G.A. Gregg, the Executive Secretary of the Hunton Branch of the Y.M.C.A. in Tulsa, was out of town and thus spared the immediate horror of the events on May 31st and June 1st.
His return soon after brought him face-to-face with the devastating losses in Greenwood.
Gregg wrote of the tragedy: “I left a happy, hopeful, progressive people. I found a crushed, humiliated, discouraged humanity. I left a praying people; I found them wondering if God is just.”
As the smoke cleared and the ashes settled, the community of Greenwood and the city of Tulsa faced a terrifying question: What comes next?
Thousands of businesses, homes, churches, and schools were reduced to a crumble.
The damage amounted to nearly $1.8 million ($25 million today). Thirty-five square blocks of Tulsa were burned to the ground.
Residents not only witnessed the tragedies of livelihoods lost, but also the lives of individuals in the area. Even today, most are unaware of who those individuals were and how many lives were lost.
According to the Red Cross, anywhere from 55 to 300 individuals were killed. Today, the search for mass graves continues.
Many Black Tulsans, regardless of social class, were left without homes. According to an article from The Ringer more than 9,000 Tulsans were left homeless.
For months to upwards of a year, thousands of Black Greenwood residents slept in detention facilities at the fairgrounds where they continued to wait in long lines for food and clothing.
Black men were mandated to complete work that was assigned by the Red Cross or Oklahoma National Guard.
Black Tulsans– Black Americans– were forced to wear identification tags and police protection cards, which supposedly distinguished between good and bad Black folk. In order to be issued a protection card, Black Americans had to be vouched for by a white employer. Self-employed Greenwood residents who weren’t employed by a White Tulsan struggled to find someone to vouch for them and remained stuck in the camps.
Many hoped to claim thousands of dollars in damage from their businesses, but saw their claims denied in the face of insurance companies who refused to pay for “riot” damages.
In the face of one injustice after another, Black Tulsans worked together to collectively rebuild Greenwood.
Women were a part of these efforts.
Mary E. Jones Parrish was hired by the Inter Racial Committee to do some reporting. She would go on to write a book about the event: Events of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Dora Wells and others donated their time, energy, and what little money they had to relief efforts in the area.
Many assisted in the clean up and joined neighborhood churches in fundraising efforts. Those who still had homes or were able to quickly rebuild open theirs to other families not quite as fortunate.
According to the Ringer, “By the end of 1921, Greenwood residents had rebuilt more than 800 structures in the neighborhood.”
By June 1922, virtually all of the area’s homes had been replaced.
And by 1925, the National Negro Business League was holding its annual conference in Tulsa, indicating that Black Wall Street’s stature as an economic force had been restored.”
Mabel B. Little, one of the women in this digital project, worked hard to raise money to reopen her salon to provide an income for her family.
Another glimpse into these rebuilding efforts, can be seen today in the historic stained-glass windows of Vernon AME Church. The basement of the church not only survived the Massacre but sheltered victims during the burning. When the congregation finished rebuilding the edifice in the mid-1920s, they memorialized these efforts through stained-glass windows.
In a historical context and archival findings report, Oklahoma State University public historian Laura Arata found that 9 of the church’s windows are named for married couples and that wives’ names appeared alongside their husbands. Of 6 organizational windows, 4 were dedicated by women’s organizations. Two windows were dedicated by the church’s Junior and Senior Choirs that included women.
Two windows are direct memorials to women: Mrs. Maggie Vaden, and Mrs. Amanda J. Counce.
While Greenwood residents accomplished an incredible feat in restoring their community to its physical glory, several individuals and their families never fully recovered. In addition to economic losses, many carried mental scars.
Several women in this study lost their businesses and their livelihoods. Bell, like the Gurleys, the founders of Greenwood, left in search of a new promise land. They traveled to California.
In the 1960s, Tulsa’s urban renewal programs put up a highway that cut right through Greenwood and its chances to rebuild.
Kelsey Briggs
References:
Alfred L. Brophy, Reconstructing the DreamlandThe Tulsa Riot of 1921: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Hannibal B. Johnson, Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District (Fort Worth: Eakin Press, 2007).
Victor Luckerson, “Black Wall Street: The African American Haven That Burned and Then Rose From the Ashes”. Run-It-Back Blog.
Deneen L. Brown, Mass Grave Unearthing,” National Geographic, October 8, 2020.
Dreisen Heath, “The Case for Reparations in Tulsa, OK,” Human Rights Watch, May 29, 2020.
Historical Context and Archival Findings Report Commissioned by the Oklahoma Society Daughters of the American Revolution Prepared by Laura J. Arata, PhD, Director of Public History
Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa 1921: Reporting a Massacre. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.
Scott Ellsworth, “Tulsa Race Massacre,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture.
Citation:
The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for this article: Kelsey Briggs, “After the Massacre,” in Women of Black Wall Street, 2021, Brandy Thomas Wells, Ed. https://blackwallstreetwomen.com/background-essays/.
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