Eddie Faye Gates - Riot on Greenwood: The Total Destruction of Black Wall Street

Eddie Faye Gates

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, except for brief passages included in a review appearing in a newspaper or magazine.

To those brave, besieged, frightened refugees of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. May justice be served and the survivors and their descendants, recompensed and revered by a just, honorable, and grateful nation. May the dead rest in peace, knowing that, at last, they have each been given a decent, honorable farewell.

Chapter 10The Oklahoma Commission to Study
the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, 19972001

It has been said about the writings and ideas of Howard Thurman that for him, Love is synonymous with reconciliation and expresses the intent of God. In this sense, Eddie Faye Gates has now provided us with a third book that transforms her hard work, scholarship, and engaging writing into an instrument of love. Her passion for her subject is surpassed only by her desire to see humanity restored. She has become the conduit of a series of remarkable and colorful stories that demonstrate the full range of human possibility from devastation to hope. Her accounts provide a window into experiences and lives that might have otherwise been forgotten or misunderstood. In doing so, she offers readers an opportunity to realign their relationship to the events and individuals of one of Tulsas most disturbing and formative events, and in turn invites all who are willing to proceed down a path of reconciliation.

Mrs. Gates may have started out intending to record the lives of the remaining survivors, but she ended up becoming a significant part of many of their lives. Her book not only brings its readers into contact with these real people and their memories, but it has the capacity to convey these life stories in a way that can have a profound effect on ones own.

Marlin Lavanhar
Senior Minister
All Souls Unitarian Church
Tulsa, Oklahoma

People

Rep. Don Ross
Senator Maxine Horner
Councilor Joe Williams
Councilor Roscoe Turner
Dr. Scott Ellsworth
Harry K. Dowdy
Dr. John Hope Franklin
Dr. Danney Goble
Hannibal B. Johnson, Attorney at Law
Robert Littlejohn
Curtis Lawson
Rose Wright
Kavin Ross
Sammy Weygand
Keith Jimerson, Librarian, Rudisill North Regional Library
Kim Johnson, Director, African American Resource
Center, Rudisill North Regional Library
Dr. Bob Blackburn
Rodger Harris
Millard House, Metropolitan Tulsa Urban League
Iman Arthur Farakhan
Ruford Henderson, Jack Henderson, Melvin Easiley,
Tulsa Chapter, NAACP
The American Red Cross
The United Nations of Eastern Oklahoma
Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry
The University of Tulsa
Ed Eakin and Virginia Messer, Eakin Press, Austin, Texas

Places/Organizations, Etc.

North Tulsa Historical Society
Greenwood Cultural Center

Greenwood Chamber of Commerce
Tulsa Chamber of Commerce
North Tulsa Heritage Foundation
Tulsa Historical Society
Oklahoma Historical Society
Oklahoma Commission to Study the
Tulsa Race Riot of 1921
Oklahoma State UniversityTulsa
Tulsa City County Library
Rudisill North Regional Library
Tulsa Branch, NAACP
Metropolitan Tulsa Urban League
The University of Tulsa
The YWCA of Tulsa
The YMCA of Tulsa
The Salvation Army of Tulsa
The University of Tulsa Council

Special acknowledgments to my wonderful and patient husband, Norman, for his unconditional support of me and the various compelling causes that often take me away from home and hearth, and to my five grown children, Norman Gates, Jr., Kevin Jerome Gates, Derek Wayne Gates, Dianne Gates-Anderson, and Donna Gates Kelley, who love me (and some of my causes) passionately, who have mixed feelings about some of my causes, and who just tolerate others because they are my things, who dutifully look at all the scrapbooks, photos, videos, and other memorabilia connected to my causes and world travel, and, most of all, who gave me seven of the most beautiful, intelligent, charming grandchildren in the world; to my daughter-in-law Scharyl Swinton Gates, who, in addition to being a loving new daughter, is one of the brightest young women that I have ever known. Her degrees from Oklahoma State University and the University of Tulsa explain her expertise in sociology and psychology, but she has an equally sharp mind for business and has been an equal partner with my son, Derek, and is equally responsible for the success of his engineering firm in Tulsa. But what I am most grateful to Scharyl for is her keen insight into the Tulsa community. She cuts to the chase, analyzes things instantly, and protects me because she thinks I am too tenderhearted and vulnerable. She is my shield. She sees the ball coming, while I dont know the ball is coming until it hits me! Thanks, Scharyl, for helping me through all this race riot experience, and for knowing when I needed a dinner at Red Lobster to get the creative juices flowing! Scharyls sister, Sonya D. Swinton, is a carbon copy of Scharyl. Thanks, Sonya, for taking me under your wing when I did riot research in Washington, D.C. She took vacation time from her capital-area job and helped me navigate the D.C./Maryland subway system and find all the capital-area buildings where I did research. My other childrens spouses, Stephanie Gates, Norman, Jr.s wife, Harry Kelley III, Donnas husband, and Tikisa Anderson, Diannes husband, live out of town, but they support my causes, too; thanks to my sister-in-law Bertha Jean Owens Gates, who clips from the Muskogee Daily Phoenix newspaper in Muskogee, Oklahoma, all the articles that relate to any of my causes and sends them to me, and who calls me every time she sees a television program that relates to one of my causes.

Thanks to the following non-family members who were so helpful to me during this writing endeavor, such as Rose Wright, Tulsa Public Schools counselor, former social studies teacher, and longtime friend, who helped me with research for this book, and to James Kavin Ross, of Oklahoma State University, Tulsa, one of the best videographers I have ever known. Kavins warm personality, together with his technical expertise, were invaluable to me during the videotaping of approximately forty-five black Tulsa survivors of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, twenty white eyewitnesses of the riot, as well as the videotaping of numerous local, state, national, and international print and electronic media personnel who came to Tulsa to do stories about the riot. To Fai Walker, director of the Greenwood Cultural Center, located in the heart of the old Black Wall Street area of North Tulsa, who came to us from New York City and fell in love with Tulsa. She is doing a wonderful job of preserving, promoting, and perpetuating the legacy of Tulsas black community. To Jewel Hines, who lived in Africa for years and who so willingly shared her African experience with me. Thanks to Jewel, I knew what to look for in Africa and how to get the most out of my African experience. To Dr. Vivian Clark-Adams, division chair, Liberal Arts, Tulsa Community College, my soul sister in terms of philosophy of life and passionate commitment to causes. And many thanks to Marge Morgan, a reporter for twenty-some years at the