Jeanne Belle Osby was born on July 6, 1903, in Springfield, Illinois, to James Ballard Osby (J.B.), born in Tennessee, and Minnie Osby, a native of Illinois. She was the fourth of six children. Initially, Jeanne’s father provided economically for the family, as a janitor working in the county courthouse.  At some point, he must have worked in the law office of Abraham Lincoln. When departing this job, he selected an old-fashioned clock as a keepsake. It remains a prized family heirloom. Around 1909, J.B. became a realtor. His success in real estate led to his inclusion in the 1912 Thompson’s Pictorial Souvenir: Central Illinois, which cataloged the state’s prominent Black entrepreneurs.

In Springfield, the Osbys lived in the diverse neighborhood of Enos Park, which, while being home to many of the city’s leaders, wealthy residents, and business professionals, also included several homes owned by working-class immigrant families.   Because of the community’s diverse makeup, the homes were of varying sizes and designs. The Osbys lived in one of the neighborhood’s larger two-story houses. It is unclear if the family experienced any trouble in the neighborhood. Springfield was a deeply segregated city, and most Black residents lived in the “Levee District” or the “Badlands.” Perhaps the Osbys’ lighter skin led to fewer incidents (both  J.B. and Minnie were bi-racial).
 

Because of the Osbys’ distance from Springfield’s Black neighborhoods, they were relatively safe during the August 1908 race riot. In this tragedy, a white mob of 5,000 gathered outside the jailhouse to lynch two Black men who were accused of unrelated crimes. When they found that the police had secretly transported the men out of town, the mob became incensed. They indiscriminately attacked the Black community, destroying homes and businesses and displacing hundreds. For several days, they also lynched two African American leaders. The Osbys fled to Minnie’s father’s house at Butternut Grove Farm to ensure their safety. They remained there for three or four days. Unlike some of Springfield’s Black residents who never returned, the Osbys later ventured home.

The following years make clear that Jeanne’s parents were committed to improving the plight of their fellow man. J.B. attempted to run a newspaper but soon found it impossible. He found much more success in the courts and politics. In 1908, when a restaurant owner in St. Louis, Missouri, refused to serve him because of his race, J.B. sued and won. Believing that much could be achieved by working within the system, he served in the elected position as a Republican board of supervisors for elections. He was also appointed as an inheritance tax assessor by the state treasurer. During the 1912 national presidential campaign, J.B. supported William Howard Taft. He served in a seven-state conference that brought together Black voters and was an alternate delegate at the 1912 Republican National Convention that formally nominated Taft for the presidency. In 1916, he was the Republican candidate for Coroner.

While Minnie largely contributed to the family as a homemaker, she, too, understood the value of politics. She became the first woman to register to vote in her local precinct after the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1920. According to one of her daughters, who later worked in politics, she maintained a perfect voting record for an impressive 42 years, a testament to her dedication and belief in the power of democracy. Minnie also served the Black community through the Baptist church, including working at the state level.

The Osby family also insisted on the power of education. One of J.B.’s mottos was, “Clothes will wear out. Money is spent. But if you get knowledge, it will stay with you.” ^[1] While it was still uncommon for most African Americans to attend high school, Jeanne graduated with honors from a Springfield high school. It was evidence of the lessons that her parents instilled in her, including the expectation that she work twice as hard and be twice as good as her white classmates. The Osbys also emphasized the values of Black heritage and unity to Jeanne and her siblings. 

In 1921, Jeanne left home to attend Fisk University, her first experience at an all-Black educational institution with Black educators. Founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, the school boasted of the famous Fisk Jubilee Singers and many famous alums, including the pioneering author, educator, and editor W.E.B. Du Bois. ^[2] Jeanne quickly found her way on campus and became a popular and standout student. She came to know many of Fisk’s famous employees and alumni, including John Work II, director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and Yolande Du Bois, Du Bois’s daughter. Jeanne was also a roommate of Thelma Harrison, the first cousin of Walter White, Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was inducted into the National Honor Society. In March 1926, she became a founding member of the Alpha Beta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., an international organization of college-educated women dedicated to public service, sisterhood, and scholarship.^[3] 

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Jeanne also met Edward Lawrence Goodwin (E.L.), a dashing football player nicknamed “Sugar Man.”   E.L. was born in 1902 in Water Valley, Mississippi. In 1914, his family relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to pursue a better life. The move to the Black district of Greenwood was partly motivated by the desire for better educational opportunities for the Goodwin children. Unlike Jeanne,  E.L. had attended the all-Black Booker T. Washington High School, and while Jeanne was too young to remember the massacre that happened in her hometown when she was five, E.L., who was in his senior year of high school at the time of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, could recall where he was on the night that white Tulsans burned and looted Greenwood. Though E.L. and Jeanne’s childhood experiences shaped them differently, their commitment to improving the lives of Black Americans brought them together. At Fisk, they both participated in student protests that pushed for greater student agency, personal freedom, and increased influence in university administration.

Jeanne shared with Gates that after she earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1926 (a year later than her original graduation date due to punishments levied by Fisk because of her activism), she moved to Georgia. She briefly worked with E. Franklin Frazier at the Atlanta School of Social Work. In 1931, Frazier completed his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Chicago and wrote a dissertation about the Black family in the U.S. Around the time of his 1927 departure from Atlanta, Jeanne relocated to St. Louis, where she worked as a social worker. When a deadly tornado touched down in the city in September 1927, claiming the lives of 72 people and injuring 500, she volunteered with the Red Cross and other agencies to assist those in need. Soon after, she moved to the Greenwood area after eloping with E.L. in St. Louis, where he briefly ran a shoe store after earning his degree in business from Fisk.   The two had come back together, and Jeanne defied her parents’ wishes to wed him.

Jeanne contributed to the prominent Goodwin family and the neighborhood more broadly. She remained pretty busy as the mother of eight children and a wife in a family that frequently hosted prominent visitors to Greenwood. Some Black luminaries, like scientist George Washington Carver, stayed next door with her in-laws. Though her child-rearing and hosting duties kept her busy over the years, Jeanne wanted more. She soon turned to teaching. She became a substitute at Booker T. Washington High School and transitioned to a permanent teacher position in 1929. She frequently went beyond the curriculum, bringing in lessons from the Bible along with cutting-edge research in Black history and culture, including materials from Carter G. Woodson, historian, author, editor, and founder of Black History Month. She also met Lorenzo Greene, Woodson’s assistant, who was deeply impressed by her teaching methods, especially student-centered and student-assisted teaching. He immediately shared with Woodson what he had witnessed. 

Jeanne also contributed to the local community through business ventures. Her first paycheck allowed E.L. to open his first solo business in Greenwood, a haberdashery (a shop selling men’s suits and accessories). In the 1930s, she joined E.L. as a partner in several real estate exchanges frequently covered in local newspapers. In 1938, she purchased the Colored Hospital Association of Maurice Willows Hospital. After the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the hospital was the sole one that served Black patrons. It was initially named for Maurice Willows, the director of relief operations following the tragedy. A decade later, it was renamed for Tuskegee leader Robert Russa Moton and Dr. W.A. Moton, a physician at the center. Jeanne became a member of the board.^[4] 

Jeanne also fully participated in the family’s ownership and operation of the Oklahoma Eagle. This newspaper recorded the daily lives of Greenwood residents and helped shape their views on societal issues. In 1950, she joined her husband and father-in-law as an Oklahoma Eagle Publishing Company stockholder. From 1937 to 1981, she also produced the column “Scoopin’ the Scoop” under the pen name Ann Brown. The column provided community news, including the social activities of the district, and offered words of wisdom.

While regularly writing for the Oklahoma Eagle, Jeanne appealed to the broader Tulsa community in a 1946 letter to the Tulsa Tribune. There, she complained of the lack of “adequate facilities for the indigent sick, mentally ill, contagiously ill, and tubercular patients among Tulsa’s Negro population.” To drive home her point, she wrote about two families, one that had to quarantine in Oklahoma City and another that lost an infant because the hospital did not take her in time.^[5]  Never content to just point out issues, around this same time, Jeanne joined an interracial committee of women seeking city funds to keep a Greenwood nursery operating.

  In the 1940s, when E.L. moved the family to a 160-acre farm outside of Greenwood, Jeanne became a teacher at a two-room schoolhouse in the nearby town of Alsuma. Jeanne described Alsuma as “really just a wide space in the road, a couple of stores, and a filling station.” Regardless of its size and what it lacked, she believed that the children there deserved an education, and she was prepared to instruct them.^[6] The two-frame school where Jeanne worked had two teachers and no indoor plumbing. It did not serve hot lunches until 1950 when a third addition was built. It also did not go past the sixth grade. Parents who wanted their children to continue learning had to bus them into Tulsa, with some departing as early as 5:30 A.M. As Jeanne succinctly put it, despite these conditions, “they told me that this was separate but equal.”^[7]  In the wake of Brown v. Board, the school closed. Jeanne became a teacher at a one-room schoolhouse in Bixby and later at the newly integrated Fulton Elementary School in South Tulsa. Here, she continued to teach as she always had. Her white pupils were so impressed by her lessons that they collectively bought her a new Bible to replace her well-worn one.

Jeanne was a devoted advocate for children’s development and education throughout her lifetime. She worked with the Girl Scouts, which was started in 1912, to develop young girls as individuals and community members through enriching experiences and service projects. She worked alongside Jobie Holderness, who founded the first branch for Black Tulsans in 1952. Jeanne was equally devoted to the Camp Fire Girls, a nonsectarian, multicultural organization founded in 1910 that later evolved into a co-ed youth development organization. In 1947, she was one of the earliest members of the Tulsa chapter of Jack and Jill of America, Incorporated, a body founded in Philadelphia in 1938 by 20 mothers to develop African American children and nurture future leaders. Locally, the branch that Mrs. William Perry founded primarily worked to expose children to cultural activities and learning in non-school environments.

In 1964, Jeanne co-founded the First Wednesday Reading Group, an integrated organization that formed three days after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public places, schools, and federally assisted programs. The body brought together 10 women, five Black and five white, to study human relations. Most members were educated at the highest level among Black members. While club members studied racial conditions, some actively participated in Tulsa’s civil rights struggle to expand rights. When interviewed about the 25^th anniversary of the organization, one member, Dorotha Wade, an African American teacher, told of her participation in sit-ins. In this interview, Jeanne did not mention engagement in direct action, but she remained a life member of the NAACP. She also noted that her husband, who had become a lawyer in 1957, often bailed out those arrested. E.L. also worked behind the scenes through conversations with President Johnson concerning the country’s racial conditions.

Jeanne also frequently challenged Tulsa’s Jim Crow system over the years. One enduring account tells of an occasion in the 1930s when she took her children to see Santa Claus at a segregated Tulsa department store. Santa Claus turned them away.  On another occasion, one of her children, Jim, remembered Jeanne taking them to a store in downtown Tulsa when he was 13. She was intent on shopping for and trying on a hat. The latter was a further act of defiance since her race restricted her from doing so. Jeanne also took her children with her when she did. Another fight with segregation came with her commitment to getting Jim accepted into the University of Notre Dame so that he could train as a lawyer. He was among the school’s earliest Black graduates.

After retiring from forty years of teaching in 1968, Jeanne switched gears but remained ever-busy. She continued spending much time with her family, including sharing delicious meals she prepared. Jeanne’s competitive nature was most evident in Scrabble games, where she was so ruthless she was nicknamed the “barracuda.” However, her competitive spirit was always good fun. The family also recalled that Jeanne was witty and soft-spoken and that she produced the most beautiful, crocheted clothing and items as tokens of love.

Jeane also spent time writing as an engaged Eagle contributor. On July 23, 1988, she wrote a comprehensive front-page story on the history of the families of Greenwood. Covering those from the Jacksons to the Goodwins to the Latimers, she sought to craft an understanding of the families and institutions of Greenwood across the decades. For younger generations who may not have been able to picture Greenwood in its heyday, especially as urban renewal and a newly constructed highway stripped away much of what remained. She described Greenwood as the epitome of Black excellence and one of the most important towns in African American history. Jeanne’s commitment to telling and preserving Greenwood’s history undergirded her work with the newly formed North Tulsa Historical Society.

Jeanne’s activities also took on statewide proportions. In 1980, Oklahoma Governor George Nigh appointed her vice-chairman of the Tulsa County Heart Association. She was appointed as one of 53 Oklahomans to serve on the state’s Diamond Jubilee Commission, a multi-year commission that planned the celebration of Oklahoma’s 75^th year of statehood in 1982. These ventures were not the first time Jeanne had been tasked with doing important work at the city or state level. During World War II, she was charged with collecting donations from Black Oklahomans in the War Chest Community Fund Drive. 

Jeanne’s hard work for the community and children was recognized through many awards and honors. Jeanne Arradondo, Jeanne’s daughter, shares that the former site of the Alsuma School was converted to a community park renamed for Jeanne B. Goodwin. In 1992, Jeanne was awarded the North Tulsa Heritage Image award, recognizing the Goodwin family’s profound and varying contributions to Greenwood. In 1994, Jeanne and E.L. (who had passed in 1978) were inducted into the Tulsa Hall of Fame. In 1994, Gates interviewed her as one of Tulsa’s Black pioneers for They Came Searching. In 2003 and 2005, Oprah profiled Jeanne and the First Wednesday Reading Group in O: The Oprah Magazine and the Live Your Best Life coffee table book, respectively.  Upon her 100^th birthday in 2003, the Rudisill Regional Library of Tulsa created a reading room named for her and began the Jeanne B. Goodwin Storytelling Festival. Proclamations from Oklahoma’s governor and several state representatives were read at her 100th birthday party, which gathered family and friends alike.

In January 2006, Jeanne passed away at 102 years old. Her contributions were on the front page of the Oklahoma Eagle and recalled alongside Coretta Scott King, who passed in February.   Jeanne Goodwin’s legacy in Greenwood was immense and showed deeply in her children. During their lifetimes, the Goodwin children gave tirelessly: Edwyna Dones-Anderson, attorney; Edward Lawrence Goodwin, Jr., co-publisher of the Eagle; Onetha Goff Scott, educator; and Carlie Marie Goodwin, educator.

The examples today also abound among the children and grandchildren. Son Robert Kerr Goodwin (Bob) is the Former Director of the Points of Light Foundation. Daughter Jeanne Arradondo is a social worker. Daughter Joann Fields Gilford was the first Black teacher to integrate Tulsa Public Schools and the first African American woman to serve as a school board member for the district. Son and Attorney James “Jim” Goodwin took over the Oklahoma Eagle in 2007 and continues to run it today. The paper is one of the oldest Black newspapers in the nation. Jeanne’s granddaughter, Regina Goodwin, served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives 73rd district from 2015 to 2024. In 2024, she was elected to the Oklahoma Senate.

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^[1] Funeral program of Jeanne Belle Osby Goodwin, January 30, 2006, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture,  https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2014.117.75.

[2] Eddie Faye Gates, “Jeanne Goodwin,” They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the Promised Land in Tulsa (Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 1997), 89 (87-90).

[3] While Jeanne was at Fisk, her parents continued to expand in Springfield. In 1921, J.B. purchased a home in a white neighborhood in town. When he received notes threatening him not to move in, he bought another house in a different White neighborhood. Once again, white residents responded in protest. Eventually, he sold the home to a developer, who turned it into a multi-housing unit. In a 1926 directory, his address was once again listed as 200 West Elliott Avenue, where Jeanne grew up. See Floyd Mansberger and Christopher Stratton, National Register of Historic Places, Thematic Survey of Springfield’s African American Community and the Central East Neighborhood, Springfield, Illinois (August 2018), 149-150.

[4]  The hospital is being remodeled to serve as an entrepreneurial hub for the next generation of Black business owners. See Deon Osborne, Greenwood Moton Hospital to Become Hub for Black Entrepreneurs,” Black Wall Street Times (August 31, 2023), https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2023/08/31/greenwood-moton-hospital-to-become-hub-for-black-entrepreneurs/

[5] “A Negro Mother’s Urgent Request,” Tulsa Tribune (Tulsa, Oklahoma), December 17, 1946.

[6] Quoted in David Averill, “The Roads Led to—and from—Alsuma, “Tulsa World (Tulsa, Oklahoma), January 10, 1982.

[7] Quoted in David Averill, “The Roads Led to—and from—Alsuma,” Tulsa World (Tulsa, Oklahoma) January 10, 1982.

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Citation: Brandy Thomas Wells and Brett Smith, “Jeanne Belle Osby Goodwin,” in Brandy Thomas Wells, Ed. Women of Black Wall Street, 2025, https://blackwallstreetwomen.com/jeanne-belle-osby-goodwin/ (Access date).

Any use of images on the website must be attributed to the original site/copyright holder.

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Sources:

Phone Interview with Jeanne Goodwin Arradondo and Regina Goodwin, March 28, 2025.

Interview with Regina Goodwin, January 18, 2025.

US Federal Census, 1910 [Springfield, Illinois], accessed via Ancestry.com.

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US Federal Census, 1930 [Tulsa, Oklahoma], accessed via Ancestry.com.

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US Federal Census, 1950 [Tulsa, Oklahoma], accessed via Ancestry.com.

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John Erling, “Jim Goodwin: Owner of the Oklahoma Eagle Newspaper, Lawyer, Healthcare Leader,”  Voices of Oklahoma (Oklahoma Historical Society), March 29, 2012. https://voicesofoklahoma.com/interviews/goodwin-jim/.

Victor Luckerson, Built from the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, America’s Black Wall Street (New York: Random House, 2024).

Eddie Faye Gates, “Jeanne Goodwin,” They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the Promised Land in Tulsa (Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 1997), 87-90.

Floyd Mansberger and Christopher Stratton, “National Register of Historic Places Thematic Survey of Springfield’s African American Community by Fever River Research Springfield, Illinois,” Presented at Lincoln Library, Springfield, Illinois, February 27, 2019.  https://illinoisarchaeology.com/Papers/East%20Side%20Survey%202019.pdf

Floyd Mansberger and Christoper Stratton, National Register of Historic Places, Thematic Survey of Springfield’s African American Community and the Central East Neighborhood, Springfield, Illinois (August 2018), p. 149-150.

Click to access thematic-survey-of-springfields-african-american-resources.pdf

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