AUGUSTA MORRIS MANN
1906-2000
Co-proprietor of Mann Brothers Grocery & Market
First Black woman on the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board
1995 Photograph of Augusta Mann
Credit: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the photographer, Don Thompson
Augusta Morris Mann was born in Coleman, Texas, on March 21, 1906.[1] Her parents, William and Ethel (Newbill) Morris, were public school teachers. Census records show the family only stayed in Coleman briefly as the town’s economy faltered. Their relocation was also spurred by her father’s deep concern about lynching. By 1910, they lived in Red River, Texas, and the couple both worked as teachers. By 1920, they had left the state for Everidge, Oklahoma, a town in Choctaw County just north of Texas. The 1920 census lists William’s occupation as teacher and Ethel’s as unemployed. The family expanded to include two more children, Francis, b.1907, and William, b. 1912.
Living in southern Oklahoma, nearly 200 miles from Greenwood, Augusta did not witness the Tulsa Race Massacre, but she likely heard about it. Indeed, the man she married in 1930, McKinley Mann (M.M.), was deeply impacted by it. As Augusta explained to Eddie Faye Gates in her 1994 interview, on the night of the Massacre, M.M. and his brothers, who belonged to the well-known Mann family that had come from Sherman, Texas, and was known in the neighborhood by their initials had been warned of the call to lynch Dick Rowland.[2] One of the brothers, likely J.D. (John Douglass Mann), who was a veteran of World War I, joined the band of Black men who went to the courthouse to protect Rowland from the lynch mob that sought to yank him from police custody. A different version of the story suggests that O.B. was also a veteran and was the one who went to the courthouse. In her discussion of the night’s event, Augusta did not name which brother went to the courthouse. Even so, she suggested it was O.B. Today, the Greenwood Cultural Center, one of the district’s museums and heritage sites, maintains that the J.D. was the one engaged in protecting Greenwood and that O.B. (Obie Mann) was wrongly named and then blamed.[3] What is clear is that M.M. was not involved. When he received news of brewing trouble, he closed his grocery store and headed home.
In the aftermath of the Massacre, the Mann family was deeply affected. J.D.’s store was destroyed, and he had to start over. M.M. and O.B.’s store was spared because, as Augusta explained in her Gates interview, many in the white mob did not know where the black living area ended and where the white living area began. So some black property survived because whites thought it was white property.” M.M. was spared this hurt but faced another. Because O.B. was labeled “a riot leader” he fled Tulsa for safety. He remained in Canada for three years. During that time, the Mann family “didn’t know whether he was living or dead.”[4]
These and other scars cut so deeply that Augusta described them as a casualty. As she explained to Gates, “There were so many casualties from that riot, not only the dead around it, but all of the survivors suffer too.”[5] Undoubtedly, because Augusta relayed what she knew of Mann’s family history and later joined these men in operating important grocery stores, Gates recorded her as one of the Black pioneers of Tulsa.
Augusta and M.M. may have met at an event at Langston University, Oklahoma’s only historically Black college or university. Mann, who was 13 years older than Augusta, had completed his normal certificate (teacher training) at the university, was a recent divorcee (January 1926), and the father of two sons, a three-year-old (McKinley Jr., b. 1923) and a one-year-old (Pleasant, b. 1926). M.M. was engaged in the alumni association and celebrated throughout the university for his business pursuits. Not only had he reopened his business just weeks after the Massacre, but he had opened a second store by 1924. In 1927, Augusta was listed in the university catalog as a first-year student. She was the recipient of the prestigious Rosenwald Scholarship, which provided funding in support of Black education. Augusta may have been majoring in library science. The 1929 university catalog lists her as a graduating senior who, along with two other students, completed the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts in liberal arts.
Augusta and M.M. wed in 1930, and from that year until 1940, she listed her occupation in census records as a clerk at the Mann Grocery Store. By 1950, after the death of M.M.’s brother/business partner, she shared that she was a coproprietor in the business. The store became one of the largest in Tulsa, Black or White-owned, and boasted of five butchers and numerous members. Augusta held that the store’s reputation for quality meats crossed with the racial divide. In 1935, the store moved to 1352 N Lansing Avenue. It soon became one of the most modern Black markets in the state, even offering delivery services to its clients. There, as the Mann Bros. Grocery and Market grew, it played a central role in the life of Greenwood. Local children found it a place of solace in the summer, and M.M. often treated them with refreshments. “People just cared about each other then, and they especially cared about the children,” stated Augusta in her 1994 interview with Eddie Faye Gates.
Courtesy: Tulsa Historical Society & Museum
Credit: Greenwood Cultural Center
From the 1930s through the 1950s, Augusta remained busy at the store, at home, and in community service. She was a stepmother to M. M.’s children and his ex-wife, Comfort T. Polk. They may have fostered a daughter, Florence Hayes. Augusta and her sister, Francis, joined the Alpha Iota Zeta chapter (previously known as the Pi chapter) of the Zeta Phi Beta sorority. The sorority was founded in 1920 to unite Black women in a commitment to “Scholarship, Service, Sisterhood, and Finer Womanhood.” While it is unclear when or where Augusta first joined this sorority—since the Pi chapter started in Tulsa in 1927, went inactive the following year, and remained this way until 1935—it is known that she served as their financial head starting in 1944.
In the 1960s, Augusta entered a new phase of her life. Following M.M.’s death in 1961, she sought to continue the Mann legacy by running the store herself through the 1970s. Perhaps a string of burglaries caused her to sell the business to the Gibbs Brothers. While the store had survived the Tulsa Race Massacre, it was demolished in the 1970s during Urban Renewal projects in Tulsa.
Augusta found her way during these tough times. In 1968, she began working for McIntosh-Humphrey Realists, a Black-owned property management firm approved by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). She was a sales representative and broker at the firm until 1974. In 1980, she started the Augusta Mann Real Estate, but soon suspended advertising in 1981, which may indicate that the business closed. Breaking into the real estate business was difficult for both women and African Americans during this time, but Augusta’s business proves this was not impossible. The effects of urban renewal may have played a part in the quick demise of her business.
In the 1970s, Augusta also sought to help shape the effect of urban renewal from within. She served on the board of directors for Target Area Action Group, TAAG. The grassroots group of North Tulsa residents functioned as the citizen participation arm of the Model Cities Program. She also served as a member of the Steering Committee for the Capital Investment Corporation for North Tulsa and as an Area B Planning Team committee member. Both worked with city leaders to inform stakeholders during the guiding process of city planning. The work was built on her long interest in equality, as Augusta had been appointed in 1960 to serve on a statewide board concerning race relations in the state.
It is unclear what Augusta did for work after selling the Mann store. One resource suggests that she briefly turned to teaching. If so, she soon moved on from a professional career and into robust civic involvement. Some of this work took place in women’s organizations. She especially immersed herself in her sorority, hosting Zeta meetings in her home and regularly speaking at organizational events. In 1973, she was named Woman of the Year for the Alpha Iota Zeta chapter, the highest award her sorority gave for her community, civic, and religious involvement. In addition to this membership, she was a life member of the Young Women’s Christian Association.
Augusta also worked through religious organizations. As a worshipper of First Baptist Church of North Tulsa, the oldest black church in Tulsa and one of the few churches not destroyed in the 1921 race massacre, she served as the President of the Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU). The WMU provided leadership development and mission discipleship opportunities for churches and individuals. She served in this role for 26 years, which was the longest anyone had served in that role at the church. Additionally, she served on the Finance Committee for the Oklahoma Baptist State Women’s Conventions and as a chairman of the Professional and Businesswomen convention of the National Baptist Conventions, which both further encourage individuals to advance the Gospel by equipping them with the skills needed for their churches. During her extensive involvement in her church, she even served as a public relations director for the Oklahoma Baptist State Convention.
Augusta was one of six Oklahoman women who attended the WMU conference in New Mexico. She gave numerous speeches concerning her church and participated in a European trip with 19 Tulsans from different churches. The trip took the group to Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Italy, and England for two weeks. For her service to her church, she was named Woman of the Year by the Interdenominational Interracial pastors’ Wives’ Council in 1980, and the Women of First Baptist Church declared an Augusta E. Mann Day in honor of her 26 years as their President. In 1998, she was awarded a Christian Service Certificate for her religious work.
Augusta also served on numerous wide-ranging committees throughout the community. In 1978, she was part of a voter registration drive called Operation Fifteen, an initiative by the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to register eligible North Tulsans to vote. This drive was crucial in aiding black Tulsans to have a voice in ongoing urban renewal plans at the time, one of which involved the expressway which divided the Greenwood district from the rest of Tulsa, but also for measures that would expand North Tulsa, such as jobs and better city services. Ralph McIntosh, co-owner of McIntosh-Humphrey, co-chaired the operation.
In 1979, Augusta became the first Black woman and sole Black member appointed to serve on the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. Meeting monthly in Lexington or McAlester, the five-member board was charged with making impartial investigations and reviews of applicants requesting pardons, commutations, and clemency or those eligible for parole. During her tenure, Augusta saw many challenges, including riots, overcrowded conditions, the rise of the AIDS epidemic, and chronic budget cuts. One visitor, who went to watch her in action, found her to be ready for the task. They said that in the meetings, she “sits tall, immaculately groomed, and devotedly occupied as she reads and studies each docket.”[6] She served on the committee through 1988 and was elected vice-chairman.
In 1988, Augusta was a part of the Creek District Davis Recreation-Scholarship Committee, where she helped organize the 75th annual Camp Davis Indian Heritage-Senior Citizens Day. This event gave tribute to the senior citizens of the community in a day of celebration. She served as the chairman of the Committee on Administration for the North Tulsa Branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and the League of Women Voters, which helped to inform the public on local issues and promote citizen participation in elections.
Augusta’s societal contributions were well recognized. In 1978, she was recognized as a “woman of esteem” and a “legend” by the Interdenominational Pastors’ Wives Council. In 1996, the North Tulsa Heritage Foundation named her one of four winners of its Award. Perhaps the most impressive came in 1981 when the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce recognized her as a “pioneer” of Greenwood. The list named people who were instrumental in the early development of North Tulsa. Although it did not say why Augusta was recognized in this manner, it can be assumed it was tied to her contributions through Mann Brother Grocery and Market, involvement in urban renewal work, work in voter registration drives, church activism, and sorority service, along with other rich and varied activities.
Credit: Oklahoma Eagle, 1978.
After a life dedicated to service, Augusta spent her last years in the Rest Haven Nursing Home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She passed on February 25, 2000, at 93. Looking back over her life, Augusta Mann remarked, “I’ve been very active in my church and I’ve served in community and state organizations to try to make Oklahoma a better place. I hope that we learn some lessons from [the Massacre] and from past the history of strained race relations.”[7]
[1] One source suggests that Augusta Mann was born on April 21, 1910. However, multiple sources, including her interview with Gates, suggest her birth was likely in March 1906. Given the overwhelming evidence for the latter, this essay maintains the 1906 date.
See Eddie Faye Gates, They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the Promised Land in Tulsa (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1997), 149; Social Security Death Index, Master File, accessed Ancestry.com; and“Happy Birthday March Birthdays,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 18 March 1982.
[2] There are differing accounts of how the Mann brothers ended up in Tulsa. The Greenwood Cultural Center records the family’s migration to Okmulgee and then to Grayson. It tells that some of the Manns (O.B. J.D., and M.M.) moved to Tulsa to open businesses. Author Tim Madigan writes that the entire family lived in Tulsa and that the father opened a store, which his son inherited after his premature death. See “Mann Brothers Mistakenly Betrayed as Race War Militants,” n.d., Greenwood Cultural Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Tim Madigan, The Burning: The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003). A contemporary oral account from Pleasant Mann, M.M.’s grandson, parallels the first account. See Pleasant Mann, “Juneteenth a Family History,” East of the River (Washington, D.C., June 12, 2022, https://eastoftheriverdcnews.com/2022/06/12/juneteenth-a-family-story/ For Gurley’s statement, see https://digitalprairie.ok.gov/digital/collection/race-riot/id/1098.
[3] In part, this controversy entered the record and became O.W. Gurley (husband of Emma Gurley’s husband, another WBWS subject) named O.B. when he testified for the state in the 1921 trial. An account of O.B.’s participation is also found in Madigan, The Burning.
[4] Eddie Faye Gates, “Augusta Mann,” They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the Promised Land in Tulsa (Austin, TX, Eakin Press, 1997), 151.
[5] “Augusta Mann,” They Came Searching, 151.
[6] “Mann Does Good Job on a Tough Job,” Lawton Oklahoma Eagle (Lawton, Oklahoma), 24 April 1986.
[7] Oklahoma Historical Society, “Interviews with Elizabeth Cooley Chappelle, Annie Birdie Beard, Augusta Mann, George Monroe, and Eldoris McCondichie,” https://www.okhistory.org/learn/tulsaracemassacre.
MORE BIOGRAPHIES
View All
Citation: Garrett Wolff, Bronwyn Cooper, and Holly Goodman, “Augusta Mann,” in Brandy Thomas Wells, Ed. Women of Black Wall Street, 2025, https://blackwallstreetwomen.com/augusta-m-mann/ (Access date).
Any use of images on the website must be attributed to the original site/copyright holder.
Sources:
U.S. Federal Census, 1910 [Red River, Texas], accessed via Ancestry.com.
Rusty Tate, “Coleman County,” Texas State Historical Association.
U.S. Federal Census, 1920 [Everidge, Choctaw, Oklahoma], accessed via Ancestry.com.
“Mann Brothers Mistakenly Betrayed as Race War Militants,” n.d., Greenwood Cultural Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma. [Viewed November 16, 2024, on a class trip to Greenwood]
Eddie Faye Gates, They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the Promised Land in Tulsa (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1997), 149.
Social Security Death Index, Master File, accessed Ancestry.com.
“Happy Birthday March Birthdays,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 18 March 1982.
Tim Madigan, The Burning: The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003).
Pleasant Mann, “Juneteenth a Family History,” East of the River (Washington, D.C.) June 12, 2022.
Langston University, The Claw (Langston, Oklahoma: 1927), 46.
“Mrs. M.M. Mann,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 23 December 1944.
“Mabel Little Local Group Attend Woman’s Day in…,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), May 12, 1966.
“Mrs. A.M. Mann, Speaker for First Baptist Women’s Day” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), May 12, 1966.
Langston University, “Langston University Catalog 1929-1930,” p. 91.
U.S. Federal Census, 1930 [Tulsa, Oklahoma], accessed via Ancestry.com.
U.S. Federal Census, 1930 [Everidge, Choctaw, Oklahoma], accessed via Ancestry.com.
Oklahoma, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1890-1995, accessed via Ancestry.com.
U.S. Federal Census, 1950 [Tulsa, Oklahoma], accessed via Ancestry.com.
U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947, accessed via Ancestry.com.
“Sorority History,” Midwestern Region Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
“The Alpha Iota Zetas…,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 4 March 1944.
“The Historical Legacy of the Divine Nine,” National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“Information,” Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. in Oklahoma State, n.d.
“Scoopin’ the Scoop,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), March 8, 1962.
“Parole Aide Sales Burglars Short,” Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), March 5, 1979.
“Lofton,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), May 10, 1990.
“MacIntosh-Humphrey Realists,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), July 11, 1968.
“McIntosh Humphery Realists,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), September 25, 1969.
MacIntosh-Humphrey Realists,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), October 17, 1974.
“For Sale,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), March 27, 1980.
“Real Estate,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), December 3, 1981.
Victor Luckerson, Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, America’s Black Wall Street: One Hundred Years in the Neighborhood That Refused to Be Erased (New York: Random House, 2023), 306.
“Finer Womanhood Observed by Zeta Phi Beta,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), March 29, 1973.
“North Tulsa Capital Investment Corporation,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), October 3, 1976.
“City Woman to Aid Racial Study in State,” McAlester News-Capital (McAlester, Oklahoma), 7 April 1960.
Hannibal B. Johnson, Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District (Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 1998), 249.
“YWCA Labor Day Brunch Kicks Off Annual Campaign,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), September 11, 1969.
“Tulsa Churches Honor ‘Holy Ground’ 100 Years After Massacre,” Politico, May 30, 2021.
“50th anniversary for Women of First Baptist North Tulsa,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma),16 May 1991.
Woman’s Missionary Union, “ABOUT WMU – WMU.” WMU (Last modified August 19, 2024).
“Zeta Sorors,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 4 March 1982.
Oklahoma Baptists, “About-Oklahoma Baptists,” Oklahoma Baptists (Last modified April 23, 2024).
“Mrs. Mann to Speak at Metropolitan,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 9 October 1969.
“Mrs. A. M. Mann, Speaker for First Bapt. Women’s Day,” Oklahoma Eagle, (Tulsa, Oklahoma), May 12, 1966.
“Six Oklahomans attend WMU conf. in N. Mexico,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), August 11, 1966.
“23 Leave Monday for Europe,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), July 11, 1968.
“Falling Cites Pooling of Resource as Key to City’s Progress,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), February 19, 1988.
“North Tulsa By-Partisan Group Takes First Step in Getting Blacks into Government,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 12 March 1978.
“Nigh Names Altus Man to Board,” Times Record News (Wichita Falls, Texas), January 16, 1979.
“Mann Does Good Job on a Tough Job,” Lawton Oklahoma Eagle, (Lawton, Oklahoma), April 24, 1986.
“Creeks Celebrate Indian Heritage, Seniors,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), August 18, 1988.
“State Banquet Planned for Oct. 21,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), September 23, 1993.
“Women of Esteem Dinner Slated Saturday, November 18,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 30 November 1978.
“NTHF Announces Image Award Recipients,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), February 15, 1996.
“Pioneer,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), November 24. 1981.