1 00:00:15,558 --> 00:00:17,927 {\an8}♪♪ 2 00:00:18,027 --> 00:00:20,797 {\an8}♪♪ 3 00:00:20,897 --> 00:00:22,899 {\an8}♪♪ 4 00:00:22,965 --> 00:00:24,534 {\an8}♪♪ 5 00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:28,271 {\an8}- In the 1920s there was a strong Black community 6 00:00:28,371 --> 00:00:30,206 {\an8}here in Tulsa called Greenwood. 7 00:00:32,875 --> 00:00:36,779 {\an8}These people were the core of Black entrepreneurship. 8 00:00:39,282 --> 00:00:41,284 {\an8}People call it the Black Wall Street. 9 00:00:46,089 --> 00:00:49,826 - Greenwood was like putting Harlem, Bourbon Street, 10 00:00:49,926 --> 00:00:53,096 and Chocolate City all in one place. 11 00:00:55,798 --> 00:00:58,401 {\an8}- But white Tulsans talked about Greenwood 12 00:00:58,468 --> 00:01:01,804 {\an8}as Little Africa or Nigger Land. 13 00:01:04,740 --> 00:01:06,843 - Tulsa was a powder keg 14 00:01:09,011 --> 00:01:11,481 needing only something 15 00:01:11,581 --> 00:01:13,449 to set the community alight. 16 00:01:13,516 --> 00:01:23,359 ♪♪ 17 00:01:23,459 --> 00:01:26,529 - Between 100 and 300 people, most of them Black, 18 00:01:26,629 --> 00:01:28,464 were killed. 19 00:01:29,866 --> 00:01:33,035 - Today, we call it a mass murder. 20 00:01:36,606 --> 00:01:39,675 {\an8}They were hastily trying to get rid of the bodies 21 00:01:42,612 --> 00:01:44,447 by dumping them in mass graves 22 00:01:44,514 --> 00:01:46,048 around the city. 23 00:01:50,286 --> 00:01:53,789 - We have Tulsans of an undermined number 24 00:01:53,856 --> 00:01:55,725 who were murdered. 25 00:01:55,825 --> 00:01:59,729 It should not have taken 99 years. 26 00:01:59,829 --> 00:02:01,797 - Anybody who thinks that this crime scene 27 00:02:01,864 --> 00:02:04,066 is not gonna speak 28 00:02:04,167 --> 00:02:07,370 doesn't have the ears to hear. 29 00:02:07,470 --> 00:02:10,540 {\an8}The ancestors are awake 30 00:02:10,640 --> 00:02:13,009 {\an8}and the earth is shaking. 31 00:02:25,188 --> 00:02:29,926 [radio tuning] 32 00:02:32,995 --> 00:02:43,506 ♪♪ 33 00:02:43,573 --> 00:02:46,342 - Ah, yeah! So rough, so tough. 34 00:02:46,409 --> 00:02:50,112 For all you people listening to KBOB 89.9, 35 00:02:50,213 --> 00:02:52,715 located right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 36 00:02:54,383 --> 00:02:57,954 This is where we tell our stories our way. 37 00:02:58,054 --> 00:03:01,090 We can be talking about these graves, 38 00:03:01,190 --> 00:03:02,792 you know, here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 39 00:03:02,892 --> 00:03:07,129 excavation of these graves, what it means to us. 40 00:03:07,230 --> 00:03:09,031 I guess I'm gonna start with you, Kristi. 41 00:03:09,098 --> 00:03:10,766 - Uh-oh. - Uh-oh. 42 00:03:10,866 --> 00:03:13,236 [laughter] 43 00:03:13,302 --> 00:03:15,738 Kristi. Kristi Williams. 44 00:03:15,805 --> 00:03:17,907 - I came to Tulsa when I was in the sixth grade. 45 00:03:17,974 --> 00:03:20,743 {\an8}So, that's been, whoo! 46 00:03:20,810 --> 00:03:22,645 {\an8}I don't know how many years. 47 00:03:22,745 --> 00:03:25,381 My mother is from Oklahoma. 48 00:03:28,718 --> 00:03:32,154 There was a strong Black community in Tulsa 49 00:03:32,255 --> 00:03:34,323 called Greenwood. 50 00:03:35,591 --> 00:03:40,329 These people were the core of Black entrepreneurship 51 00:03:40,429 --> 00:03:44,800 and they would help you get your business started. 52 00:03:44,900 --> 00:03:48,237 I mean, Greenwood was booming. 53 00:03:48,304 --> 00:03:51,007 People call it the Black Wall Street. 54 00:03:51,107 --> 00:03:53,576 And when you read the editorials, 55 00:03:53,643 --> 00:03:56,912 and they would also post events that were happening. 56 00:04:01,284 --> 00:04:05,521 And I imagine they were having a great time! 57 00:04:05,621 --> 00:04:15,698 ♪♪ 58 00:04:15,798 --> 00:04:16,866 [sighs] 59 00:04:16,966 --> 00:04:20,603 What I love about Greenwood is what it was. 60 00:04:22,271 --> 00:04:24,974 And I love what it could be. 61 00:04:27,343 --> 00:04:30,146 But Tulsa has a truth problem. 62 00:04:36,652 --> 00:04:37,887 Hiding the truth, 63 00:04:37,987 --> 00:04:40,056 and people who will not challenge 64 00:04:40,156 --> 00:04:42,658 what is perceived to be truth. 65 00:04:46,796 --> 00:04:48,331 - What's keeping Tulsa from being 66 00:04:48,397 --> 00:04:50,733 a great shining city on a hill 67 00:04:50,833 --> 00:04:52,368 {\an8}is dealing with the legacy 68 00:04:52,468 --> 00:04:55,738 {\an8}of the so-called Tulsa race riot of 1921. 69 00:04:58,541 --> 00:05:01,210 White Tulsans murdered Black folks 70 00:05:01,310 --> 00:05:05,648 and were hastily trying to get rid of the bodies 71 00:05:05,715 --> 00:05:08,551 by dumping them in mass graves around the city. 72 00:05:10,553 --> 00:05:13,255 Awful things were done to get rid of bodies. 73 00:05:16,359 --> 00:05:19,095 In the late 1990s when Senator Maxine Horner 74 00:05:19,195 --> 00:05:22,865 and my father, State Representative Don Ross 75 00:05:22,932 --> 00:05:25,167 created the commission to study 76 00:05:25,234 --> 00:05:28,437 the Tulsa race riot of 1921, 77 00:05:28,537 --> 00:05:31,507 which brought historians, consultants 78 00:05:31,574 --> 00:05:34,210 from around the world who tried to figure out 79 00:05:34,276 --> 00:05:36,278 what happened in 1921. 80 00:05:38,948 --> 00:05:43,219 {\an8}I had many conversations with riot survivors. 81 00:05:59,735 --> 00:06:01,871 {\an8}- Oh! 82 00:06:01,937 --> 00:06:03,739 - It was one of the proudest moments that 83 00:06:03,806 --> 00:06:06,942 I can remember of my father. 84 00:06:07,042 --> 00:06:08,577 When I wrote their first articles, 85 00:06:08,644 --> 00:06:10,780 uh, "South Tulsa Tales from the Crypt", 86 00:06:10,880 --> 00:06:13,082 I got a lot of attention. 87 00:06:14,250 --> 00:06:18,087 {\an8}But nothing was done until 2018 88 00:06:18,154 --> 00:06:21,724 {\an8}when the story became a "Washington Post" story 89 00:06:21,791 --> 00:06:23,926 {\an8}thanks to a reporter who came to Tulsa 90 00:06:23,993 --> 00:06:26,662 to do a story about gentrification of Greenwood. 91 00:06:26,762 --> 00:06:28,664 No mayor, Republican or Democrat, 92 00:06:28,764 --> 00:06:31,600 never thought about or even touched the story 93 00:06:31,667 --> 00:06:33,736 of the mass graves. 94 00:06:35,237 --> 00:06:38,340 - You hear about, you know, history being erased 95 00:06:38,441 --> 00:06:41,143 in, you know, these authoritarian regimes 96 00:06:41,243 --> 00:06:44,180 or something like that. 97 00:06:44,280 --> 00:06:46,315 {\an8}You can't imagine that it would happen 98 00:06:46,415 --> 00:06:48,017 {\an8}right here in your own hometown 99 00:06:48,117 --> 00:06:50,152 {\an8}in the middle of the United States. 100 00:06:51,754 --> 00:06:54,190 And yet, it had. 101 00:06:54,290 --> 00:06:59,195 ♪♪ 102 00:06:59,295 --> 00:07:02,465 My name is G.T. Bynum. I'm the mayor of Tulsa. 103 00:07:02,531 --> 00:07:04,633 I grew up here in Tulsa. 104 00:07:04,700 --> 00:07:07,503 My family has been here since the 1870s. 105 00:07:08,838 --> 00:07:11,006 My great-great grandfather was the second mayor of Tulsa. 106 00:07:13,142 --> 00:07:16,512 I heard about the massacre in 2001 or 2002, maybe. 107 00:07:16,612 --> 00:07:18,781 And I was 24 years old at this point. 108 00:07:19,982 --> 00:07:21,484 You know, every high school student in Oklahoma 109 00:07:21,550 --> 00:07:23,886 has to go through an Oklahoma history course. 110 00:07:23,986 --> 00:07:26,188 It never came up. 111 00:07:26,288 --> 00:07:29,291 My dad had been president of the Tulsa Historical Society. 112 00:07:29,358 --> 00:07:31,227 It never came up. 113 00:07:31,327 --> 00:07:33,496 Hearing about that, it was shocking to me 114 00:07:33,562 --> 00:07:35,531 because I love Tulsa. 115 00:07:36,832 --> 00:07:38,834 I couldn't believe that Tulsa would be the kind of city 116 00:07:38,901 --> 00:07:41,403 where something like that could happen. 117 00:07:41,504 --> 00:07:45,241 We have Tulsans of an undetermined number 118 00:07:45,341 --> 00:07:48,244 who were murdered in this event. 119 00:07:48,344 --> 00:07:50,913 And so, we have a responsibility, I think, 120 00:07:51,013 --> 00:07:53,582 as a city to try and find out 121 00:07:53,682 --> 00:07:56,519 where their remains are and what happened to them. 122 00:08:09,365 --> 00:08:12,935 - You know, our ancestors literally make up 123 00:08:13,035 --> 00:08:15,204 who and what we are. 124 00:08:16,739 --> 00:08:19,275 {\an8}We are the physical manifestation of 125 00:08:19,375 --> 00:08:22,044 {\an8}our collective ancestors and their memories. 126 00:08:26,348 --> 00:08:28,684 How can I tap into his or her brilliance, 127 00:08:28,751 --> 00:08:30,419 their genius, 128 00:08:30,519 --> 00:08:33,455 so that I can really be the best that I can be? 129 00:08:35,391 --> 00:08:38,227 - I think it's at Tulsa's best interest 130 00:08:38,294 --> 00:08:41,130 to help heal the wounds, 131 00:08:41,230 --> 00:08:43,098 to go look for our dead 132 00:08:43,198 --> 00:08:45,301 and put them at a proper rest. 133 00:08:46,602 --> 00:08:49,772 Pay for the damages and for the lives 134 00:08:49,872 --> 00:08:53,075 that were lost in 1921. 135 00:08:56,979 --> 00:09:00,416 - The city deputized a lot of white men 136 00:09:00,482 --> 00:09:02,318 during the massacre 137 00:09:02,418 --> 00:09:06,755 who robbed, murdered a lot of people. 138 00:09:06,822 --> 00:09:08,824 They're accountable. 139 00:09:12,761 --> 00:09:15,397 - The story here is a story about people. 140 00:09:15,464 --> 00:09:17,499 It's about the human spirit. 141 00:09:19,501 --> 00:09:23,305 The massacre is a chapter in a much larger, richer, 142 00:09:23,405 --> 00:09:25,507 more robust narrative. 143 00:09:32,414 --> 00:09:35,818 - Most people you're going to interview, 144 00:09:35,918 --> 00:09:37,953 you need to ask this question. 145 00:09:40,756 --> 00:09:42,758 Where are you people from? 146 00:09:44,827 --> 00:09:47,963 And if they say well, we're from Oklahoma 147 00:09:48,030 --> 00:09:50,099 or Tulsa or Greenwood... 148 00:09:52,301 --> 00:09:55,771 well, when did they get here? 149 00:09:55,838 --> 00:09:57,973 - Scene Grayson Take 1, Common Marker, Mid Slate. 150 00:09:59,274 --> 00:10:02,044 {\an8}- My father, who's Creek Indian, 151 00:10:02,144 --> 00:10:04,713 {\an8}was from Oklahoma. 152 00:10:04,813 --> 00:10:09,118 My family is a mixture of Indian, Black, and white. 153 00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:14,189 And... here I am. 154 00:10:16,659 --> 00:10:19,194 {\an8}- The story of Oklahoma really began with 155 00:10:19,294 --> 00:10:22,464 {\an8}the five civilized tribes in the 1830s and 1840s. 156 00:10:22,531 --> 00:10:35,844 ♪♪ 157 00:10:35,911 --> 00:10:39,848 - The Chickasaws, the Creeks, 158 00:10:39,915 --> 00:10:41,917 the Cherokee, Choctaw, 159 00:10:42,017 --> 00:10:45,087 and the Seminoles, 160 00:10:45,187 --> 00:10:47,723 {\an8}called the five civilized tribes. 161 00:10:48,724 --> 00:10:51,360 They were originally from the South, 162 00:10:51,427 --> 00:10:54,430 from Alabama, Georgia, parts of Florida, 163 00:10:54,530 --> 00:10:59,034 Tennessee, Mississippi and the South Carolina area 164 00:10:59,101 --> 00:11:01,603 where these tribes owned plantations. 165 00:11:04,273 --> 00:11:07,342 - Civilized really is a veiled reference 166 00:11:07,409 --> 00:11:11,113 to taking on, accepting Eurocentric ways. 167 00:11:13,215 --> 00:11:17,453 One of those ways was a practice of chattel slavery 168 00:11:17,553 --> 00:11:19,955 to boost oneself economically. 169 00:11:21,557 --> 00:11:24,860 - At the Cherokee museum today are slave Bills of Sale, 170 00:11:24,927 --> 00:11:27,963 including one by then Principal Chief John Ross. 171 00:11:29,865 --> 00:11:31,433 - I don't ever talk about it very much 172 00:11:31,533 --> 00:11:33,402 because I think it's a very shameful part 173 00:11:33,469 --> 00:11:35,771 {\an8}of, um, of Cherokee history, 174 00:11:35,871 --> 00:11:38,874 {\an8}and so I've purposely avoided involving myself 175 00:11:38,941 --> 00:11:41,443 {\an8}in that whole issue. 176 00:11:48,317 --> 00:11:51,153 ♪ Java man he made a life ♪ 177 00:11:52,921 --> 00:11:55,824 ♪ But the mammy ain't his wife ♪ 178 00:11:57,593 --> 00:12:02,498 ♪ Choppin' cotton don't be slow ♪ 179 00:12:02,598 --> 00:12:04,900 ♪ Better finish out yo' row. ♪ 180 00:12:07,936 --> 00:12:10,305 - Slavery in the five civilized tribes varied. 181 00:12:12,341 --> 00:12:15,577 What's really important to remember is that 182 00:12:15,644 --> 00:12:17,813 these people were enslaved. 183 00:12:20,082 --> 00:12:24,753 So, by definition, it wasn't a good experience 184 00:12:24,820 --> 00:12:25,921 because if you're a slave, 185 00:12:25,988 --> 00:12:29,258 then you don't have your individual liberty, 186 00:12:29,324 --> 00:12:32,995 which arguably matters more than anything else. 187 00:12:33,095 --> 00:12:34,496 - Enslaving Black people, 188 00:12:34,596 --> 00:12:37,032 it was part of the economy of those tribes. 189 00:12:38,634 --> 00:12:42,604 When the Americans now wanted that land 190 00:12:42,671 --> 00:12:44,339 for their own plantations, 191 00:12:44,439 --> 00:12:46,708 they took the plantations of the Indians. 192 00:12:48,677 --> 00:12:52,347 This was done in a legal way... 193 00:12:54,449 --> 00:12:56,852 by passing legislation, 194 00:12:56,952 --> 00:12:58,854 The Indian Removal Act, 195 00:12:58,954 --> 00:13:01,657 the forced migration of the five civilized tribes 196 00:13:01,723 --> 00:13:03,525 from the Southeastern United States 197 00:13:03,625 --> 00:13:04,893 into Indian territory, 198 00:13:04,993 --> 00:13:07,796 which is what is today Oklahoma. 199 00:13:07,863 --> 00:13:10,165 {\an8}- They said, well, we're swapping you 200 00:13:10,232 --> 00:13:13,035 {\an8}this land for the lands west of the Mississippi 201 00:13:13,135 --> 00:13:15,037 {\an8}in Indian territory. 202 00:13:15,137 --> 00:13:17,573 You have no choice but to go. 203 00:13:20,342 --> 00:13:22,644 We know it as The Trail of Tears. 204 00:13:22,711 --> 00:13:30,085 ♪♪ 205 00:13:30,185 --> 00:13:33,222 The slaves that the tribes didn't sell off, 206 00:13:33,322 --> 00:13:35,591 they brought them on The Trail of Tears. 207 00:13:39,228 --> 00:13:41,663 So, just like an oxen or a bull 208 00:13:41,730 --> 00:13:43,532 that was pulling a wagon, 209 00:13:43,599 --> 00:13:46,869 the Black folks was in the same situation. 210 00:13:46,935 --> 00:13:49,571 They didn't have a choice. 211 00:13:51,206 --> 00:14:00,215 ♪♪ 212 00:14:00,282 --> 00:14:03,919 {\an8}- The five civilized tribes officially aligned themselves 213 00:14:04,019 --> 00:14:06,521 {\an8}with the Confederacy during the Civil War 214 00:14:06,588 --> 00:14:08,357 because slaves were still needed to improve 215 00:14:08,423 --> 00:14:10,792 the economic fortunes of these tribes. 216 00:14:12,194 --> 00:14:14,096 The Confederacy lost, by the way. 217 00:14:14,196 --> 00:14:16,431 And so, after the Civil War, 218 00:14:16,531 --> 00:14:19,635 the Federal government negotiated with these tribes 219 00:14:19,735 --> 00:14:21,403 on treaties generally referred to 220 00:14:21,470 --> 00:14:23,906 as the Treaties of 1866. 221 00:14:23,972 --> 00:14:35,651 ♪♪ 222 00:14:35,751 --> 00:14:38,987 - In Article II of The Creek Treaty of 1866, 223 00:14:39,087 --> 00:14:42,124 it says that you won't have slaves anymore. 224 00:14:42,224 --> 00:14:42,991 That's a wrap. 225 00:14:43,091 --> 00:14:45,060 It's not gonna happen no more. 226 00:14:47,796 --> 00:14:51,500 Those slaves that you have, they're now your Tribal members. 227 00:14:51,600 --> 00:14:54,069 They're now your citizens. 228 00:14:55,604 --> 00:14:57,506 Black people who had been with the Indians, 229 00:14:57,606 --> 00:15:01,343 now 10, 15 generations, 230 00:15:01,443 --> 00:15:04,079 either enslaved or married among them 231 00:15:04,146 --> 00:15:06,181 or their children. 232 00:15:07,683 --> 00:15:09,851 They were called the Freedmen. 233 00:15:14,156 --> 00:15:16,091 The United States government forced the Tribes 234 00:15:16,158 --> 00:15:19,861 to divide up this land with the Freedmen. 235 00:15:19,962 --> 00:15:21,997 - The slaves who belonged to the Cherokees 236 00:15:22,097 --> 00:15:23,765 could come right back to the territory 237 00:15:23,832 --> 00:15:26,301 and settle on Indian land. 238 00:15:26,368 --> 00:15:28,136 And when allotment came, 239 00:15:28,203 --> 00:15:31,473 they gave us an equal right with them in land drawings. 240 00:15:31,540 --> 00:15:33,709 The United States government forced them to do this, 241 00:15:33,809 --> 00:15:35,978 I have been told. 242 00:15:36,044 --> 00:15:50,125 ♪♪ 243 00:15:52,327 --> 00:15:55,897 - Okay, so, on this map, 244 00:15:55,998 --> 00:15:57,833 this is the Creek Nation. 245 00:15:57,899 --> 00:16:00,002 This little yellow spot up here 246 00:16:00,068 --> 00:16:01,136 is Township Tulsa. 247 00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:08,744 The green area are the allotments of the Freedmen. 248 00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:14,683 Everybody got 160 acres if you were full-blood Creek, 249 00:16:16,551 --> 00:16:18,920 if you were full Black from Africa. 250 00:16:21,390 --> 00:16:25,327 If you were female you got 160 acres. 251 00:16:25,394 --> 00:16:30,699 The Freedmen allotments totaled 1,192,240 acres. 252 00:16:32,501 --> 00:16:34,269 One million one hundred-- 253 00:16:34,369 --> 00:16:36,872 I really want people to understand that. 254 00:16:36,938 --> 00:16:41,043 That's a lot of land for a small geographical area. 255 00:16:41,109 --> 00:16:43,345 It's a lot of land to own. 256 00:16:43,412 --> 00:16:46,181 The most important part of the story 257 00:16:46,248 --> 00:16:48,583 of Black people here in Oklahoma 258 00:16:48,683 --> 00:16:51,253 is the Black land ownership. 259 00:16:55,624 --> 00:16:58,427 - As a descendent of a Creek Freedmen, 260 00:16:58,527 --> 00:17:00,862 I believe land is power, 261 00:17:00,929 --> 00:17:02,464 land is wealth, 262 00:17:02,564 --> 00:17:08,270 land is really the-the core of Black entrepreneurship. 263 00:17:13,742 --> 00:17:16,645 - You had two types of Blacks in Oklahoma. 264 00:17:16,745 --> 00:17:19,314 You had those Freedmen. 265 00:17:21,083 --> 00:17:23,652 Then you had state Blacks. 266 00:17:23,752 --> 00:17:25,454 State Blacks came to Oklahoma looking 267 00:17:25,554 --> 00:17:27,089 for the promised land. 268 00:17:27,155 --> 00:17:31,426 ♪♪ 269 00:17:31,493 --> 00:17:33,662 - There was a movement called Boosterism 270 00:17:33,762 --> 00:17:37,099 and this began in 1889 271 00:17:37,165 --> 00:17:39,067 using bulletins and encouraging Black folks 272 00:17:39,134 --> 00:17:41,269 to migrate from the deep South 273 00:17:41,336 --> 00:17:43,605 to what is now Oklahoma. 274 00:17:43,672 --> 00:17:46,808 The leader of that movement was a fellow called E.P. McCabe. 275 00:17:46,908 --> 00:17:49,177 He recruited Black people to come on the theory 276 00:17:49,277 --> 00:17:52,948 that it represented an escape from the oppressive deep South, 277 00:17:53,014 --> 00:17:55,851 an opportunity to prosper economically. 278 00:17:58,487 --> 00:18:00,255 - The time will soon come when we will be able 279 00:18:00,322 --> 00:18:03,492 to dictate the policy of this territory, or state. 280 00:18:03,592 --> 00:18:05,260 And when that time comes, 281 00:18:05,327 --> 00:18:08,296 we will have a Negro state governed by Negroes. 282 00:18:08,363 --> 00:18:10,599 We do not wish to antagonize the whites. 283 00:18:10,665 --> 00:18:12,100 They are necessary in the development 284 00:18:12,167 --> 00:18:13,535 of a new country. 285 00:18:13,635 --> 00:18:15,437 But they owe my race homes, 286 00:18:15,504 --> 00:18:17,005 and my race owes to itself 287 00:18:17,105 --> 00:18:19,975 a governmental control of those homes. 288 00:18:24,779 --> 00:18:27,149 - Land meant rebirth. 289 00:18:29,551 --> 00:18:33,722 It meant renewal. Land meant survival. 290 00:18:33,822 --> 00:18:37,359 There were 40 other Black townships around Oklahoma. 291 00:18:37,459 --> 00:18:39,794 The whole state. 292 00:18:39,861 --> 00:18:40,795 Not just Tulsa. 293 00:18:46,535 --> 00:18:49,337 - It was the promised land for a lot of people 294 00:18:49,404 --> 00:18:51,072 coming out of slavery 295 00:18:51,173 --> 00:18:53,742 wanting to escape lynchings 296 00:18:53,842 --> 00:18:55,844 and wanting just to raise their families 297 00:18:55,911 --> 00:18:58,914 in a loving community. 298 00:19:06,021 --> 00:19:10,025 - Freedman had all of this land with mineral rights 299 00:19:10,091 --> 00:19:12,928 that ultimately made them very wealthy. 300 00:19:22,404 --> 00:19:25,340 - We put ourselves in Oklahoma, 1906. 301 00:19:27,842 --> 00:19:30,011 A city called Tulsa. 302 00:19:30,078 --> 00:19:41,022 ♪♪ 303 00:19:41,089 --> 00:19:43,758 Tulsa boomed after the discovery of oil. 304 00:19:48,230 --> 00:19:51,800 Tulsa became the oil capital of the world. 305 00:19:51,900 --> 00:19:56,972 ♪♪ 306 00:19:57,072 --> 00:20:00,275 The oil drew people really from all over, 307 00:20:00,375 --> 00:20:02,944 seeking fame and fortune. 308 00:20:04,546 --> 00:20:06,648 The population just mushroomed. 309 00:20:06,748 --> 00:20:13,655 ♪♪ 310 00:20:13,755 --> 00:20:18,660 - Back then, people were moving to the city every day, 311 00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:20,795 {\an8}whether it's a sharecropper 312 00:20:20,895 --> 00:20:23,832 {\an8}leaving some rural Oklahoma county, 313 00:20:23,932 --> 00:20:26,334 looking for a job in the oilfields. 314 00:20:27,769 --> 00:20:29,337 Whether it's a young entrepreneur 315 00:20:29,437 --> 00:20:32,440 who thinks that they can strike the next one. 316 00:20:32,507 --> 00:20:34,242 People called it the Magic City 317 00:20:34,309 --> 00:20:36,278 because it just came out of nowhere. 318 00:20:36,344 --> 00:20:49,591 ♪♪ 319 00:20:49,658 --> 00:20:50,825 {\an8}- Back when I was growing up, 320 00:20:50,925 --> 00:20:54,362 {\an8}they said the 1921 race riot 321 00:20:54,462 --> 00:20:56,431 {\an8}and then they changed it to massacre. 322 00:20:56,498 --> 00:20:58,266 {\an8}And I wanted people to know my mother 323 00:20:58,333 --> 00:21:00,268 {\an8}was a survivor of that. 324 00:21:00,335 --> 00:21:01,770 A lot of people say, 325 00:21:01,836 --> 00:21:04,139 oh, we didn't know anything about it. 326 00:21:04,205 --> 00:21:05,373 I always knew about it 327 00:21:05,473 --> 00:21:08,710 because my mother told me about it. 328 00:21:08,810 --> 00:21:13,815 ♪♪ 329 00:21:13,882 --> 00:21:16,618 - Tulsa has seen a lot of growth in recent years. 330 00:21:16,685 --> 00:21:18,520 Some might even say it's showing signs of becoming 331 00:21:18,620 --> 00:21:21,990 a destination city. 332 00:21:22,057 --> 00:21:25,360 - Tulsa is a beautiful little city 333 00:21:27,195 --> 00:21:29,564 that wants to be a big city. 334 00:21:29,664 --> 00:21:39,908 ♪♪ 335 00:21:40,008 --> 00:21:41,309 It's just a little country town 336 00:21:41,376 --> 00:21:42,477 that had big skyscrapers. 337 00:21:49,984 --> 00:21:52,921 The weather is beautiful. 338 00:21:53,021 --> 00:21:55,357 The cost of living is wonderful. 339 00:21:56,691 --> 00:21:59,361 People from various different walks of life. 340 00:22:02,397 --> 00:22:04,599 And I strongly believe at one time 341 00:22:04,699 --> 00:22:08,370 that we're going to be the best city 342 00:22:08,436 --> 00:22:10,572 that this world can offer. 343 00:22:29,891 --> 00:22:32,093 Make a left at the light. 344 00:22:33,762 --> 00:22:38,933 Here we are in the historic Greenwood community, 345 00:22:39,934 --> 00:22:43,371 AKA the Black Wall Street of America, 346 00:22:43,438 --> 00:22:47,275 AKA the Negro Wall Street of America, 347 00:22:47,375 --> 00:22:50,044 AKA my home. 348 00:22:58,787 --> 00:23:01,456 Every day that I've got money in my pocket, 349 00:23:01,556 --> 00:23:03,625 I go down on Greenwood. 350 00:23:04,893 --> 00:23:06,628 I go get me a haircut. 351 00:23:08,830 --> 00:23:10,231 They give me the latest scoop, 352 00:23:10,298 --> 00:23:12,333 find out what's going on. 353 00:23:14,469 --> 00:23:16,671 What's up on Greenwood now? 354 00:23:18,807 --> 00:23:21,743 Yeah, the Tee's Barbershop is a legacy of my family. 355 00:23:21,810 --> 00:23:23,978 My father got his hair cut here. 356 00:23:24,078 --> 00:23:27,282 My son got his first haircut right here. 357 00:23:29,083 --> 00:23:31,586 Well, how long has a barbershop been on Greenwood? 358 00:23:31,653 --> 00:23:35,190 - The first barbershop that I'm-- I worked for 359 00:23:35,290 --> 00:23:37,659 was called Mim's Barbershop 360 00:23:37,759 --> 00:23:41,296 and it was in the 1100 block of North Greenwood. 361 00:23:41,362 --> 00:23:43,665 That was in 1963. 362 00:23:43,765 --> 00:23:44,966 They talking about Greenwood 363 00:23:45,033 --> 00:23:47,435 and all you can see now is one block. 364 00:23:47,502 --> 00:23:49,771 But it was businesses all the way down 365 00:23:49,838 --> 00:23:54,709 from-from Lansing back to Martin Luther King Drive today. 366 00:23:54,809 --> 00:23:57,812 ♪♪ 367 00:23:57,879 --> 00:24:00,215 - 1921. 368 00:24:00,315 --> 00:24:03,718 Greenwood was much larger than just that one block 369 00:24:03,818 --> 00:24:05,887 that you guys see today. 370 00:24:11,326 --> 00:24:13,862 Greenwood's much larger to the south, 371 00:24:13,962 --> 00:24:15,396 to the east, 372 00:24:15,497 --> 00:24:18,333 {\an8}to the west, and to the north. 373 00:24:20,969 --> 00:24:22,237 {\an8}But the only thing we have left 374 00:24:22,337 --> 00:24:24,572 {\an8}is just a sliver of its former self. 375 00:24:27,842 --> 00:24:30,078 {\an8}- Every time somebody comes back every other 20 years, 376 00:24:30,178 --> 00:24:31,412 {\an8}there's less and less of Greenwood. 377 00:24:31,513 --> 00:24:33,081 {\an8}People come here all the time and say, is this it? 378 00:24:33,181 --> 00:24:34,349 {\an8}This is Greenwood? 379 00:24:34,415 --> 00:24:35,817 This is what they've been talking about? Right? 380 00:24:37,252 --> 00:24:39,721 Everybody wants a community 381 00:24:39,821 --> 00:24:43,157 where they can grow and prosper 382 00:24:43,224 --> 00:24:43,491 and that dollar can turn over 383 00:24:47,161 --> 00:24:49,998 So, why wouldn't Black folks want that for themselves? 384 00:25:03,278 --> 00:25:05,113 {\an8}- I've been ownin' Blow Out Hair Studio 385 00:25:05,213 --> 00:25:08,249 {\an8}for 13 years now. 386 00:25:08,349 --> 00:25:10,451 Greenwood is special. 387 00:25:10,552 --> 00:25:13,054 Once you come down here, you feel the energy. 388 00:25:15,857 --> 00:25:17,292 I would hate to leave Greenwood. 389 00:25:17,392 --> 00:25:20,895 I will fight tooth and nails before I leave, 390 00:25:20,962 --> 00:25:22,397 to be honest with you. 391 00:25:25,199 --> 00:25:27,268 {\an8}- Farmers Insurance is my first business. 392 00:25:27,368 --> 00:25:29,103 {\an8}However, I have a studio, 393 00:25:29,203 --> 00:25:32,974 {\an8}Greenwood Fitness & Recreational Studio. 394 00:25:33,074 --> 00:25:36,077 {\an8}You know, we have a debt to our ancestors here. 395 00:25:36,144 --> 00:25:38,913 {\an8}You know, we have to bring back what was once there. 396 00:25:38,980 --> 00:25:40,315 {\an8}[espresso machine whirring] 397 00:25:40,415 --> 00:25:43,117 {\an8}And anyone that wants to do business here 398 00:25:43,217 --> 00:25:47,322 {\an8}should also be engaged in that same idea, 399 00:25:47,422 --> 00:25:49,490 {\an8}that same mentality, same thought process. 400 00:25:57,231 --> 00:26:01,569 - When I got to Tulsa in 1984, 401 00:26:01,636 --> 00:26:04,439 I was asked to do a regular guest editorial column 402 00:26:04,505 --> 00:26:05,573 in the Oklahoma Eagle, 403 00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,109 which is the Black newspaper. 404 00:26:08,176 --> 00:26:11,346 One of my assignments was to do a historical treatment 405 00:26:11,446 --> 00:26:13,514 of the Greenwood District. 406 00:26:13,615 --> 00:26:16,250 I've had this sort of obligation of service. 407 00:26:16,317 --> 00:26:17,485 And if I'm going to live in this community, 408 00:26:17,585 --> 00:26:20,955 I want the community to be the best it can be. 409 00:26:21,022 --> 00:26:22,790 We can't do that unless we engage 410 00:26:22,857 --> 00:26:25,293 in the work of racial reconciliation. 411 00:26:26,961 --> 00:26:27,862 And we can't do that 412 00:26:27,962 --> 00:26:30,098 unless we acknowledge our history. 413 00:26:30,164 --> 00:26:34,302 ♪♪ 414 00:26:34,369 --> 00:26:43,344 {\an8}♪♪ 415 00:26:43,444 --> 00:26:45,813 {\an8}A Black man, the name of O.W. Gurley 416 00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:47,649 {\an8}came to Oklahoma from Arkansas. 417 00:26:49,150 --> 00:26:50,985 {\an8}He bought land. 418 00:26:51,052 --> 00:26:54,555 {\an8}He sold land to other African Americas; 419 00:26:54,656 --> 00:26:57,959 {\an8}established his first business in 1906. 420 00:26:58,026 --> 00:26:59,861 Businesses just proliferated 421 00:26:59,961 --> 00:27:04,632 and they became prosperous, 422 00:27:04,699 --> 00:27:06,367 creating and living 423 00:27:06,467 --> 00:27:10,638 in this insular economic community 424 00:27:10,705 --> 00:27:12,206 called the Greenwood District. 425 00:27:17,578 --> 00:27:23,718 The Greenwood District was Black Main Street. 426 00:27:23,818 --> 00:27:27,388 Mom and pop type operations, small businesses, 427 00:27:27,488 --> 00:27:31,259 hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, 428 00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:32,827 theaters, nightclubs. 429 00:27:37,832 --> 00:27:41,335 - You have the offices of African American lawyers. 430 00:27:41,402 --> 00:27:44,205 There are more than 12 physicians and surgeons 431 00:27:44,272 --> 00:27:45,907 that have their offices in Greenwood. 432 00:27:49,277 --> 00:27:52,714 {\an8}- Greenwood had about 10,000 people. 433 00:27:52,780 --> 00:27:54,882 {\an8}They were in search for a way 434 00:27:54,949 --> 00:27:57,251 {\an8}to be masters of their own fate. 435 00:27:59,554 --> 00:28:02,123 Today, most of the people connect to Greenwood 436 00:28:02,223 --> 00:28:04,926 and think Black Wall Street 437 00:28:05,026 --> 00:28:07,628 and, yes, that existed here. 438 00:28:07,729 --> 00:28:09,797 You did have people that were pioneers 439 00:28:09,897 --> 00:28:15,803 and big business tycoons living in sprawling mansions. 440 00:28:15,903 --> 00:28:28,883 ♪♪ 441 00:28:28,950 --> 00:28:32,086 And even most people who were domestic workers 442 00:28:32,153 --> 00:28:34,555 or owning small shops, 443 00:28:34,622 --> 00:28:37,158 living day to day, 444 00:28:37,258 --> 00:28:39,293 everyone has an opportunity and their skin color 445 00:28:39,393 --> 00:28:42,463 doesn't limit their capacity here. 446 00:28:42,563 --> 00:28:45,266 That's what makes Greenwood really special, 447 00:28:45,333 --> 00:28:47,168 that you have this safe haven, 448 00:28:47,268 --> 00:28:49,003 that oasis that existed here. 449 00:28:51,606 --> 00:28:53,474 {\an8}- This is a special edition of the events 450 00:28:53,574 --> 00:28:55,076 {\an8}of the Tulsa Disaster. 451 00:28:55,143 --> 00:28:58,179 {\an8}Mary Jones Parrish is very important 452 00:28:58,279 --> 00:29:01,115 {\an8}because she was hired within a week or two 453 00:29:01,182 --> 00:29:05,686 {\an8}of the massacre to collect stories of people-- 454 00:29:05,787 --> 00:29:07,755 {\an8}of survivors, including herself. 455 00:29:07,822 --> 00:29:17,031 ♪♪ 456 00:29:17,131 --> 00:29:19,200 {\an8}- On leavin' the Frisco Station, 457 00:29:19,300 --> 00:29:21,135 {\an8}goin' north to Archer Street, 458 00:29:21,202 --> 00:29:25,339 {\an8}one could see nothin' but Negro business places. 459 00:29:25,439 --> 00:29:28,476 {\an8}Goin' east on Archer for two or more blocks, 460 00:29:28,543 --> 00:29:32,146 {\an8}there you would behold Greenwood Avenue, 461 00:29:32,213 --> 00:29:34,015 {\an8}the Negroes Wall Street. 462 00:29:35,783 --> 00:29:38,986 - Mary Parrish was a remarkable woman. 463 00:29:39,053 --> 00:29:41,055 Originally from Mississippi, 464 00:29:41,155 --> 00:29:44,058 she had set up a secretarial school 465 00:29:44,158 --> 00:29:46,961 right on Greenwood Avenue to teach young women 466 00:29:47,028 --> 00:29:48,663 all of these different skills 467 00:29:48,729 --> 00:29:51,365 so they could get work as secretaries 468 00:29:51,465 --> 00:29:55,169 to some of Greenwood's Black doctors and lawyers. 469 00:29:55,236 --> 00:29:59,340 - This section of Tulsa was a city within a city. 470 00:29:59,407 --> 00:30:02,176 Every face seemed to wear a happy smile. 471 00:30:02,243 --> 00:30:11,886 ♪♪ 472 00:30:11,986 --> 00:30:16,891 {\an8}- We're sitting in the Mackey house. 473 00:30:16,991 --> 00:30:19,093 {\an8}That's Lucy. 474 00:30:19,193 --> 00:30:22,196 {\an8}The Mackeys are really emblematic 475 00:30:22,263 --> 00:30:24,432 {\an8}of the kind of middle-class Black person 476 00:30:24,532 --> 00:30:26,601 {\an8}who lived in the Greenwood community 477 00:30:26,701 --> 00:30:28,069 {\an8}during its peak. 478 00:30:29,537 --> 00:30:32,840 {\an8}But I think if we only fixate on the things 479 00:30:32,907 --> 00:30:35,743 {\an8}that are glamorous and more flattering 480 00:30:35,843 --> 00:30:37,345 {\an8}and we forget that the Greenwood District 481 00:30:37,411 --> 00:30:40,014 {\an8}is a part of the city called Tulsa. 482 00:30:44,418 --> 00:30:47,188 You have a Black segregated community 483 00:30:47,255 --> 00:30:49,624 that's not getting its fair share of tax dollars 484 00:30:49,724 --> 00:30:52,226 for infrastructure like roads, 485 00:30:52,293 --> 00:30:54,428 like sewer systems, and things like that. 486 00:30:59,734 --> 00:31:14,749 ♪♪ 487 00:31:21,422 --> 00:31:25,993 - There was so much money in Tulsa these days, 488 00:31:26,093 --> 00:31:27,628 but here's the reality. 489 00:31:27,728 --> 00:31:29,797 Money plays a complicated role 490 00:31:29,897 --> 00:31:33,134 in the intermingling between the races. 491 00:31:33,234 --> 00:31:36,003 - Affluence, wealth, prosperity 492 00:31:36,103 --> 00:31:39,307 created this tie-in between Black Tulsans, 493 00:31:39,407 --> 00:31:41,509 white Tulsans, 494 00:31:41,609 --> 00:31:43,678 but it's all about perspective. 495 00:31:43,778 --> 00:31:45,913 White Tulsans talked about Greenwood 496 00:31:45,980 --> 00:31:48,449 as Little Africa or Negro Land. 497 00:32:01,128 --> 00:32:04,632 - White Tulsans could control what justice looks like... 498 00:32:06,968 --> 00:32:10,137 could control the narrative, 499 00:32:10,204 --> 00:32:13,207 could control whatever they want. 500 00:32:13,307 --> 00:32:19,313 {\an8}[children playing] 501 00:32:19,380 --> 00:32:25,019 - I would say that I had a very neutral attitude 502 00:32:25,119 --> 00:32:26,721 about Blacks. 503 00:32:26,821 --> 00:32:32,326 We had, uh, Black maids work for our household, 504 00:32:32,393 --> 00:32:36,030 but I knew that there was separation of seating-- 505 00:32:36,130 --> 00:32:39,567 restaurants, motels. 506 00:32:39,667 --> 00:32:51,912 {\an8}♪♪ 507 00:32:52,013 --> 00:32:56,017 {\an8}- Through the years, I met all sorts of people, 508 00:32:56,083 --> 00:32:59,086 {\an8}including white people whose family was in Tulsa 509 00:32:59,186 --> 00:33:02,089 {\an8}during the people of the massacre. 510 00:33:02,189 --> 00:33:03,824 {\an8}You were telling me that you were born, 511 00:33:03,891 --> 00:33:06,093 {\an8}uh, in 1915. - Uh-huh. 512 00:33:06,193 --> 00:33:07,928 {\an8}Down on 9th and Denver is where my parents 513 00:33:08,029 --> 00:33:10,831 {\an8}bought a little house down there when they got married. 514 00:33:10,898 --> 00:33:12,833 - Did you, as a child, ever have occasion 515 00:33:12,900 --> 00:33:15,770 to visit the African American community in Tulsa? 516 00:33:15,870 --> 00:33:19,173 - I-I think that I would have been, uh, 517 00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:23,210 probably just going to and from the homes 518 00:33:23,277 --> 00:33:24,945 where our maids lived. 519 00:33:25,046 --> 00:33:28,516 - My mother always had the colored help. 520 00:33:28,582 --> 00:33:32,920 She just- she got along well with people and-- 521 00:33:33,020 --> 00:33:34,288 - When you say help, you mean domestic, 522 00:33:34,388 --> 00:33:35,122 as domestic help? 523 00:33:35,222 --> 00:33:36,791 - Yes, domestic help. Um-hmm. 524 00:33:36,891 --> 00:33:39,894 - My challenge, my charge really is to help people 525 00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:42,897 come to grips with their past, 526 00:33:42,963 --> 00:33:45,566 which is not to say that every person in America's evil 527 00:33:45,633 --> 00:33:46,934 or every white person is evil. 528 00:33:47,034 --> 00:33:49,737 It's to acknowledge a series of systems 529 00:33:49,804 --> 00:33:51,939 that exist here that advantage some people 530 00:33:52,039 --> 00:33:53,207 and disadvantage other people. 531 00:33:54,475 --> 00:33:56,143 {\an8}- We were taught by innuendo 532 00:33:56,243 --> 00:33:59,547 {\an8}to dislike or to actually hate. 533 00:33:59,613 --> 00:34:01,382 {\an8}I think the thing that bothered me the most 534 00:34:01,449 --> 00:34:03,250 {\an8}was not being able to ask questions 535 00:34:03,317 --> 00:34:06,053 {\an8}and have a discussion or hear about it 536 00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,390 {\an8}as just a kid growing up, a white kid. 537 00:34:13,994 --> 00:34:15,796 - The only reason that Black Wall Street existed 538 00:34:15,896 --> 00:34:18,399 was because of necessity. 539 00:34:20,668 --> 00:34:22,136 These people were not able to participate 540 00:34:22,236 --> 00:34:25,906 in the regular economy run by the dominant culture 541 00:34:25,973 --> 00:34:27,741 because of segregation. 542 00:34:31,679 --> 00:34:32,947 - The vast majority of people 543 00:34:33,013 --> 00:34:35,115 who lived in Greenwood were not wealthy. 544 00:34:35,182 --> 00:34:41,455 ♪♪ 545 00:34:41,522 --> 00:34:44,425 But they had regular jobs in the white community 546 00:34:44,492 --> 00:34:45,926 and they had a regular paycheck 547 00:34:45,993 --> 00:34:49,530 in the white community. 548 00:34:49,630 --> 00:34:52,266 You've got a lot of well-to-do white Tulsans 549 00:34:52,333 --> 00:34:56,036 who are going to hire servants, cooks, 550 00:34:56,137 --> 00:34:57,638 domestic workers. 551 00:35:00,841 --> 00:35:03,777 They would collect their paycheck at the end of the week 552 00:35:03,844 --> 00:35:05,679 and they would spend it back in Greenwood. 553 00:35:08,983 --> 00:35:11,285 You know, in Tulsa, like in other southern cities, 554 00:35:11,352 --> 00:35:14,288 African Americans can't go into a department store 555 00:35:14,355 --> 00:35:15,556 and try on clothes. 556 00:35:21,629 --> 00:35:25,299 But they can shop in their own neighborhoods. 557 00:35:25,366 --> 00:35:29,370 So, what happens is the merchants in Greenwood 558 00:35:29,470 --> 00:35:32,006 had this captive population 559 00:35:32,072 --> 00:35:35,376 and the money just flows and flows and flows. 560 00:35:39,513 --> 00:35:42,082 - And it was successful because they were supported 561 00:35:42,183 --> 00:35:44,318 by people who looked like them, 562 00:35:44,385 --> 00:35:46,654 would purchase from them, do business with them. 563 00:35:52,259 --> 00:35:55,696 - So, there's people that are living all different lives 564 00:35:55,763 --> 00:35:57,498 and different social standings 565 00:35:57,565 --> 00:36:00,367 but everyone here is making a living 566 00:36:00,434 --> 00:36:05,773 whatever way they- they decide to. 567 00:36:05,873 --> 00:36:08,709 And they're not feeling the pressures 568 00:36:08,776 --> 00:36:10,744 and the violence from the outside world. 569 00:36:18,018 --> 00:36:18,953 {\an8}- I did not grow up here, 570 00:36:22,223 --> 00:36:25,593 {\an8}and I'd recognized the importance that it had, 571 00:36:25,693 --> 00:36:26,794 {\an8}not just for this community, 572 00:36:26,894 --> 00:36:30,397 {\an8}but for the country and also the world. 573 00:36:30,464 --> 00:36:36,136 {\an8}And I wish that Greenwood would be a wonderful community 574 00:36:36,237 --> 00:36:39,907 {\an8}that would radiate the likeness of the Lord. 575 00:36:47,748 --> 00:36:50,050 - 1920 Greenwood was booming. 576 00:36:50,117 --> 00:36:59,560 ♪♪ 577 00:36:59,627 --> 00:37:01,395 It was a strong community. 578 00:37:03,264 --> 00:37:06,500 {\an8}- A.C. Jackson was a prominent Black surgeon. 579 00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:08,669 {\an8}The Mayo Clinic said that Dr. A.C. Jackson 580 00:37:08,769 --> 00:37:12,239 {\an8}was the most able Negro surgeon in America. 581 00:37:12,306 --> 00:37:15,142 {\an8}Simon Berry was a businessman. 582 00:37:15,242 --> 00:37:16,977 {\an8}His first business was a jitney service. 583 00:37:18,479 --> 00:37:20,114 {\an8}A.J. Smitherman was the editor and publisher 584 00:37:20,180 --> 00:37:21,348 {\an8}of the Tulsa Star. 585 00:37:21,448 --> 00:37:23,851 {\an8}His paper included editorials and articles 586 00:37:23,951 --> 00:37:26,854 {\an8}really talking about social justice. 587 00:37:26,954 --> 00:37:28,355 {\an8}- When you think about Stradford, 588 00:37:28,455 --> 00:37:32,259 {\an8}you think about what elegance and grace looks like. 589 00:37:32,326 --> 00:37:34,295 {\an8}- By the beginning of 1917, 590 00:37:34,361 --> 00:37:36,530 {\an8}I had amassed quite a fortune. 591 00:37:36,630 --> 00:37:38,465 {\an8}I owned fifteen rental houses, 592 00:37:38,532 --> 00:37:41,035 {\an8}a sixteen room brick apartment building. 593 00:37:41,135 --> 00:37:44,538 {\an8}The rental value was $350 a month. 594 00:37:44,638 --> 00:37:47,274 {\an8}The income from other sources were triple. 595 00:37:47,341 --> 00:37:48,942 I had a splendid bank account 596 00:37:49,009 --> 00:37:51,879 and was living on the sunny side of the street. 597 00:37:51,979 --> 00:37:55,015 I decided to realize my fondest hope, 598 00:37:55,115 --> 00:37:58,218 and that was to erect a large hotel in Tulsa 599 00:37:58,319 --> 00:38:00,154 exclusively for my people. 600 00:38:04,792 --> 00:38:07,828 - J.B. Stradford built the Stradford Hotel. 601 00:38:07,895 --> 00:38:11,899 - It's 54 rooms and crystal chandeliers. 602 00:38:11,999 --> 00:38:12,666 - It was acknowledged 603 00:38:15,336 --> 00:38:17,638 in the United States of America. 604 00:38:17,705 --> 00:38:19,573 It was the crown jewel of Greenwood. 605 00:38:21,342 --> 00:38:22,743 {\an8}- Loulah and John Williams, 606 00:38:22,843 --> 00:38:25,913 {\an8}they were really active in the community. 607 00:38:26,013 --> 00:38:27,481 {\an8}Here they had a rooming house 608 00:38:27,548 --> 00:38:29,249 {\an8}and a garage and a confectionary. 609 00:38:31,485 --> 00:38:35,556 Williams Dreamland Theatre was a grand structure, 610 00:38:35,656 --> 00:38:37,758 really one of the jewels in the Greenwood community 611 00:38:37,858 --> 00:38:38,992 at the time. 612 00:38:40,694 --> 00:38:45,065 - Imagine putting Harlem, Bourbon Street, 613 00:38:45,165 --> 00:38:46,900 and Chocolate City all in one place. 614 00:38:50,537 --> 00:38:52,506 A train stopping on a Friday night 615 00:38:52,573 --> 00:38:54,441 coming to Greenwood 616 00:38:54,541 --> 00:38:57,244 with excess of 500 people 617 00:38:57,344 --> 00:38:58,946 to listen to all the greats. 618 00:38:59,046 --> 00:39:03,283 ♪♪ 619 00:39:03,384 --> 00:39:05,753 - There are speakeasys, there are pool halls, 620 00:39:05,853 --> 00:39:09,356 there's a lot of action going on. 621 00:39:09,423 --> 00:39:11,792 In Greenwood you had hell on one side 622 00:39:11,892 --> 00:39:13,293 and the holy ghost on the other. 623 00:39:17,131 --> 00:39:20,634 - The church life in those days were very strong 624 00:39:20,734 --> 00:39:24,972 and the church was a source, 625 00:39:25,072 --> 00:39:27,641 not just for God, but also for community. 626 00:39:27,741 --> 00:39:30,110 [piano playing blues music] 627 00:39:30,210 --> 00:39:36,750 ♪♪ 628 00:39:36,817 --> 00:39:37,751 - Well-to-do families, 629 00:39:37,818 --> 00:39:40,821 Black families in Tulsa would have pianos. 630 00:39:40,921 --> 00:39:44,591 They would have their daughters take piano lessons. 631 00:39:44,658 --> 00:39:48,962 You might hear a blues song, 632 00:39:49,062 --> 00:39:51,131 but you might also hear a Mozart sonata. 633 00:39:51,231 --> 00:39:56,603 [piano playing classical music] 634 00:39:56,670 --> 00:39:59,006 It's part of the blood of the city. 635 00:39:59,106 --> 00:40:00,974 This is a part of the heartbeat of the town. 636 00:40:04,278 --> 00:40:05,345 - And the sky was the limit. 637 00:40:05,446 --> 00:40:06,580 There was nothing that you could not do. 638 00:40:14,822 --> 00:40:16,757 - When thinking about Tulsa 639 00:40:16,824 --> 00:40:19,460 in the early part of the 20th century, 640 00:40:19,526 --> 00:40:20,427 it's important to remember 641 00:40:20,494 --> 00:40:23,497 where the Greenwood community is. 642 00:40:23,597 --> 00:40:26,366 It abuts downtown, separated by the Frisco tracks. 643 00:40:30,671 --> 00:40:36,210 If you live in a society in which white supremacy 644 00:40:36,310 --> 00:40:38,512 is the prevailing paradigm, 645 00:40:38,612 --> 00:40:41,949 but you live in a community in which you can look across 646 00:40:42,015 --> 00:40:46,186 the dividing line, the Frisco tracks, 647 00:40:46,286 --> 00:40:48,622 and see Black folks driving nice cars 648 00:40:48,689 --> 00:40:51,792 and wearing fur coats and living in nice homes, 649 00:40:51,859 --> 00:40:54,561 then it causes cognitive dissonance, 650 00:40:54,661 --> 00:40:57,698 garden variety jealousy. 651 00:40:57,798 --> 00:41:00,400 {\an8}That land was desired by corporate interest 652 00:41:00,501 --> 00:41:03,570 {\an8}in Tulsa. We know that. 653 00:41:03,670 --> 00:41:06,173 The idea was to remove the Black folks from the land, 654 00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:08,675 move them farther north, 655 00:41:08,742 --> 00:41:10,244 and use the land for what was considered 656 00:41:10,344 --> 00:41:12,813 to be higher and better purposes. 657 00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,416 {\an8}- Tulsa appears now to be in danger of losing its prestige 658 00:41:16,517 --> 00:41:18,919 {\an8}as the whitest town in Oklahoma. 659 00:41:19,019 --> 00:41:20,921 {\an8}Does Tulsa wish a double invasion 660 00:41:21,021 --> 00:41:23,156 {\an8}of criminal Negro preachers, 661 00:41:23,223 --> 00:41:24,858 {\an8}Negro shysters, 662 00:41:24,925 --> 00:41:27,895 {\an8}crap shooters, gamblers, bootlegs, prostitutes, 663 00:41:27,995 --> 00:41:29,997 {\an8}and smart alecks in general? 664 00:41:30,063 --> 00:41:43,544 ♪♪ 665 00:41:43,610 --> 00:41:45,245 - We took Oklahoma history in the ninth grade. 666 00:41:45,345 --> 00:41:47,180 And in our-- in our textbook, 667 00:41:47,247 --> 00:41:49,049 there was probably a page, or a page and a half 668 00:41:49,116 --> 00:41:52,085 about the race massacre. 669 00:41:52,185 --> 00:41:53,787 We did not cover that in class. 670 00:41:53,887 --> 00:41:57,558 I read it because I was really interested in history 671 00:41:57,624 --> 00:42:00,260 and it was a real revelation. 672 00:42:01,762 --> 00:42:07,200 It brought home just how pervasive racism was 673 00:42:07,267 --> 00:42:11,238 in the United States and in the social system. 674 00:42:11,305 --> 00:42:13,040 - Historians often refer to the early part 675 00:42:13,106 --> 00:42:14,308 of the 20th century in America 676 00:42:14,408 --> 00:42:16,910 as the low point of race relations in America. 677 00:42:18,245 --> 00:42:20,647 {\an8}- African Americans are under attack 678 00:42:20,747 --> 00:42:24,418 {\an8}in all different quarters in all parts of the Union. 679 00:42:24,484 --> 00:42:27,487 {\an8}This is an era where the nature of lynchings 680 00:42:27,588 --> 00:42:29,323 {\an8}are getting more and more barbaric. 681 00:42:33,594 --> 00:42:35,295 - Lynching is a form of domestic terrorism 682 00:42:35,395 --> 00:42:39,933 that targeted primarily African Americans. 683 00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:45,339 In events to which people brought their children, 684 00:42:45,439 --> 00:42:48,008 lynching was widespread in the United States. 685 00:42:51,178 --> 00:42:53,313 That there would be such a film like "Birth of a Nation" 686 00:42:53,413 --> 00:42:57,584 produced at the time... 687 00:42:57,651 --> 00:42:59,019 neither shocks nor surprises me. 688 00:43:00,187 --> 00:43:08,996 {\an8}♪♪ 689 00:43:09,096 --> 00:43:11,131 - "Birth of a Nation", 690 00:43:11,198 --> 00:43:14,301 a landmark film that came out in 1915. 691 00:43:18,305 --> 00:43:19,873 Black people were- were portrayed 692 00:43:19,973 --> 00:43:21,642 in a very demeaning manner. 693 00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:29,483 ...the Ku Klux Klan as heroes. 694 00:43:29,549 --> 00:43:33,387 ♪♪ 695 00:43:33,487 --> 00:43:36,223 - "The Birth of a Nation" attests to the purity 696 00:43:36,323 --> 00:43:40,527 and chastity of white women 697 00:43:40,627 --> 00:43:43,296 and Black men mixing with white women 698 00:43:43,363 --> 00:43:48,168 is a distinct taboo, 699 00:43:48,235 --> 00:43:50,370 which often did result 700 00:43:50,470 --> 00:43:52,005 in the death of the Black men. 701 00:43:56,843 --> 00:43:58,645 - The film became, uh, you know, 702 00:43:58,712 --> 00:44:00,414 pretty much of a national phenomenon. 703 00:44:04,851 --> 00:44:08,255 President Woodrow Wilson endorsed it. 704 00:44:08,355 --> 00:44:11,024 It showed all over the country. 705 00:44:11,091 --> 00:44:13,894 It showed in Tulsa in the convention hall. 706 00:44:18,231 --> 00:44:21,234 It certainly validated these ideas. 707 00:44:25,172 --> 00:44:26,773 - How do you survive if you're a Black person 708 00:44:26,873 --> 00:44:29,443 in America during this era? 709 00:44:29,543 --> 00:44:33,246 And part of the answer came through African American 710 00:44:33,346 --> 00:44:37,617 veterans of World War I who'd fought in combat units 711 00:44:37,718 --> 00:44:40,020 in France where they were treated 712 00:44:40,087 --> 00:44:42,389 with respect and with honor. 713 00:44:42,456 --> 00:44:43,857 And they came back to the United States 714 00:44:43,924 --> 00:44:47,060 and they found none. 715 00:44:47,127 --> 00:44:50,197 - We have Black veterans in Greenwood. 716 00:44:50,263 --> 00:44:51,298 They fought for their country, 717 00:44:51,398 --> 00:44:52,766 they fought for their freedom. 718 00:44:52,866 --> 00:44:56,069 So, when they come home, they expect to be respected. 719 00:44:59,272 --> 00:45:03,910 But what they come home to is, again, more Jim Crow laws, 720 00:45:03,977 --> 00:45:05,912 more prejudice, and more restrictions 721 00:45:05,979 --> 00:45:08,048 on their freedom that they fought for. 722 00:45:11,551 --> 00:45:12,486 - After World War I, 723 00:45:16,490 --> 00:45:20,727 in uniform being lynched by white mobs. 724 00:45:20,794 --> 00:45:25,432 It's pretty stunning and remarkable. 725 00:45:25,499 --> 00:45:29,669 The idea is we're going to show you what your place is. 726 00:45:29,770 --> 00:45:33,940 We don't care whether you've fought for the country. 727 00:45:34,007 --> 00:45:36,810 When you're here, you play by our rules. 728 00:45:39,012 --> 00:45:42,482 - The Ku Klux Klan is kind of the bogeyman. 729 00:45:42,582 --> 00:45:44,484 I think, especially as white people, 730 00:45:44,584 --> 00:45:46,953 we load up all the bad stuff and we attribute it 731 00:45:47,020 --> 00:45:49,523 to this vague group over here 732 00:45:49,623 --> 00:45:52,993 that we call the Ku Klux Klan. 733 00:45:53,093 --> 00:45:56,930 Even the people who considered themselves friends 734 00:45:56,997 --> 00:45:58,198 of the Black people 735 00:45:58,298 --> 00:46:02,469 didn't really consider them equals in a social way. 736 00:46:02,536 --> 00:46:04,204 I mean, they- they didn't want them-- 737 00:46:04,304 --> 00:46:06,339 they didn't want them killed, they didn't want them cheated, 738 00:46:06,439 --> 00:46:07,707 they didn't want their houses burned down 739 00:46:07,808 --> 00:46:09,109 but they didn't want to sit next to 'em 740 00:46:09,176 --> 00:46:10,811 in the restaurant either. 741 00:46:12,946 --> 00:46:13,780 In those times, 742 00:46:13,847 --> 00:46:15,816 Tulsa was like a lot of other places. 743 00:46:15,882 --> 00:46:18,652 You had African Americans who were just sort of tired 744 00:46:18,718 --> 00:46:21,621 of being sent to the back of the bus, 745 00:46:21,688 --> 00:46:23,456 literally and figuratively. 746 00:46:23,523 --> 00:46:25,859 They were ready to stand up for their-- 747 00:46:25,959 --> 00:46:28,562 for their right. 748 00:46:28,662 --> 00:46:31,531 There had to have been tension building up. 749 00:46:33,633 --> 00:46:36,903 - The Tulsa Tribune published a series 750 00:46:37,003 --> 00:46:39,372 of inflammatory articles... 751 00:46:44,077 --> 00:46:45,912 ...that really fomented 752 00:46:46,012 --> 00:46:47,347 hostility in the white community 753 00:46:47,414 --> 00:46:48,915 against the Black community. 754 00:46:49,015 --> 00:46:51,384 ♪♪ 755 00:46:51,484 --> 00:46:54,354 Tulsa was a powder keg, 756 00:46:54,421 --> 00:46:58,258 a tinderbox needing only something 757 00:46:58,358 --> 00:46:59,759 to set the community alight. 758 00:47:10,337 --> 00:47:14,908 - Many years ago, I was at a cemetery. 759 00:47:15,008 --> 00:47:17,577 I was taking pictures of the tombstones. 760 00:47:22,182 --> 00:47:24,551 And I heard this strange noise. 761 00:47:24,618 --> 00:47:26,553 Tsshh. 762 00:47:26,620 --> 00:47:29,222 I looked around; it was nothing there. 763 00:47:29,289 --> 00:47:32,292 Then I heard a "tsshh" to the right. 764 00:47:32,392 --> 00:47:35,128 Then I heard that same sound surrounding me. 765 00:47:35,228 --> 00:47:36,396 Tsshh. 766 00:47:36,463 --> 00:47:37,797 I ran out of there. 767 00:47:41,935 --> 00:47:44,070 That's when I saw a flock of redbirds 768 00:47:44,137 --> 00:47:45,438 come out of the trees. 769 00:47:48,742 --> 00:47:49,943 I thought that was unusual. 770 00:47:50,043 --> 00:47:51,645 Normally you see one or two redbirds, 771 00:47:51,745 --> 00:47:53,480 but I never saw a flock of them 772 00:47:53,580 --> 00:47:57,150 flying together like that. 773 00:47:57,250 --> 00:48:00,320 And I told a good friend of mine and she said, 774 00:48:00,420 --> 00:48:02,656 you saw redbirds in a cemetery? 775 00:48:05,592 --> 00:48:07,661 Oh, baby, that's nothin' but an omen, she said. 776 00:48:10,096 --> 00:48:13,099 That was the spirit of the dead telling you 777 00:48:13,166 --> 00:48:18,672 to go tell somebody that they are not at peace. 778 00:48:23,610 --> 00:48:26,413 - The ancestors are speaking to us. 779 00:48:26,479 --> 00:48:31,318 The ancestors are throwing clues at us. 780 00:48:31,418 --> 00:48:34,454 We have a responsibility and an obligation 781 00:48:34,521 --> 00:48:36,156 to find the truth. 782 00:48:37,524 --> 00:48:39,125 - The mass graves investigation 783 00:48:39,192 --> 00:48:42,329 started out in 1997, actually, 784 00:48:42,429 --> 00:48:44,864 with Don Ross, Kavin Ross' father. 785 00:48:46,366 --> 00:48:48,768 - When he was first told about the massacre, 786 00:48:48,835 --> 00:48:50,804 my father, he thought it was just a lie, 787 00:48:50,870 --> 00:48:52,939 that it didn't happen. 788 00:48:53,006 --> 00:48:56,543 It was not in the history books. 789 00:48:56,643 --> 00:48:58,678 But then in high school, 790 00:48:58,778 --> 00:49:01,147 he heard first-hand from survivors 791 00:49:01,214 --> 00:49:03,049 who were schoolteachers at the time 792 00:49:03,149 --> 00:49:04,884 and that was something that stuck with him 793 00:49:04,985 --> 00:49:06,453 until he got to the point 794 00:49:06,519 --> 00:49:07,988 where he could do something about it. 795 00:49:08,054 --> 00:49:10,190 - White political leaders tried to bury the truth 796 00:49:10,290 --> 00:49:12,625 along with all those Black victims of the riot. 797 00:49:12,692 --> 00:49:15,328 And they pretty much succeeded for 76 years 798 00:49:15,395 --> 00:49:17,197 until 1997, 799 00:49:17,297 --> 00:49:19,733 when the state legislature appointed a commission 800 00:49:19,833 --> 00:49:22,902 of 11 people to finally uncover the truth 801 00:49:23,003 --> 00:49:25,872 about the horrific riot of 1921. 802 00:49:25,972 --> 00:49:29,743 - Don Ross went to the governor and the legislature and said, 803 00:49:29,843 --> 00:49:31,745 we've never had an official study 804 00:49:31,845 --> 00:49:33,346 of this little-known event. 805 00:49:33,413 --> 00:49:37,717 - That was inspired by the Oklahoma City bombing. 806 00:49:37,817 --> 00:49:41,054 Uh, when they said it was the largest urban disaster 807 00:49:41,154 --> 00:49:43,523 in America, wrong. 808 00:49:43,590 --> 00:49:46,659 Uh, more people were killed than any such disaster, 809 00:49:46,726 --> 00:49:48,194 wrong. 810 00:49:48,261 --> 00:49:51,931 - I was asked to be the historian for the commission. 811 00:49:52,032 --> 00:49:54,868 During that period, I was thinking 812 00:49:54,934 --> 00:49:56,603 maybe we could use this to figure out 813 00:49:56,703 --> 00:49:59,506 how many people died and where they were buried. 814 00:50:01,041 --> 00:50:03,109 {\an8}- I'm ready. - Kavin, you good? 815 00:50:03,209 --> 00:50:05,111 {\an8}- Go ahead. - Hi, I'm Eddie Faye Gates, 816 00:50:05,211 --> 00:50:07,113 {\an8}chair of the Survivors Committee 817 00:50:07,213 --> 00:50:09,749 {\an8}of the Oklahoma Legislative Commission to study 818 00:50:09,849 --> 00:50:12,552 {\an8}the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. 819 00:50:12,619 --> 00:50:15,922 - I was a videographer for the race riot commission report. 820 00:50:16,890 --> 00:50:19,793 I was on it to accompany Eddie Faye Gates, 821 00:50:19,893 --> 00:50:21,461 who was the commissioner at the time. 822 00:50:21,561 --> 00:50:24,130 Her job was to record the testimonies 823 00:50:24,230 --> 00:50:26,066 of the riot survivors. 824 00:50:26,132 --> 00:50:30,103 ♪♪ 825 00:50:30,203 --> 00:50:34,574 - We have located fifty-one actual living riot survivors, 826 00:50:34,641 --> 00:50:37,377 ages 78 to 104. 827 00:50:37,444 --> 00:50:41,147 No research takes the place of eyewitness testimony, 828 00:50:41,247 --> 00:50:44,117 and that is why this day is so significant. 829 00:50:44,217 --> 00:50:46,586 {\an8}Mrs. Simms. 830 00:50:46,653 --> 00:50:48,822 {\an8}Go on and tell it. 831 00:50:48,922 --> 00:50:51,591 {\an8}- You will never forget that riot. 832 00:50:51,658 --> 00:50:55,428 That's something that will be always in your remembrance. 833 00:50:55,495 --> 00:50:58,565 - This has been the age-old story here in Tulsa. 834 00:50:58,631 --> 00:51:00,100 I never knew what happened to my great uncle, 835 00:51:00,166 --> 00:51:01,835 never saw my great aunt again. 836 00:51:01,935 --> 00:51:03,570 You hear those stories over the ages. 837 00:51:05,138 --> 00:51:06,506 Folks were coming in with oral history, 838 00:51:06,606 --> 00:51:08,775 where bodies could be buried. 839 00:51:08,842 --> 00:51:11,911 - We interviewed over three hundred Tulsans 840 00:51:11,978 --> 00:51:16,082 to identify what we thought were three very likely spots 841 00:51:16,149 --> 00:51:20,620 in town where massacre victims were buried in unmarked graves. 842 00:51:25,492 --> 00:51:27,861 - Clyde Eddy took some of the same steps today 843 00:51:27,961 --> 00:51:31,831 he first took 78 years ago, 844 00:51:31,931 --> 00:51:33,833 days after the Tulsa Race Riot. 845 00:51:33,933 --> 00:51:36,169 He was ten at the time, drawn by the curious sight 846 00:51:36,269 --> 00:51:37,770 of men digging a trench 847 00:51:37,837 --> 00:51:39,973 with large boxes stacked nearby. 848 00:51:42,142 --> 00:51:44,844 - Clyde Eddy talked about at the age of ten, 849 00:51:44,944 --> 00:51:46,679 when he was at the Oaklawn Cemetery, 850 00:51:46,779 --> 00:51:50,049 he saw these giant boxes. 851 00:51:51,151 --> 00:51:54,954 He and his cousin would go to one of these crates. 852 00:51:55,021 --> 00:51:56,356 - We opened the first box, 853 00:51:56,456 --> 00:51:59,492 {\an8}and there were, um-- excuse me. 854 00:51:59,559 --> 00:52:02,529 {\an8}There were three bodies of Black people. 855 00:52:02,629 --> 00:52:04,230 The stench was terrible. 856 00:52:04,330 --> 00:52:06,199 - There were other boxes. 857 00:52:06,299 --> 00:52:07,901 Lift up the lid, and that saw that there 858 00:52:08,001 --> 00:52:10,503 was Black folks inside of that one. 859 00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:15,842 Black people in a box, dead. 860 00:52:15,909 --> 00:52:18,244 That's something that would be etched in your mind forever, 861 00:52:18,344 --> 00:52:21,881 and so for him to tell a story with such conviction. 862 00:52:21,981 --> 00:52:24,017 I said, let's dig 'em up now. 863 00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:30,924 - So many people have said there were no bodies there. 864 00:52:31,024 --> 00:52:33,092 But you know, all the Black folk 865 00:52:33,193 --> 00:52:36,930 in the community, we believe they're there. 866 00:52:37,030 --> 00:52:39,332 Those stories were passed on to us. 867 00:52:40,833 --> 00:52:43,336 - Inch by inch, crews are digging into 868 00:52:43,403 --> 00:52:47,106 the history of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. 869 00:52:47,207 --> 00:52:50,109 Tulsa's mayor, G.T. Bynum, initiated the investigation 870 00:52:50,210 --> 00:52:52,712 to try and find if there are any victims 871 00:52:52,779 --> 00:52:54,847 buried in mass graves. 872 00:52:54,914 --> 00:52:58,384 - There was a systematic cover up of the event. 873 00:52:58,451 --> 00:53:02,121 It should not have taken 99 years. 874 00:53:05,358 --> 00:53:06,960 - We have to pay attention, 875 00:53:07,060 --> 00:53:09,963 we have to pick up the charred baton 876 00:53:10,063 --> 00:53:11,397 that has been left in our hands, 877 00:53:11,464 --> 00:53:14,701 and figure out where the screams are coming from. 878 00:53:14,767 --> 00:53:25,144 ♪♪ 879 00:53:25,245 --> 00:53:28,248 - Monday, May 30, 1921. 880 00:53:29,816 --> 00:53:31,150 It happened to be Memorial Day. 881 00:53:38,558 --> 00:53:41,427 {\an8}- May 30th could have happened at any point in time 882 00:53:41,494 --> 00:53:45,398 because Tulsa was already a powder keg. 883 00:53:45,465 --> 00:53:47,767 We do know that the deathly KKK members 884 00:53:47,834 --> 00:53:49,569 that are part of the police force, 885 00:53:49,636 --> 00:53:52,438 proudly marching down the street on Memorial Day. 886 00:53:52,505 --> 00:53:54,774 People describe it as a massacre, 887 00:53:54,841 --> 00:53:57,944 I've been calling it a war. 888 00:53:58,011 --> 00:54:02,949 - There's systemic causes for what happened here in 1921, 889 00:54:03,016 --> 00:54:06,185 but you fixate on this trigger incident 890 00:54:06,286 --> 00:54:10,423 that involved a Black boy and a white girl on an elevator. 891 00:54:10,490 --> 00:54:12,925 The teenage boy is a boy named Dick Rowland. 892 00:54:17,030 --> 00:54:18,698 He's at work on Memorial Day, 893 00:54:18,798 --> 00:54:21,000 shining shoes in Downtown Tulsa. 894 00:54:23,436 --> 00:54:25,538 - Dick Rowland was nineteen years old 895 00:54:25,638 --> 00:54:28,474 in the spring of 1921. 896 00:54:28,541 --> 00:54:31,544 He worked in a white-owned 897 00:54:31,644 --> 00:54:34,213 and white-patronized shine parlor 898 00:54:34,314 --> 00:54:38,184 on Main Street in Downtown Tulsa. 899 00:54:38,284 --> 00:54:41,220 - His nickname is "Diamond Dick" 900 00:54:41,321 --> 00:54:44,390 so he's known to be this flashy young guy. 901 00:54:44,490 --> 00:54:46,659 [laughing] 902 00:54:46,726 --> 00:54:48,861 He is just another person in the community 903 00:54:48,961 --> 00:54:51,064 that everyone knows, 904 00:54:51,164 --> 00:54:53,666 but he's-he's never been seen as a troublemaker. 905 00:54:59,005 --> 00:55:00,473 - There's not a restroom facility 906 00:55:00,540 --> 00:55:03,209 in the shine parlor, 907 00:55:03,309 --> 00:55:05,078 so the white owner has arranged for them 908 00:55:05,178 --> 00:55:08,481 to walk down Main Street to the Drexel Building. 909 00:55:10,316 --> 00:55:12,885 On the fourth floor there was, quote, "a colored restroom". 910 00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:24,497 {\an8}Something happens when he enters the elevator. 911 00:55:24,564 --> 00:55:28,434 Elevators are-are manually operated by a wheel, 912 00:55:28,534 --> 00:55:31,104 it takes a great amount of skill to get the floor 913 00:55:31,204 --> 00:55:35,174 of the elevator and the actual floor to line up. 914 00:55:35,241 --> 00:55:39,011 That particular elevator was very difficult to center, 915 00:55:39,078 --> 00:55:39,912 so the belief is, 916 00:55:43,282 --> 00:55:45,918 that as Dick walked onto the elevator, 917 00:55:46,018 --> 00:55:48,254 he tripped and just, by reflex, 918 00:55:48,354 --> 00:55:51,557 threw his hands out to cushion the fall, 919 00:55:51,624 --> 00:55:54,260 that he grabbed Sarah by the shoulder, 920 00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:56,796 ripped her dress, she screams, 921 00:55:56,896 --> 00:56:00,133 and he realizes this is a dangerous moment for him, 922 00:56:00,233 --> 00:56:01,934 and he runs out of the elevator 923 00:56:02,034 --> 00:56:03,469 and takes off. 924 00:56:03,569 --> 00:56:06,239 But there was a white clerk at the Renberg's Clothing Store 925 00:56:06,305 --> 00:56:08,141 who heard the scream, 926 00:56:08,241 --> 00:56:10,743 saw Dick run out of the building, 927 00:56:10,810 --> 00:56:13,479 and in his mind he puts two and two together, 928 00:56:13,579 --> 00:56:16,649 and says, "This is an interracial rape attempt." 929 00:56:18,985 --> 00:56:20,486 The Tulsa Police are summoned, 930 00:56:20,586 --> 00:56:23,589 but they don't put out an all-points bulletin 931 00:56:23,656 --> 00:56:24,590 for Dick Rowland, 932 00:56:24,657 --> 00:56:26,893 they don't go searching for him. 933 00:56:26,959 --> 00:56:30,630 They're not particularly worried about this event. 934 00:56:30,730 --> 00:56:33,232 However, the Tulsa Tribune, 935 00:56:33,299 --> 00:56:36,602 Tulsa's white daily afternoon newspaper, 936 00:56:36,669 --> 00:56:38,805 decides to portray this incident 937 00:56:38,905 --> 00:56:41,307 in a completely different light. 938 00:56:41,407 --> 00:56:42,809 - The "Tribune" published an account 939 00:56:42,909 --> 00:56:45,978 of the elevator incident entitled, 940 00:56:46,078 --> 00:56:49,982 "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator". 941 00:56:52,151 --> 00:56:54,787 The "Tribune" essentially claimed that Dick Rowland 942 00:56:54,854 --> 00:56:57,356 tried to rape Sarah Page in broad daylight 943 00:56:57,457 --> 00:57:00,793 in a public building in Downtown Tulsa. 944 00:57:00,860 --> 00:57:03,696 The article went out of its way 945 00:57:03,796 --> 00:57:06,299 to make Sarah Page look virtuous, 946 00:57:06,365 --> 00:57:09,035 and, as a corollary, to make Dick Rowland look villainous, 947 00:57:09,135 --> 00:57:11,871 playing on that white female, 948 00:57:11,971 --> 00:57:15,041 Black male taboo. 949 00:57:15,141 --> 00:57:17,310 - So the next morning, Tuesday, May 31st, 950 00:57:17,376 --> 00:57:18,711 the Tulsa Police decide, 951 00:57:18,811 --> 00:57:20,513 "We're gonna pick up Dick Rowland". 952 00:57:20,613 --> 00:57:23,483 So they go to where he lives with his mother in Greenwood, 953 00:57:23,549 --> 00:57:26,319 arrest him, 954 00:57:26,385 --> 00:57:28,154 take him to the courthouse, and like, 955 00:57:28,221 --> 00:57:31,224 as with other prisoners, put him up on the-- 956 00:57:31,324 --> 00:57:35,361 in the fourth floor jail. 957 00:57:35,461 --> 00:57:37,964 The first edition of the "Tulsa Tribune" 958 00:57:38,030 --> 00:57:40,900 hits the streets around 3:00, 3:30. 959 00:57:43,336 --> 00:57:45,004 Within thirty minutes there's lynch talks 960 00:57:45,071 --> 00:57:46,639 on the streets of Tulsa. 961 00:57:50,142 --> 00:57:53,045 Lynch talk soon turns into a lynch mob. 962 00:57:55,648 --> 00:57:57,917 Meanwhile, Black people are trying to figure out 963 00:57:58,017 --> 00:57:59,852 what's going on, what to do, 964 00:57:59,919 --> 00:58:02,488 how to organize. 965 00:58:02,555 --> 00:58:04,857 On the stage of the Dreamland Theatre, 966 00:58:04,924 --> 00:58:07,326 an African-American World War I Vet 967 00:58:07,393 --> 00:58:10,696 jumps up on the stage and says, "Shut this place down. 968 00:58:10,763 --> 00:58:13,099 "We ain't gonna let this happen here." 969 00:58:13,199 --> 00:58:14,867 "It" being a lynching. 970 00:58:16,769 --> 00:58:18,771 There was a feeling amongst Black vets 971 00:58:18,871 --> 00:58:22,608 that if trouble comes my way, I ain't dodgin' it. 972 00:58:22,708 --> 00:58:25,878 In Tulsa there had not been an African-American lynched, 973 00:58:25,945 --> 00:58:28,614 and there were Black men and women who were prepared 974 00:58:28,714 --> 00:58:32,184 to make sure that didn't happen. 975 00:58:32,251 --> 00:58:35,588 Around 10:30 at night or a little before then, 976 00:58:35,688 --> 00:58:37,924 a rumor gets greenlit 977 00:58:38,024 --> 00:58:39,892 that whites are storming the jail. 978 00:58:42,595 --> 00:58:44,730 Seventy-five African-American men, 979 00:58:44,797 --> 00:58:48,067 all armed, drive to the courthouse. 980 00:58:50,069 --> 00:58:52,872 They march up to the courthouse, 981 00:58:52,939 --> 00:58:54,874 they go up to the sheriff, 982 00:58:54,941 --> 00:58:56,442 who's waiting for them on the steps, 983 00:58:56,542 --> 00:58:59,946 and they say, "We are here to help to protect the prisoner 984 00:59:00,046 --> 00:59:01,781 "if you need our help." 985 00:59:01,881 --> 00:59:04,817 Sheriff McCullough says, "Get the hell out of here, 986 00:59:04,917 --> 00:59:07,386 "I don't want you." 987 00:59:07,453 --> 00:59:09,822 [crowd yelling] 988 00:59:09,922 --> 00:59:13,593 As they are leaving, an elderly white man 989 00:59:13,659 --> 00:59:17,496 goes up to a tall Black vet, 990 00:59:17,597 --> 00:59:21,067 and says, "Where you goin' with that gun?" 991 00:59:21,133 --> 00:59:24,236 And the vet says, "I'm gonna use it if I need to." 992 00:59:25,404 --> 00:59:27,840 The white man says, "Like hell you are." 993 00:59:27,940 --> 00:59:30,810 Tries to get the gun, there's a struggle, 994 00:59:30,910 --> 00:59:31,978 a shot goes off. 995 00:59:32,078 --> 00:59:34,080 [gun shot] 996 00:59:34,146 --> 00:59:36,282 The worst incident of racial violence 997 00:59:36,349 --> 00:59:37,750 in American history begins. 998 00:59:41,954 --> 00:59:44,924 - As the evening starts to fall, May 31st, 999 00:59:44,991 --> 00:59:47,526 by seven o'clock there are already hundreds of people 1000 00:59:47,627 --> 00:59:49,695 circling around the courthouse. 1001 00:59:49,795 --> 00:59:53,032 By nine, ten is where things really start to reach 1002 00:59:53,132 --> 00:59:57,470 this sort of, uh boiling point, and shots are fired. 1003 00:59:57,536 --> 01:00:00,106 At the same time all this is happening downtown. 1004 01:00:00,172 --> 01:00:02,375 You have people that are still waiting 1005 01:00:02,475 --> 01:00:04,276 to go to their prom at Booker T. Washington. 1006 01:00:06,846 --> 01:00:08,514 You have people that are still going to movies 1007 01:00:08,614 --> 01:00:10,950 in the Dreamland and the [indistinct] Theater. 1008 01:00:11,017 --> 01:00:13,986 You have people that are still moving about their lives 1009 01:00:14,053 --> 01:00:15,888 that aren't aware of what's happening. 1010 01:00:19,692 --> 01:00:23,362 {\an8}- We went down to a late show, movie. 1011 01:00:23,462 --> 01:00:25,798 {\an8}Somebody came in and shouted, "Nigger fight! Nigger fight!" 1012 01:00:28,234 --> 01:00:30,236 We went out the door and just got there 1013 01:00:30,336 --> 01:00:32,638 when a Negro ran out of the alley. 1014 01:00:32,705 --> 01:00:34,573 The minute his head showed outside, 1015 01:00:34,674 --> 01:00:37,076 somebody shot him. 1016 01:00:37,176 --> 01:00:39,311 And, uh, this man was shot and rolled out 1017 01:00:39,378 --> 01:00:42,081 in the middle of the street with a revolver in his hand. 1018 01:00:43,849 --> 01:00:46,185 And this crowd around him wouldn't let anybody touch him, 1019 01:00:46,252 --> 01:00:49,422 pick him up, wouldn't let an ambulance take him. 1020 01:00:49,522 --> 01:00:52,591 But he was the first man that was shot in the riot. 1021 01:00:52,692 --> 01:00:54,827 - Nobody cares about Dick Rowland anymore. 1022 01:00:54,894 --> 01:00:57,730 The white mob is now out to get any Black person 1023 01:00:57,830 --> 01:00:59,231 in their sights. 1024 01:01:01,867 --> 01:01:04,870 - The teeming white mob spilled over the Frisco tracks 1025 01:01:04,937 --> 01:01:07,206 into the Greenwood community... 1026 01:01:09,742 --> 01:01:14,213 - ...carrying rifles, pistols, 1027 01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:16,949 matches, and cans of gasoline. 1028 01:01:17,049 --> 01:01:23,422 ♪♪ 1029 01:01:23,522 --> 01:01:26,625 - In the words of one of the massacre survivors, 1030 01:01:26,726 --> 01:01:28,060 "All hell broke loose." 1031 01:01:31,263 --> 01:01:33,399 Looting... 1032 01:01:33,466 --> 01:01:35,868 shooting... 1033 01:01:35,935 --> 01:01:39,271 burning, destroying everything in sight. 1034 01:01:42,875 --> 01:01:46,212 - People are taking shelter in their homes 1035 01:01:46,278 --> 01:01:47,580 or packing up their stuff and fleeing, 1036 01:01:47,646 --> 01:01:50,649 whatever they can. 1037 01:01:53,219 --> 01:01:54,653 {\an8}- My Mother said, "Here they come, 1038 01:01:54,754 --> 01:01:55,588 {\an8}"here they come." 1039 01:01:55,654 --> 01:01:57,056 {\an8}And they came in the house with torches 1040 01:01:57,123 --> 01:02:00,493 and they set the house on fire. 1041 01:02:00,593 --> 01:02:03,896 Oh, it was like a nightmare. Everything was in flames. 1042 01:02:09,835 --> 01:02:12,471 {\an8}- On the evening of May 31st, 1043 01:02:12,571 --> 01:02:13,773 {\an8}my little girl had not retired 1044 01:02:13,839 --> 01:02:16,509 {\an8}but was watching the people from the window. 1045 01:02:16,609 --> 01:02:20,279 She said, "Mother, I see men with guns." 1046 01:02:20,346 --> 01:02:22,815 Then I ran to the window and looked out. 1047 01:02:22,915 --> 01:02:25,317 There I saw many people gathered in little squads, 1048 01:02:25,417 --> 01:02:27,153 talking excitedly. 1049 01:02:27,253 --> 01:02:29,288 There was a great shadow in the sky, 1050 01:02:29,355 --> 01:02:32,124 and upon second look we discerned that this cloud 1051 01:02:32,191 --> 01:02:35,928 was caused by fast-approaching airplanes. 1052 01:02:35,995 --> 01:02:38,497 It then dawned upon us that the enemy 1053 01:02:38,597 --> 01:02:42,201 had organized in the night and was invading our district 1054 01:02:42,301 --> 01:02:45,371 the same as the Germans invaded France. 1055 01:02:45,471 --> 01:02:47,139 I took my little girl, Florence Mary, 1056 01:02:47,206 --> 01:02:50,376 by the hand and fled out the West door on Greenwood, 1057 01:02:50,476 --> 01:02:53,012 running amidst showers of bullets. 1058 01:02:57,516 --> 01:03:00,119 {\an8}- I was so afraid, 1059 01:03:00,186 --> 01:03:02,855 {\an8}because bullets were coming down around us. 1060 01:03:02,955 --> 01:03:06,058 All of the planes were up in the air, 1061 01:03:06,158 --> 01:03:10,129 shooting down, and I could hear those bullets falling. 1062 01:03:10,196 --> 01:03:12,565 There were a lot of people running, 1063 01:03:12,665 --> 01:03:16,969 dodging the bullets, and just afraid. 1064 01:03:20,139 --> 01:03:21,473 - They're shooting people on sight, 1065 01:03:21,540 --> 01:03:23,742 even if you're complying with their demands. 1066 01:03:23,843 --> 01:03:27,146 That's what happened to Dr. A.C. Jackson. 1067 01:03:27,213 --> 01:03:29,849 - A.C. Jackson was a prominent Black surgeon, 1068 01:03:29,915 --> 01:03:32,685 he was accosted at his home, 1069 01:03:32,751 --> 01:03:34,854 he exited his house in compliance 1070 01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:37,056 with the demands of the mobsters, 1071 01:03:37,156 --> 01:03:39,592 hands held high. 1072 01:03:39,692 --> 01:03:41,927 But he was actually gunned down by a young white man 1073 01:03:42,027 --> 01:03:44,196 and he ultimately bled to death. 1074 01:03:49,235 --> 01:03:53,105 Black men put up a vigorous, robust defense. 1075 01:03:53,205 --> 01:03:54,607 They were outgunned, and outnumbered, 1076 01:03:54,707 --> 01:03:56,342 and overmatched. 1077 01:04:03,048 --> 01:04:06,252 The violence lasted sixteen hours, 1078 01:04:06,352 --> 01:04:09,288 a unit of the National Guard sent in from Oklahoma City. 1079 01:04:09,388 --> 01:04:13,792 ♪♪ 1080 01:04:13,893 --> 01:04:17,763 When the dust settled, at least 1,250 homes 1081 01:04:17,863 --> 01:04:19,899 in the Black community were destroyed. 1082 01:04:22,034 --> 01:04:25,070 Between 100 and 300 people, most of them Black, 1083 01:04:25,137 --> 01:04:26,472 were killed. 1084 01:04:26,572 --> 01:04:39,251 ♪♪ 1085 01:04:39,318 --> 01:04:40,486 - So twenty years ago, 1086 01:04:40,586 --> 01:04:41,954 we had a mayor here that said, "Hey. 1087 01:04:42,054 --> 01:04:44,290 "We're gonna go into Oaklawn and were gonna excavate, 1088 01:04:44,390 --> 01:04:47,826 "because we have an idea of where some bodies might be." 1089 01:04:49,728 --> 01:04:51,997 {\an8}- We brought in ground penetrating radar; 1090 01:04:52,097 --> 01:04:55,067 {\an8}they showed that there were anomalies in these areas. 1091 01:04:56,902 --> 01:04:59,672 - I was twenty years younger, standing out in Oaklawn. 1092 01:05:01,507 --> 01:05:02,775 We were all out there, 1093 01:05:02,841 --> 01:05:04,677 but we were about to do this, right? 1094 01:05:08,614 --> 01:05:09,815 They called it off abruptly 1095 01:05:09,915 --> 01:05:11,684 because there was a white family 1096 01:05:11,784 --> 01:05:16,322 that did not want that area to be disturbed. 1097 01:05:16,422 --> 01:05:19,124 They suggested that there was a, perhaps, 1098 01:05:19,191 --> 01:05:22,461 a white body that was buried underground 1099 01:05:22,528 --> 01:05:24,029 and that that body would have been disturbed 1100 01:05:24,129 --> 01:05:26,098 as you're looking for race massacre dead. 1101 01:05:29,335 --> 01:05:31,770 - Our effort got caught up in politics. 1102 01:05:31,837 --> 01:05:33,439 - A bunch of lawmakers, 1103 01:05:33,505 --> 01:05:35,474 they pretty much didn't really care. 1104 01:05:35,541 --> 01:05:38,110 {\an8}It made the state look bad. 1105 01:05:38,177 --> 01:05:41,113 {\an8}- I am thoroughly convinced 1106 01:05:41,180 --> 01:05:43,716 {\an8}that the state of Oklahoma was not culpable. 1107 01:05:45,484 --> 01:05:47,686 - We were shut down by the City of Tulsa, 1108 01:05:47,786 --> 01:05:49,355 and at that point, I, you know, 1109 01:05:49,455 --> 01:05:51,123 I thought the ballgame was over. 1110 01:05:57,863 --> 01:05:58,897 - For some people it's like, 1111 01:05:58,998 --> 01:06:00,733 "Why are you guys desecrating the grave?" 1112 01:06:00,833 --> 01:06:02,568 - Right. - We're not desecrating graves, 1113 01:06:02,668 --> 01:06:05,037 we're finding out the truth. - And those answers-- 1114 01:06:05,137 --> 01:06:07,539 ancestors had never had a proper burial. 1115 01:06:07,639 --> 01:06:08,841 - Absolutely. 1116 01:06:11,477 --> 01:06:13,245 - I was on the City Council at the time. 1117 01:06:16,482 --> 01:06:19,418 Years later, a local journalist-- 1118 01:06:19,518 --> 01:06:22,021 - My name's Lee Roy Chapman, and this is "Public Secrets". 1119 01:06:22,087 --> 01:06:25,357 - He did a video series about Tulsa's hidden secrets. 1120 01:06:25,424 --> 01:06:26,725 [squeaking] 1121 01:06:26,825 --> 01:06:29,194 And one of them, I was watching... 1122 01:06:29,261 --> 01:06:31,830 - Um, Oaklawn Cemetery has been rumored 1123 01:06:31,897 --> 01:06:34,566 for nearly a hundred years to be the, uh, 1124 01:06:34,666 --> 01:06:36,502 location of a mass grave, 1125 01:06:36,568 --> 01:06:38,937 uh, attributed to the Tulsa Race Riot. 1126 01:06:39,038 --> 01:06:41,340 - What's my immediate reaction? 1127 01:06:41,407 --> 01:06:44,209 There is no way that could possibly be true. 1128 01:06:44,276 --> 01:06:46,745 The mass grave in Oaklawn cemetery, 1129 01:06:46,845 --> 01:06:49,114 where my great grandparents are buried, 1130 01:06:49,214 --> 01:06:50,182 and that no one would have ever bothered to look. 1131 01:06:55,554 --> 01:06:59,091 This is a historic day for Tulsa and for our country 1132 01:06:59,191 --> 01:07:03,695 as we begin a test excavation in Oaklawn Cemetery. 1133 01:07:05,431 --> 01:07:07,633 - There's nothing abstract, there's nothing theoretical. 1134 01:07:07,733 --> 01:07:09,301 {\an8}This is not a research project. 1135 01:07:09,401 --> 01:07:11,637 {\an8}This is an investigation. 1136 01:07:11,737 --> 01:07:14,073 - Scientists are set to finally break ground 1137 01:07:14,139 --> 01:07:18,644 in the effort to find victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre. 1138 01:07:18,744 --> 01:07:20,813 - Nearly 100 years later, the families to victims 1139 01:07:20,913 --> 01:07:23,248 of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre 1140 01:07:23,315 --> 01:07:26,452 could get answers and closure. 1141 01:07:26,552 --> 01:07:28,120 - It should have been done well before now, 1142 01:07:28,220 --> 01:07:29,988 but it wasn't. 1143 01:07:30,089 --> 01:07:33,125 That is a baton that's been handed to us, 1144 01:07:33,225 --> 01:07:36,095 and it is-- it is not an easy race. 1145 01:07:39,431 --> 01:07:43,335 The initial excavation will be focused on a location 1146 01:07:43,435 --> 01:07:46,105 within Oaklawn Cemetery that we felt had a high likelihood 1147 01:07:46,171 --> 01:07:49,508 for encountering a mass grave. 1148 01:07:49,608 --> 01:07:52,277 We focused on an anomaly, 1149 01:07:52,344 --> 01:07:54,179 uh, that had been detected. 1150 01:07:56,315 --> 01:07:58,484 That anomaly to us was an indication 1151 01:07:58,584 --> 01:08:01,019 that it was possibly a mass grave. 1152 01:08:03,822 --> 01:08:06,525 As we were excavating down, we very quickly realized 1153 01:08:06,625 --> 01:08:09,328 that we had materials that didn't really belong there. 1154 01:08:13,265 --> 01:08:15,434 - The search turned up many old artifacts, 1155 01:08:15,501 --> 01:08:18,203 but after reaching three and a half meters in depth, 1156 01:08:18,303 --> 01:08:21,373 the excavation was called off on Wednesday. 1157 01:08:21,473 --> 01:08:24,443 - We do not have indications of a mass grave, um, 1158 01:08:24,510 --> 01:08:26,278 in this portion of Oaklawn Cemetery. 1159 01:08:31,150 --> 01:08:34,453 There is a-a heavy weight of responsibility 1160 01:08:34,520 --> 01:08:37,890 that comes with trying to assist in this effort. 1161 01:08:39,458 --> 01:08:40,492 There is that sense of optimism 1162 01:08:40,559 --> 01:08:43,662 that comes from the fact that the investigation 1163 01:08:43,729 --> 01:08:46,832 has been reopened. 1164 01:08:49,168 --> 01:08:52,070 But you-you also are worried because it has-- 1165 01:08:52,170 --> 01:08:53,338 there's a perpetual feeling 1166 01:08:53,405 --> 01:08:55,340 that the other shoe is gonna fall, 1167 01:08:55,407 --> 01:08:58,810 and this expectation of disappointment. 1168 01:08:58,877 --> 01:09:03,148 But it's extremely important to remember why we're there 1169 01:09:03,215 --> 01:09:05,584 and who we're trying to find. 1170 01:09:12,324 --> 01:09:15,928 - Sometimes stuff just makes you want to just give up, 1171 01:09:16,028 --> 01:09:17,529 but other times those are those times like, 1172 01:09:17,596 --> 01:09:19,531 no, you keep going, 1173 01:09:19,598 --> 01:09:21,900 'cause the ancestors are not gonna let you give up, 1174 01:09:22,000 --> 01:09:23,268 they're gonna keep pushing you. 1175 01:09:23,368 --> 01:09:26,238 When you say you quit, they say, "No, you don't", 1176 01:09:26,338 --> 01:09:29,875 it puts you right back up and do it all over again. 1177 01:09:29,942 --> 01:09:31,577 - That's why it's cold today. 1178 01:09:31,677 --> 01:09:32,844 The ancestors are like, 1179 01:09:32,911 --> 01:09:34,846 "You're gonna feel the chill of my bones today, man." 1180 01:09:34,913 --> 01:09:37,115 - Ooohh. - Yes. 1181 01:09:37,216 --> 01:09:38,350 - Ooohh. 1182 01:09:38,417 --> 01:09:39,518 - That's what-that's what they want us to feel. 1183 01:09:39,585 --> 01:09:41,620 They want everybody to feel what that feels like. 1184 01:09:47,025 --> 01:09:48,927 - There's all kinds of good things 1185 01:09:49,027 --> 01:09:50,629 that you find in South Tulsa. 1186 01:09:50,729 --> 01:09:54,066 {\an8}You'll find computer stores, you'll find bookstores, 1187 01:09:54,132 --> 01:09:56,969 {\an8}you'll find twenty-four hour pharmacy, 1188 01:09:57,069 --> 01:09:58,804 you'll find health food stores. 1189 01:09:58,904 --> 01:10:01,306 None of those things can be found in North Tulsa. 1190 01:10:01,406 --> 01:10:04,643 North Tulsa's a food desert, and that's got to change. 1191 01:10:11,550 --> 01:10:13,719 {\an8}- One of the things that people don't generally know 1192 01:10:13,785 --> 01:10:16,288 {\an8}is that the Greenwood community actually came back 1193 01:10:16,388 --> 01:10:18,257 {\an8}after it was destroyed. 1194 01:10:19,424 --> 01:10:21,994 {\an8}- It was rebuilt because the rural community, uh, 1195 01:10:22,094 --> 01:10:26,765 {\an8}rural lands were still owned mostly by Black folk. 1196 01:10:29,968 --> 01:10:31,937 But by the 1960s, 1197 01:10:32,004 --> 01:10:34,006 these towns started to disappear. 1198 01:10:37,276 --> 01:10:40,846 - There is this idea that Greenwood was destroyed in 1921, 1199 01:10:40,946 --> 01:10:42,781 and that's the end of the story. 1200 01:10:42,848 --> 01:10:45,817 But there's 100 years after that that we need to talk about. 1201 01:10:49,755 --> 01:10:52,291 - Tulsa is just a tale of two cities. 1202 01:11:00,165 --> 01:11:03,001 North Tulsa's a predominantly African-American community. 1203 01:11:08,140 --> 01:11:11,643 And South Tulsa you have predominantly white community. 1204 01:11:13,679 --> 01:11:17,282 This city of Tulsa is the most segregated city, 1205 01:11:17,349 --> 01:11:20,052 geographically, economically, 1206 01:11:20,152 --> 01:11:23,722 socially, and all of the above. 1207 01:11:26,992 --> 01:11:27,859 - Growing up in North Tulsa, 1208 01:11:31,630 --> 01:11:34,066 I started to notice buildings looked different, 1209 01:11:34,166 --> 01:11:35,867 institutions looked different. 1210 01:11:39,338 --> 01:11:41,173 Wow, there's a whole 'nother world 1211 01:11:41,239 --> 01:11:42,674 I wasn't even aware of. 1212 01:11:47,546 --> 01:11:50,649 We've already experienced dislocation, 1213 01:11:50,716 --> 01:11:52,851 urban removal, 1214 01:11:52,918 --> 01:11:54,553 eminent domain, 1215 01:11:54,653 --> 01:11:56,822 all of those things. 1216 01:11:59,324 --> 01:12:03,495 Those people who lived in Greenwood saw its demise twice. 1217 01:12:03,562 --> 01:12:06,064 [explosion rumbling] 1218 01:12:13,939 --> 01:12:17,175 {\an8}- The people who have lived in an urban center for many years 1219 01:12:17,242 --> 01:12:19,578 {\an8}certainly do have rights. 1220 01:12:21,012 --> 01:12:25,517 {\an8}However, they do not have the right to frustrate 1221 01:12:25,584 --> 01:12:28,720 the creative efforts of very diligent people 1222 01:12:28,787 --> 01:12:30,922 who are trying to bring back 1223 01:12:31,022 --> 01:12:34,526 vitality, and wholeness, and beauty into the city. 1224 01:12:39,531 --> 01:12:41,700 - I grew up at 1415 North Greenwood. 1225 01:12:41,767 --> 01:12:44,536 We owned the house on Greenwood. 1226 01:12:44,603 --> 01:12:47,572 When I grew up, I had a church in front of me, 1227 01:12:47,639 --> 01:12:51,543 right literally behind me was the school that I went to, 1228 01:12:51,610 --> 01:12:52,944 to my right was the Black hospital 1229 01:12:53,044 --> 01:12:55,947 that I was born in, that was Morton Hospital, 1230 01:12:56,047 --> 01:12:58,417 and then we had Jack's Memory Chapel 1231 01:12:58,483 --> 01:13:00,719 right there, so the whole cycle of life 1232 01:13:00,786 --> 01:13:03,722 was right within a block and a half of me where I lived. 1233 01:13:03,789 --> 01:13:05,891 That's the community I grew up in. 1234 01:13:05,957 --> 01:13:08,994 As happened in every city across this nation 1235 01:13:09,094 --> 01:13:11,763 in the sixties, seventies, 1236 01:13:11,830 --> 01:13:14,166 there was something called urban, 1237 01:13:14,266 --> 01:13:16,768 what they call renewal, what I call urban removal. 1238 01:13:20,138 --> 01:13:21,306 Yeah, I love that. 1239 01:13:21,406 --> 01:13:22,507 Yeah, when they want to talk about Black folks, 1240 01:13:22,607 --> 01:13:23,842 right, instead of saying, "Black folks live over here. 1241 01:13:23,942 --> 01:13:25,811 "That's the urban area." Right? 1242 01:13:25,911 --> 01:13:27,612 "That's urban music." 1243 01:13:27,679 --> 01:13:30,615 Just call things as they are. 1244 01:13:30,682 --> 01:13:32,984 - To whites, the words urban renewal 1245 01:13:33,084 --> 01:13:35,620 have a promising, hopeful sound. 1246 01:13:35,687 --> 01:13:38,123 But to Blacks, they mean move out. 1247 01:13:38,190 --> 01:13:41,593 In a block like this, as many as a thousand men, 1248 01:13:41,660 --> 01:13:43,929 women, and children have been forced out 1249 01:13:43,995 --> 01:13:47,199 in the name of some progress yet to come. 1250 01:13:47,299 --> 01:13:50,502 - So urban renewal was coming through telling you all, 1251 01:13:50,602 --> 01:13:52,037 "Those houses that you're living in here, 1252 01:13:52,137 --> 01:13:54,606 "we have a better use" as they say, 1253 01:13:54,673 --> 01:13:57,809 "a greater use for this land." 1254 01:13:57,876 --> 01:13:58,777 And they tell you, 1255 01:13:58,844 --> 01:14:00,378 "We're gonna renew your community, 1256 01:14:00,479 --> 01:14:04,282 "and this is gonna be better then you left it." 1257 01:14:04,349 --> 01:14:08,720 They moved us out of our houses for the "greater good". 1258 01:14:08,820 --> 01:14:11,623 We were dislocated from our home. 1259 01:14:11,690 --> 01:14:14,826 And when I tell you there's still a big space 1260 01:14:14,893 --> 01:14:16,461 at 1415 North Greenwood, 1261 01:14:16,528 --> 01:14:20,065 nothing was ever built there, but they told us we had to go. 1262 01:14:20,165 --> 01:14:23,034 And then you saw the decline of Greenwood 1263 01:14:23,134 --> 01:14:26,738 as you saw folks moved out of their homes. 1264 01:14:29,007 --> 01:14:33,645 {\an8}- The reason and the causes of this economic downturn 1265 01:14:33,712 --> 01:14:36,748 was the construction of the Crosstown Expressway 1266 01:14:36,848 --> 01:14:40,585 that cut through the heart of Greenwood. 1267 01:14:40,685 --> 01:14:43,154 In fact, they took the heart out. 1268 01:14:43,221 --> 01:14:45,390 Urban renewal and this major highway construction 1269 01:14:45,490 --> 01:14:48,593 really took out the-- most of the entrepreneurial, 1270 01:14:48,693 --> 01:14:51,530 uh, businesses that were there. 1271 01:14:51,596 --> 01:14:54,499 - Just this area's changed a lot with the, uh-- 1272 01:14:54,566 --> 01:14:56,201 uh, Crosstown coming through. 1273 01:14:56,268 --> 01:14:58,270 Hasn't a lot of the business moved out? 1274 01:14:58,370 --> 01:14:59,538 - That's correct. 1275 01:14:59,604 --> 01:15:00,405 - What happened in Tulsa 1276 01:15:00,505 --> 01:15:02,173 happened all over the United States. 1277 01:15:02,240 --> 01:15:04,276 Highways were located right through the heart 1278 01:15:04,376 --> 01:15:05,777 of communities of color. 1279 01:15:07,913 --> 01:15:11,950 - I started photographing back in 1969 1280 01:15:12,050 --> 01:15:15,420 here at North Tulsa, the Greenwood area. 1281 01:15:15,520 --> 01:15:18,623 And what I saw in the Greenwood area was that 1282 01:15:18,723 --> 01:15:21,192 there were a lot of businesses that were closing up. 1283 01:15:21,259 --> 01:15:23,261 One of those photographs that I took on Greenwood, 1284 01:15:23,361 --> 01:15:26,464 he was a tall gentle, and erect proud Black man, 1285 01:15:26,565 --> 01:15:31,303 I call it Baltimore Barbershop that I took in 1970. 1286 01:15:31,403 --> 01:15:32,470 He went to the window and started 1287 01:15:32,571 --> 01:15:36,541 looking out the window, and what he saw was 1288 01:15:36,608 --> 01:15:40,211 bulldozers tearing down buildings in front of him. 1289 01:15:41,913 --> 01:15:43,648 And I asked him what he thought about that, 1290 01:15:43,748 --> 01:15:46,885 and he said, "Well, I think I'm gonna be next." 1291 01:15:49,287 --> 01:15:51,289 So I took his photograph 1292 01:15:51,389 --> 01:15:54,159 and, uh, the next day I came back, 1293 01:15:54,259 --> 01:15:56,161 sure enough, his business was gone 1294 01:15:56,261 --> 01:15:58,496 and so was he. 1295 01:15:58,597 --> 01:16:02,300 Most of the businesses in that area were boarded up, 1296 01:16:02,400 --> 01:16:05,503 and all that remained was a [indistinct] 1297 01:16:05,604 --> 01:16:07,505 of Black Wall Street. 1298 01:16:07,606 --> 01:16:09,140 It was no longer Black Wall Street, 1299 01:16:09,240 --> 01:16:10,842 it was a ghost town. 1300 01:16:10,942 --> 01:16:17,949 ♪♪ 1301 01:16:30,328 --> 01:16:33,031 - Oh man, I tell ya... 1302 01:16:46,645 --> 01:16:50,115 {\an8}- We owned a skating rink there. 1303 01:16:50,181 --> 01:16:54,953 {\an8}During the riot it got burned down, 1304 01:16:55,020 --> 01:16:58,490 {\an8}our home got burned down. 1305 01:16:58,556 --> 01:17:01,960 We lost all of this-- our property, our home. 1306 01:17:08,867 --> 01:17:14,973 - Every church, our schoolhouses was blown up. 1307 01:17:24,049 --> 01:17:25,583 People were killed, and you go in 1308 01:17:25,684 --> 01:17:27,385 {\an8}and see the people mangled. 1309 01:17:30,655 --> 01:17:33,191 {\an8}And then some people you never heard of anymore of, 1310 01:17:33,258 --> 01:17:36,094 {\an8}you don't know where they-- whether they were killed, 1311 01:17:36,194 --> 01:17:38,830 whether they'd just left town. 1312 01:18:13,231 --> 01:18:18,570 - On the morning of June 1st, after the massacres, 1313 01:18:18,636 --> 01:18:22,273 the National Guard and some police 1314 01:18:22,373 --> 01:18:25,543 and maybe some civilians began rounding up 1315 01:18:25,610 --> 01:18:28,913 all of the African-American population in Greenwood 1316 01:18:28,980 --> 01:18:31,783 that they-that they could. 1317 01:18:31,883 --> 01:18:36,387 There were between five and seven thousand people detained. 1318 01:18:39,324 --> 01:18:41,726 And the reason given for that was that 1319 01:18:41,793 --> 01:18:43,661 it was for their own protection, 1320 01:18:43,762 --> 01:18:46,498 that they were gonna be put some place safe. 1321 01:18:46,598 --> 01:18:48,767 Everybody who was still in custody 1322 01:18:48,833 --> 01:18:52,771 was moved to the fairgrounds east of Greenwood. 1323 01:18:52,837 --> 01:18:55,273 They set up cots in a kitchen, 1324 01:18:55,340 --> 01:18:58,476 they dug latrines. 1325 01:18:58,576 --> 01:19:01,513 The people who stayed there were expected to work. 1326 01:19:01,613 --> 01:19:04,516 The women would prepare the meals, 1327 01:19:04,616 --> 01:19:08,319 the men were sent out to work cleaning up Greenwood. 1328 01:19:13,858 --> 01:19:15,160 - Folks in these internment camps 1329 01:19:15,260 --> 01:19:19,097 had to have a green card. 1330 01:19:19,164 --> 01:19:21,666 - I don't know how they got these little cards 1331 01:19:21,766 --> 01:19:22,667 {\an8}printed so fast, 1332 01:19:22,767 --> 01:19:25,336 {\an8}but everybody had a little I.D. card, 1333 01:19:25,436 --> 01:19:28,706 {\an8}school children and all, told what you did, 1334 01:19:28,807 --> 01:19:30,942 {\an8}and you had to have that little I.D. 1335 01:19:31,009 --> 01:19:32,710 wherever you went. 1336 01:19:32,811 --> 01:19:35,113 - And to get out of these internment centers, 1337 01:19:35,180 --> 01:19:37,649 they needed to be countersigned by a white person. 1338 01:19:37,715 --> 01:19:40,051 Essentially, a white person would vouch for them 1339 01:19:40,151 --> 01:19:42,487 and get them out of these internment centers. 1340 01:19:44,823 --> 01:19:47,358 {\an8}The theory at-- by the authorities 1341 01:19:47,458 --> 01:19:49,694 was that this was done to protect people 1342 01:19:49,794 --> 01:19:52,730 from physical harm in a context of 1343 01:19:52,831 --> 01:19:55,066 this chaotic situation. 1344 01:19:55,166 --> 01:19:57,535 There wasn't a lot of justification that was needed 1345 01:19:57,635 --> 01:20:00,171 because who has power and who doesn't? 1346 01:20:02,574 --> 01:20:06,911 - The people who had homes to go to went to those homes. 1347 01:20:07,011 --> 01:20:10,748 Some people left town. 1348 01:20:10,849 --> 01:20:12,183 The Red Cross was operating out of 1349 01:20:12,250 --> 01:20:14,252 Booker T. Washington High School, 1350 01:20:14,352 --> 01:20:16,988 and the Red Cross would buy them a train ticket 1351 01:20:17,055 --> 01:20:20,158 if they wanted to leave town. 1352 01:20:20,225 --> 01:20:22,193 {\an8}- I found that the high school building 1353 01:20:22,260 --> 01:20:23,895 {\an8}was still standing. 1354 01:20:23,995 --> 01:20:27,732 {\an8}I saw a big white streamer with a red cross on it. 1355 01:20:27,832 --> 01:20:30,268 I felt pangs of joy, for this meant to me 1356 01:20:30,368 --> 01:20:34,339 that I was getting in close touch with friends again. 1357 01:20:34,405 --> 01:20:37,742 I breathed a prayer of thanks. 1358 01:20:37,842 --> 01:20:40,678 - The Red Cross began obtaining these tents 1359 01:20:40,745 --> 01:20:43,181 that people could live in. 1360 01:20:43,248 --> 01:20:45,917 - Many Black families spent days, weeks, months 1361 01:20:46,017 --> 01:20:49,787 living in tent cities on the charred earth. 1362 01:21:01,900 --> 01:21:04,936 {\an8}- Everything they had was gone, and they were expected 1363 01:21:05,036 --> 01:21:06,404 to immediately just go about their lives 1364 01:21:06,471 --> 01:21:09,574 like nothing had happened. 1365 01:21:09,641 --> 01:21:13,044 Y-You have to think the trauma was-was terrible. 1366 01:21:18,983 --> 01:21:22,420 {\an8}- When we reaching the house, I saw my piano 1367 01:21:22,487 --> 01:21:26,157 {\an8}and all my elegant furniture piled in the street. 1368 01:21:27,558 --> 01:21:33,665 My safe had been broken open, all my money stolen, 1369 01:21:33,765 --> 01:21:36,734 all my silverware, cut glass, 1370 01:21:36,801 --> 01:21:38,636 all my family clothing, 1371 01:21:38,736 --> 01:21:42,674 and everything of value had been removed, 1372 01:21:42,774 --> 01:21:45,944 even my family Bible. 1373 01:21:46,010 --> 01:21:46,911 Our car was stolen 1374 01:21:46,978 --> 01:21:49,781 and most of my large rugs were taken. 1375 01:21:49,847 --> 01:21:52,750 I lost seventeen houses that paid me an average 1376 01:21:52,817 --> 01:21:55,954 of over $425 per month. 1377 01:21:57,455 --> 01:22:12,036 ♪♪ 1378 01:22:13,805 --> 01:22:16,274 - Riot is a term of art, really. 1379 01:22:16,341 --> 01:22:18,109 These events throughout the nation 1380 01:22:18,176 --> 01:22:20,511 during this period were called "Race Riots". 1381 01:22:23,481 --> 01:22:26,517 And it's significant in part because insurance polices, 1382 01:22:26,617 --> 01:22:28,219 for example, during that period 1383 01:22:28,319 --> 01:22:30,655 often had exclusionary clauses. 1384 01:22:30,722 --> 01:22:33,024 And so if your damage was occasioned by riot 1385 01:22:33,124 --> 01:22:34,125 or civil unrest, 1386 01:22:34,192 --> 01:22:35,994 the insurance company didn't have to pay. 1387 01:22:37,628 --> 01:22:40,398 One of the things we know is that 1388 01:22:40,498 --> 01:22:41,966 a number of people in the mob 1389 01:22:42,033 --> 01:22:43,167 that destroyed the Greenwood community 1390 01:22:43,234 --> 01:22:47,305 were deputized by local law enforcement officers; 1391 01:22:47,372 --> 01:22:49,741 much of that was done by a wink and a nod. 1392 01:22:49,841 --> 01:22:52,143 Those people knew that they were not going to be 1393 01:22:52,210 --> 01:22:55,513 impeded by law enforcement. 1394 01:22:55,580 --> 01:22:57,915 The massacre was referred to, in some documents, 1395 01:22:58,016 --> 01:23:00,752 as a Negro uprising, which suggests that 1396 01:23:00,852 --> 01:23:04,255 the Black community's to blame. 1397 01:23:06,357 --> 01:23:09,193 - In the immediate aftermath there was a grand jury, 1398 01:23:09,260 --> 01:23:13,264 and it indicted, I think it's 88 people. 1399 01:23:13,364 --> 01:23:17,035 Some of whom were white, most of whom were Black. 1400 01:23:17,101 --> 01:23:20,171 - First was the indictment of J.B. Stradford 1401 01:23:20,238 --> 01:23:22,940 who owned a hotel and was a lawyer. 1402 01:23:23,041 --> 01:23:25,009 A.J. Smitherman was the editor and publisher of 1403 01:23:25,076 --> 01:23:26,110 "The Tulsa Star", 1404 01:23:26,210 --> 01:23:29,380 which is the leading Black newspaper. 1405 01:23:29,447 --> 01:23:31,449 He, along with a number of other Black men 1406 01:23:31,549 --> 01:23:34,585 was indicted for inciting a riot. 1407 01:23:36,020 --> 01:23:38,356 - Let the blame for this Negro uprising 1408 01:23:38,423 --> 01:23:42,293 lie right where it belongs: on those armed Negroes 1409 01:23:42,393 --> 01:23:44,562 and their followers who started this trouble 1410 01:23:44,629 --> 01:23:46,197 and who instigated it. 1411 01:23:46,264 --> 01:23:48,633 And any persons who seeks to put half the blame 1412 01:23:48,733 --> 01:23:50,802 on the white people are wrong. 1413 01:23:56,474 --> 01:23:59,811 - It is one of the big ironies of-of all of this 1414 01:23:59,911 --> 01:24:03,147 that the two people who are most often seen 1415 01:24:03,247 --> 01:24:05,049 at the center of it are two people 1416 01:24:05,116 --> 01:24:07,985 that we know very, very little about. 1417 01:24:08,086 --> 01:24:12,390 Sarah Page left the day after the massacre. 1418 01:24:12,457 --> 01:24:14,125 She left town and never came back 1419 01:24:14,225 --> 01:24:15,593 as far as we know. 1420 01:24:15,660 --> 01:24:18,729 Dick Rowland, it appears, remained in jail 1421 01:24:18,796 --> 01:24:21,632 through the summer and then was released. 1422 01:24:21,732 --> 01:24:24,435 In September, the county attorney said 1423 01:24:24,502 --> 01:24:26,104 he'd received a letter from Sarah Page 1424 01:24:26,170 --> 01:24:28,673 asking not to press charges. 1425 01:24:28,773 --> 01:24:32,810 People had really lost interest in it. 1426 01:24:32,910 --> 01:24:35,146 - No white person's ever held accountable 1427 01:24:35,246 --> 01:24:39,951 for the some 100 to 300 deaths that we believe occurred, uh, 1428 01:24:40,017 --> 01:24:42,019 during the massacre. 1429 01:24:45,656 --> 01:24:47,959 - I've never spoken to a white Tulsan 1430 01:24:48,025 --> 01:24:50,528 who would admit to be a member of the mob 1431 01:24:50,628 --> 01:24:51,429 during the riot. 1432 01:24:51,496 --> 01:24:53,030 And one reason is simply this: 1433 01:24:53,131 --> 01:24:55,666 there's no statute of limitations on murder. 1434 01:24:55,766 --> 01:24:59,036 These homicides have now entered the historic realm, 1435 01:24:59,137 --> 01:25:00,872 they can no longer be prosecuted, 1436 01:25:00,972 --> 01:25:03,274 there's no one left to prosecute. 1437 01:25:07,979 --> 01:25:12,717 {\an8}- The massacre destroyed the superstructure, 1438 01:25:12,817 --> 01:25:16,621 {\an8}but miraculously the basement survived. 1439 01:25:22,827 --> 01:25:27,498 This is a picture of the basement. 1440 01:25:27,565 --> 01:25:30,468 So this picture was taken August 1921, 1441 01:25:30,535 --> 01:25:34,138 and the massacre happened May 31st through June 1st. 1442 01:25:34,205 --> 01:25:35,806 People came and hid in our basement 1443 01:25:35,873 --> 01:25:36,841 during the massacre. 1444 01:25:36,908 --> 01:25:39,977 You see ashes above every window piece 1445 01:25:40,044 --> 01:25:43,080 except the back window. 1446 01:25:45,650 --> 01:25:49,020 So this is the space where that window frame 1447 01:25:49,086 --> 01:25:51,989 that we saw that had no ash on top of it, 1448 01:25:52,056 --> 01:25:53,191 it's still right there. 1449 01:25:53,257 --> 01:25:56,227 If you can imagine people being in this room 1450 01:25:56,327 --> 01:25:59,997 not knowing if the fire would somehow come through 1451 01:26:00,064 --> 01:26:01,699 or come from above, 1452 01:26:01,766 --> 01:26:06,938 but they managed to survive in this space. 1453 01:26:09,006 --> 01:26:12,777 When I learn about bodies being dumped in mass graves 1454 01:26:12,877 --> 01:26:16,080 and not ever receiving a proper burial, 1455 01:26:16,180 --> 01:26:18,683 that touched me as a pastor on a visceral level. 1456 01:26:20,218 --> 01:26:30,194 ♪♪ 1457 01:26:30,261 --> 01:26:35,399 As a pastor, when you bury somebody 1458 01:26:35,466 --> 01:26:38,903 it's more than just giving a eulogy. 1459 01:26:38,970 --> 01:26:41,872 When we do what we call the committal, 1460 01:26:41,939 --> 01:26:45,476 which is that ashes to ashes, that dust to dust 1461 01:26:45,576 --> 01:26:47,378 over their bodies, 1462 01:26:47,445 --> 01:26:52,083 that is our way of spiritually releasing them 1463 01:26:52,149 --> 01:26:57,388 to go wherever they're going. 1464 01:26:59,824 --> 01:27:06,998 And to deny that to the people that were dumped or killed 1465 01:27:07,098 --> 01:27:10,901 during the race massacre is evil! 1466 01:27:12,103 --> 01:27:15,273 It shows you that at that time period 1467 01:27:15,339 --> 01:27:18,843 people didn't even care about the souls of Black folks, 1468 01:27:18,943 --> 01:27:22,313 let alone their bodies. 1469 01:27:22,413 --> 01:27:26,484 I believe there is no expiration date on morality, 1470 01:27:26,584 --> 01:27:29,020 and if it was wrong in 1921 1471 01:27:29,120 --> 01:27:32,423 and that it has not been repaired for today, 1472 01:27:32,490 --> 01:27:35,526 then we ought to do something about it. 1473 01:27:41,666 --> 01:27:45,770 - One of the most basic, I think, responsibilities 1474 01:27:45,836 --> 01:27:48,973 that a city has to the residents who live there 1475 01:27:49,040 --> 01:27:52,209 is if you're murdered, we'll do everything we can 1476 01:27:52,310 --> 01:27:54,378 to try to find out what happened to you, 1477 01:27:54,478 --> 01:27:56,047 to find your remains for your family, 1478 01:27:56,147 --> 01:27:59,617 and to render justice for you and your family. 1479 01:28:03,154 --> 01:28:05,656 - It makes me feel, um, 1480 01:28:05,723 --> 01:28:09,060 kind of like Charlie Brown said, "good grief." 1481 01:28:09,160 --> 01:28:13,297 {\an8}Because it's good that we unveiled the story, 1482 01:28:13,364 --> 01:28:17,702 {\an8}but it's grief to us as we unveil it. 1483 01:28:17,802 --> 01:28:19,236 Tell it right. 1484 01:28:19,337 --> 01:28:23,708 They took those planes from that oil field 1485 01:28:23,808 --> 01:28:27,011 and they planned an aerial attack, 1486 01:28:27,078 --> 01:28:29,080 and that's what makes it different 1487 01:28:29,180 --> 01:28:33,718 from all the other race riots in America. 1488 01:28:33,818 --> 01:28:35,519 Tell it right. 1489 01:28:35,586 --> 01:28:38,556 They bombed us, they bombed us. 1490 01:28:40,191 --> 01:28:56,073 ♪♪ 1491 01:28:57,608 --> 01:28:59,410 - There's something very spiritual 1492 01:28:59,510 --> 01:29:02,113 about this work. 1493 01:29:05,783 --> 01:29:08,052 And anybody who thinks that this sacred ground 1494 01:29:08,119 --> 01:29:12,790 that we find ourselves on, 1495 01:29:12,890 --> 01:29:15,459 this crime scene that we find ourselves on 1496 01:29:15,559 --> 01:29:19,897 is not gonna speak, doesn't have the ears to hear. 1497 01:29:21,899 --> 01:29:29,373 ♪♪ 1498 01:29:29,440 --> 01:29:33,043 - Kavin Ross talks about the redbirds. 1499 01:29:33,110 --> 01:29:37,481 He says that they are the spirits of our ancestors. 1500 01:29:37,581 --> 01:29:43,154 Monday morning, I went out to my garden, 1501 01:29:43,254 --> 01:29:46,590 and as I stepped on my back porch, 1502 01:29:46,657 --> 01:29:52,062 I saw a whole bunch of redbirds, and they were looking at me. 1503 01:29:55,733 --> 01:29:57,835 And I ran in here to get my phone, 1504 01:29:57,935 --> 01:29:59,804 "Kavin, I gotta tell you the story of what happened 1505 01:29:59,904 --> 01:30:00,805 "with the redbirds." 1506 01:30:00,905 --> 01:30:04,141 He said, "Girly, come"-- he says girly. 1507 01:30:04,241 --> 01:30:07,578 "Girly, come get your butt down here to the cemetery." 1508 01:30:12,783 --> 01:30:17,822 Well, I knew something huge is gonna happen from that, 1509 01:30:17,922 --> 01:30:19,657 and it did. 1510 01:30:21,292 --> 01:30:31,435 ♪♪ 1511 01:30:31,502 --> 01:30:34,972 - I'm here to report an update. 1512 01:30:35,039 --> 01:30:37,508 I can confirm that we have identified, um, 1513 01:30:37,608 --> 01:30:39,210 a large hole that had been excavated 1514 01:30:39,310 --> 01:30:42,046 and into which several individuals, 1515 01:30:42,146 --> 01:30:45,149 um, have been placed. 1516 01:30:45,216 --> 01:30:47,618 This constitutes a mass grave. 1517 01:30:51,322 --> 01:30:52,990 - Tonight scientists believe they have found 1518 01:30:53,057 --> 01:30:56,527 evidence of a mass grave in Oklahoma. 1519 01:30:56,627 --> 01:30:58,562 - More than a year after work had started 1520 01:30:58,662 --> 01:31:03,734 at Oaklawn Cemetery, the team found human remains. 1521 01:31:03,834 --> 01:31:07,905 - Today is a significant moment in the history of our city 1522 01:31:08,005 --> 01:31:12,576 in trying to do right by the victims of this event. 1523 01:31:12,676 --> 01:31:16,013 - When I heard that they found twelve bodies, 1524 01:31:16,080 --> 01:31:19,650 I said, "Finally! Finally!" 1525 01:31:19,717 --> 01:31:23,988 It's no longer folklore, it's no longer a rumor, 1526 01:31:24,054 --> 01:31:27,324 it's true. 1527 01:31:27,391 --> 01:31:28,559 And that's going just to be 1528 01:31:28,659 --> 01:31:31,061 the beginning of justice. 1529 01:31:32,263 --> 01:31:34,398 - People in this community who've been saying 1530 01:31:34,498 --> 01:31:36,700 that bodies were dumped in mass graves, 1531 01:31:36,767 --> 01:31:39,670 their stories have now been vindicated. 1532 01:31:39,737 --> 01:31:42,873 Gets us one step closer to giving their families 1533 01:31:42,940 --> 01:31:48,879 the opportunities to have the truth be known 1534 01:31:48,946 --> 01:31:51,749 and actually give them a proper burial. 1535 01:31:59,390 --> 01:32:01,859 - This is all part of a-a mission 1536 01:32:01,926 --> 01:32:05,429 to get back what was lost. 1537 01:32:05,529 --> 01:32:07,798 We've lost a lot of history, we've lost a lot of testimony, 1538 01:32:07,898 --> 01:32:09,867 we've lost a lot of known heritage 1539 01:32:09,934 --> 01:32:11,802 that could have been passed down 1540 01:32:11,902 --> 01:32:14,471 because it wasn't safe to talk about for so long. 1541 01:32:18,075 --> 01:32:21,111 - Nobody said nothing until now. 1542 01:32:21,211 --> 01:32:22,880 We're just now talking about it. 1543 01:32:25,115 --> 01:32:27,952 - Growing up, old folks have talked, 1544 01:32:28,052 --> 01:32:31,722 and they actually kind of hid a lot of stuff from us. 1545 01:32:33,958 --> 01:32:36,160 - Staying quiet was one of those ways 1546 01:32:36,260 --> 01:32:38,095 of protecting yourself. 1547 01:32:38,162 --> 01:32:39,330 It's kind of in the back of your mind, 1548 01:32:39,430 --> 01:32:41,498 wondering could this happen again? 1549 01:32:41,599 --> 01:32:44,234 What can I do to prevent this from happening again 1550 01:32:44,301 --> 01:32:46,136 for my children? 1551 01:33:11,929 --> 01:33:13,998 - That is another part of trauma, 1552 01:33:14,098 --> 01:33:16,000 the silence that it creates. 1553 01:33:16,100 --> 01:33:17,434 And while people were murdered 1554 01:33:17,501 --> 01:33:20,871 and we need to acknowledge that and we need to find them, 1555 01:33:20,971 --> 01:33:22,806 we also need to talk about how they lived. 1556 01:33:22,873 --> 01:33:25,309 We need to talk about what they built, 1557 01:33:25,376 --> 01:33:26,477 we need to talk about what's left behind 1558 01:33:26,543 --> 01:33:27,645 and tell that story, 1559 01:33:27,711 --> 01:33:30,648 because that story lasts for a hundred years, 1560 01:33:30,714 --> 01:33:34,985 the massacre was two days. 1561 01:33:37,054 --> 01:33:39,289 - Hut, hut. Come on, boy. 1562 01:33:39,356 --> 01:33:43,160 Hut, hut, hut. 1563 01:33:50,234 --> 01:33:52,202 Hut. 1564 01:33:53,404 --> 01:33:56,874 People say, "Why don't you leave here?" 1565 01:33:56,974 --> 01:33:58,876 Because the memory of something 1566 01:33:58,976 --> 01:34:01,745 that I will never see anywhere else is still here. 1567 01:34:03,881 --> 01:34:07,384 And these pages contain all of the photographs 1568 01:34:07,484 --> 01:34:10,821 of my ancestors who lived on Greenwood. 1569 01:34:12,890 --> 01:34:17,061 The memory, we're connected to our memories. 1570 01:34:17,828 --> 01:34:20,698 Olivia Hooker, who was a survivor, 1571 01:34:20,764 --> 01:34:23,834 was a really beautiful soul. 1572 01:34:26,837 --> 01:34:30,274 - At that night of the massacre, Olivia Hooker, 1573 01:34:30,374 --> 01:34:34,778 who was a six-year-old girl, saw her own home ripped apart. 1574 01:34:34,878 --> 01:34:37,214 White folks came into her house, 1575 01:34:37,281 --> 01:34:41,185 destroyed her piano with a hatchet, 1576 01:34:41,251 --> 01:34:45,022 and when they left, she went over there 1577 01:34:45,089 --> 01:34:49,760 and they struck the keyboard, and there was still sound 1578 01:34:49,860 --> 01:34:52,963 coming out of that piano. 1579 01:34:53,063 --> 01:34:55,432 That's who Greenwood is. 1580 01:34:57,968 --> 01:34:59,903 You might destroy the outside of me, 1581 01:34:59,970 --> 01:35:02,439 you might shoot me, you might burn me, 1582 01:35:02,539 --> 01:35:05,743 you're not gonna destroy my soul. 1583 01:35:05,809 --> 01:35:07,811 We still got a song to sing. 1584 01:35:09,246 --> 01:35:13,217 ♪♪ 1585 01:35:13,283 --> 01:35:17,121 - We have these cycles of Greenwood being built, 1586 01:35:17,221 --> 01:35:20,090 destroyed, rebuilt. 1587 01:35:20,157 --> 01:35:21,325 If you look at it all together 1588 01:35:21,425 --> 01:35:22,993 in a 100 year journey... 1589 01:35:27,264 --> 01:35:29,166 it's a consistent story of resilience. 1590 01:35:31,835 --> 01:35:35,405 - We are so close to getting over this madness. 1591 01:35:35,472 --> 01:35:39,777 In time, we can go on to be a great city 1592 01:35:39,843 --> 01:35:42,412 that we are destined to be. 1593 01:35:43,614 --> 01:35:48,986 - There's a resilience that our people have. 1594 01:35:49,086 --> 01:35:55,092 The people here in Tulsa have kept the story alive. 1595 01:35:57,795 --> 01:36:02,466 We know with our people, it's never the end. 1596 01:36:02,533 --> 01:36:21,218 ♪♪ 1597 01:36:21,318 --> 01:36:26,790 {\an8}- My dreams of what Greenwood should look like, 1598 01:36:26,857 --> 01:36:29,960 {\an8}it should look like us. 1599 01:36:30,027 --> 01:36:33,363 {\an8}- My hope for Greenwood is that she can become 1600 01:36:33,463 --> 01:36:34,665 {\an8}back what she used to be. 1601 01:36:35,666 --> 01:36:37,401 {\an8}- I wish Greenwood would be healed. 1602 01:36:37,901 --> 01:36:40,003 {\an8}A lot of stuff was buried deep. 1603 01:36:40,070 --> 01:36:40,237 {\an8}- My dream is to have a replicate 1604 01:36:42,906 --> 01:36:44,842 {\an8}of what we had in 1921 1605 01:36:44,908 --> 01:36:47,244 {\an8}with all the Black businesses, 1606 01:36:47,344 --> 01:36:48,078 {\an8}everybody supporting each other. 1607 01:36:50,380 --> 01:36:54,384 {\an8}- We are the youngest business owners on Greenwood. 1608 01:36:54,484 --> 01:36:56,854 {\an8}I would like to see young people, you know, 1609 01:36:56,920 --> 01:36:59,022 {\an8}rebuilding Black Wall Street. 1610 01:36:59,089 --> 01:37:01,325 {\an8}- Let there be some type of closure 1611 01:37:01,391 --> 01:37:04,761 {\an8}and some type of life back here that we're enjoying. 1612 01:37:04,862 --> 01:37:07,097 {\an8}- We need to reclaim what was ours 1613 01:37:07,197 --> 01:37:09,066 {\an8}from the beginning. 1614 01:37:09,166 --> 01:37:11,368 {\an8}Our people built Black Wall Street 1615 01:37:11,435 --> 01:37:13,237 {\an8}by hard work and dedication, 1616 01:37:13,337 --> 01:37:15,839 {\an8}we did it one time, we can do it again. 1617 01:37:15,906 --> 01:37:18,075 {\an8}- Greenwood can be that again, 1618 01:37:18,175 --> 01:37:20,777 {\an8}we can be all that we wanna be.