on the chance to further embarrass Jones if such an editorial had been published. [xxxii] “Story of Attack on Woman Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, June 2, 1921, 14. Patton also claimed that the police thought so little of the affair that they did not bother to record her name, an allegation that has been accepted uncritically. See, e.g., Loren L. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 21; James S. Hirsch, Riot and Remembrance, 79; Scott Ellsworth, Death In a Promised Land, 46-47. This is especially suspect given the racism of the day. A white teenage girl, possibly with the support of an adult Renberg’s clerk, complained of some form of uninvited touching against a hulking Black teenager, yet the police did not bother with her name? Another explanation is the police wanted no record, the better to set up the yellow journalism charge against Richard Jones. In other words, it was just part of the plot. [xxxiii] “World Statement False,” Tulsa Tribune, June 2, 1921, 1. Jones may have realized his predicament shortly after “Nab Negro” was published. Madigan describes the paper’s frenzied efforts to recall the afternoon issue, citing an unnamed Tribune writer’s 1960s statement to a “highly respected Tulsa historian,” who refused to allow his name to be published. Tim Madigan, The Burning, 71, 276. [xxxiv] Jones’ infamous “It Must Not Be Again” editorial, with all its “Niggertowns” and “bad niggers,” was aimed directly at Adkison. “It Must Not Be Again,” Tulsa Tribune, June 4, 1921, 8 (“Well, the bad niggers started it. The public would now like to know: why wasn’t it prevented? Why were these niggers not made to feel the force of the law and made to respect the law? Why were not the violators of the law in “Niggertown” arrested?…Why? Mr. Adkison, why?”). [xxxv] ‘Inefficiency of Police is Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 1. It is unclear why Adkison and Gustafson needed afternoon phone calls to cause them to move Rowland to the county jail, if, as some historians claim, they picked him up that morning to protect him. Had they already forgotten that Rowland might be in danger? [xxxvi] Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 6; “Chief Tells Own Story About Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, July 19, 1921, 1; “Sheriff Says Telephone Call Started Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, 1. [xxxvii] “Inefficiency of Police is Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 1. [xxxviii] Gustafson’s 1921 trial testimony, 6-7; “Chief Tells Own Story about Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, July 19, 1921, 1. In 1922, Gustafson pushed his meeting with Adkison back to 2 p.m. Of this meeting, Gustafson says, “he (Adkison) told me that he had heard rumors to the effect that they were going to take this nigger out and lynch him.” Gustafson 1922 deposition, 1-2. [xxxix] McCullough confirmed that Adkison's call came in at 4:00 p.m. “Sheriff Says Telephone Call Started Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921, 1. The Sheriff also said that Rowland arrived at 4 p.m. Deposition of W. M. McCullough, Stradford v. American Central Ins. Co.; Superior Court of Cook County, No. 370, 274 (1921), 1-2 (hereafter “McCullough 1922 deposition). The Sheriff’s jail log lists the arrival of “Dick Rolland” as the next to last prisoner of the day. “Jail Record: Complete Jail Report for the Month of May, 1921,” Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, 556-57. [xl] Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 8-11. For a detailed breakdown of the missing police, Robert D. Norris, Jr., ”The Oklahoma National Guard and the Tulsa Race Riot or 1921,” Tulsa University Special Collections, 45-46. [xli] “Part 2 Police Officer Notepad,” Attorney General Civil Case no. 1062, 42. [xlii] Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 8-11; “Chief Tells His Own Story about Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, July 19, 1921, 1. Gustafson was also quoted in the Tribune that a mere extra fifty men would have allowed him to “prevent the wholesale rioting and burning.” “Ex-Yanks on Guard; O. N. G. Troops Gone,” Tulsa Tribune, June 4, 1921, 1. [xliii] For few available, “Chief Tells Own Story about Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, July 19, 1921, 2. Adkison gave this as an excuse for not calling the police to disarm the armed negroes. For not more than ten, see “Inefficiency of Police is Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 7. Adkison says this count included traffic officers, patrolmen, and men at the station. [xliv] Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 16-17; “Chief and Officers Take Witness Stand,” Tulsa Daily World, July 20, 1921, 8. No one gives an exact time, but the best estimate is around 9:30 p.m., if not later. The calls began after Gustafson returned from his 9:15 visit to the courthouse where he spent some time. Whenever the calls began, Adkison said that upon returning to the station after fighting broke out, the summoned officers “had begun to file in.” “Inefficiency of Police is Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 1, 7; ”Chief and Officers Take the Stand,” Tulsa Daily World, July 20, 1921, 1, 8. The off-duty desk sergeant said he got his notice to return at 10:00 p.m. “Citizens Uphold Officers’ Story,” Tulsa Daily World, July 21, 1921, 3. [xlv] For Gustafson’s admission, Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 8-9 (“My opinion was that the sheriff could protect the prisoner.”). For impregnable jail, Randy Hopkins, “Racing to the Precipice: Tulsa’s Last Lynching,” https://www.centerforpublicsecrets.org/post/racing-to-the-precipice-tulsa-s-last-lynching [xlvi] Randy Hopkins, “Birthday of the Klan: The Tulsa Outrage of 1917", The Chronicles of Oklahoma 97, no. 4 (Winter 2019–20), 428-431, 445, n112-13. [xlvii] “Sheriff Says Telephone Call Started Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, June 3, 1921 (city edition), 1 (“The police chief told me that four telephone calls went to the sheriff from police officials Tuesday afternoon telling him to get the negro away, that there was talk of a mob”); “WilliamMcCullough_version1.pdf,” Avery Collection. Gustafson’s statement was made to Clark Betts of the St.Louis Post-Dispatch. [xlviii] Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 6-7, Gustafson 1922 deposition, 2; “Sheriff Says Telephone Call Started Riot,” Tulsa Tribune, June 2, 1921, 1. [xlix] “Inefficiency of Police Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 1; Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 6-7: “Sheriff Tells of Plan to Guard Negro,” Tulsa Tribune, July 14, 1921, 1 Adkison’s prominent role at this stage was in contrast to Belton’s lynching, where he made no immediate appearance. After meeting McCullough, Adkison went off duty. Twenty-five years later, he told Loren Gill that he was not on duty earlier in the evening because of the serious illness of his mother-in-law. Adkison would not resurface until 8 p.m., when he said he learned a crowd was gathering at the courthouse. Loren L. Gill, “The Tulsa Race Riot,” 25, n10; “Inefficiency of Police Is Denied,” Tulsa Daily World, July 19, 1921, 1. [l] “Chief and Officers Take Witness Stand,“ Tulsa Daily World, July 20, 1921, 1. McCullough testified that Gustafson accompanied Adkison on the 4 p.m. visit, but Gustafson denied it. McCullough 1922 deposition, 14-15; Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 7 (says did not accompany Adkison). [li] McCullough 1922 deposition, 14-15 [lii] Gustafson 1922 deposition, 3. [liii] Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921, 36. [liv] “Twelve Escape County Jail,” Tulsa Tribune, May 26, 1921, 1; “Jailer Slept as Prisoners Made Escape,” Tulsa Tribune, May 27, 1921, 1. McCullough claimed they had been working on the bars for weeks, using acid. The night jailer sat twenty yards away “without noticing the commotion” and knew nothing until the police brought one of the men back. The rope consisted of cotton blankets rolled and tied end to end, then wrapped with pieces of cloth torn from other bedding. “2 Escape From County Bastile,” Tulsa Daily World, May 26, 1921, 1. The prisoners remaining in adjoining cells all claimed to know nothing. When one of the escapees was caught climbing down the rope, he told officers he had been visiting a friend. [lv] “Prisoners Again Escape from Jail,” Tulsa Daily World, May 31, 1921, 1. The head jailer believed the window bars were cut with a saw attached to a mop handle and reached through the cells. McCullough thought that one of the prisoners just reached through the bars and sawed from his bed. The Sheriff said, “They must have worked fast on the window bar, because the jailer tells me he made the rounds every 15 minutes all night.” “Six Flee In Second Jail Break,” Tulsa Tribune, May 30, 1921, 1. Only four of the original escapees were reported as captured, but two of those re-escaped during the second delivery. [lvi] “Twelve Escape County Jail,” Tulsa Tribune, May 26, 1921, 1. McCullough originally blamed two inmates, aged 12 and 14, who had been allowed liberties because of their youth. Adults later took credit. McCullough was nonplused by the failure to recapture the bulk of the escapees, explaining, “I know some of them can’t stay away from Tulsa. And when they come back we’ll nab ‘em, just like that, b’cracky.” “Home Town ‘Pride’ to Refill Jail Says Sheriff M'Cullough,” Tulsa Tribune, May 28, 1921, 1. [lvii] The Tribune’s “Nab Negro” issue also reported that a thirty-six-hour hunt involving McCullough and most of his force had produced no trace of the fourteen escapees. “Sheriff Puts on New Guard to End Breaks,” Tulsa Tribune, May 31, 1921, 8. [lviii] Gustafson 1921 trial testimony, 8-9 (“My opinion was that the sheriff could protect the prisoner”).