LAVERNE COOKSEY DAVIS
1904-2010
Teenager and Domestic at the time of the Massacre
Founder of Mt. Zion Baptist Church’s Project HELP
Cooksey Davis in profile view. She is seated at a wooden desk with her legs crossed and her hands in her lap.
Credit: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the photographer, Don Thompson
LaVerne Cooksey Davis was born on May 24, 1904, in Royse City, Texas. Her parents were from farther east; her mother, Josephine (Josey) Asher moved from Georgia and her father, Woody Cooksey, from North Carolina. Both families settled in Kaufman, Texas, which is where the couple met. Soon after their 1894 wedding, they moved Royse City. Most likely the newlyweds, who made their living in farming just as their parents had, were attracted to the town because of it growing status. The town, founded just a decade earlier, was engaged in all stages of cotton production, from cotton and ginning to cottonseed oil manufacturing. It grew in popularity because the railroad, which bypassed surrounding towns, designated it as a stop and shipping point. By 1896, Royse City boasted of 40 business and a functioning school district.
Perhaps because of the difficulties of farm life, the Cookseys encouraged their children, LaVerne and her siblings (Willie, Westley, Jack, and Katherine), to seize broader opportunities. LaVerne was dedicated to learning music and, at the age of 11 or 12, took on domestic duties for a white piano teacher in exchange for lessons. The Cooksey family also pursued broader opportunities as a family unit, which resulted in a few moves throughout LaVerne’s childhood.
Around 1916, when she was 12, the Cooksey family moved to Oklahoma. As LaVerne explained in her interview with Eddie Faye Gates, the family was attracted to Oklahoma because they heard “there were so many good jobs for Black folks in Oklahoma “what with all those oil people coming in from the north and from the east.” Though LaVerne speaks of moving to Pawnee, historical records show that the family first settled in Wagoner, which had several industries, such as a roller, oil, cotton mill, iron foundry, hardwood company, and cement plant. Many Black residents also owned businesses. When the Cooksey family did not find what they needed there, they departed for Pawnee, a town northeast of Stillwater named for the Pawnee tribe from Nebraska, who were pressured to relocate to Indian Territory between 1873 and 1875.
Perhaps because she was unsatisfied with the limited opportunities facing her family LaVerne, relocated to Greenwood, the district that the Davis family bypassed on their movies. Though Greenwood was set apart by its higher level of entrepreneurship, schools, and other services that residents created for themselves, Laverne still “didn’t find Tulsa to be much different from Texas.” The service industry remained the main source of employment for Black Tulsans, and included such jobs as working in hotels, restaurants, lounges, and “as maids and housemen in [the] south and west Tulsa mansions of oil millionaires.” It is unclear if LaVerne attended school in Greenwood. What is clear is that when she was around 17 she worked as a maid for a white doctor in South Tulsa—the only job she could find.
Because of her employment, LaVerne was not in Greenwood at the time of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Instead, she was asleep in her maid’s quarters. She learned of the terrible news when she received a call from her employer, who advised her not to go to “Little Africa.” As Laverne explained in her interview with Gates, “Little Africa” was a pejorative term that many White Tulsans called Greenwood/North Tulsa during that time. LaVerne shared that she found the call odd because she would have never traveled that late at night anyway.
A second call from her employer frightened her even more. This time, the doctor insisted that she not go to Greenwood because all “Hell has Broken out in Little Africa.” From the safety of her maid’s quarters, LaVerne shared that she could “see that red blaze in the sky over our beloved Greenwood.” Though safe, she feared for the safety of her family and friends, many of whom lost their homes to the blazing flames and were marched out of their homes in their pajamas and housecoats to detention centers. LaVerne also recalled that the police raised the maid’s quarters in South Tulsa under the claim that there was Black Tulsans intended to attack the white part of town.
Eventually, LaVerne was able to make her way to Greenwood. In the first five to six days after the tragic events, Black Tulsans had to get passes from the military to enter the area and visit their family and friends. She was further devastated by what she beheld. As she explained in her interview with Gates: “I was so hurt by what I saw. To wake up and see nothing but ashes and buildings burnt to the ground—I couldn’t keep the tears from falling.” It is interesting to note that LaVerne remained focused on the destruction of the physical landscape and that she did not mention if she saw the loss of life, a component that is usually referenced in these discussions, especially as the death toll may have reached as high as 300. It is possible that it was too difficult for LaVerne to relive these traumatic moments. What is clear is that she suffered permanent emotional scars. The Massacre became something she “shall never forget.” It shaped her fundamentally as a person and changed her trajectory and aspirations.
In 1925, LaVerne left Greenwood. As she explained, the job situation did not improve. After the attack, more people, including former entrepreneurs whose businesses were reduced to ash, then worked for wages. In leaving Greenwood, LaVerne left her family behind, including her sister Katherine, with whom she had a close relationship. She relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, making her home in a predominantly Black neighborhood that in many ways was similar to Greenwood. She found a job at a millinery, a hat-making business. This job was popular among African American women because it was one of the few that financially rewarded their creativity.
In 1932, after working at the millinery for seven years, LaVerne moved to Kansas City, Missouri to study to become a Licensed Practical Nurse. She may have studied at Lincoln University of Missouri, the nearby historically Black college and one of the sole institutions that enrolled Black LPNS. LaVerne worked as an LPN until 1971. At some point during her time in Kansas City, she wed Lloyd Davis, a marriage that appeared to be short-lived.
In 1971, some 46 years after LaVerne left Greenwood, she returned. Her homecoming was prompted by her sister, Kathrine Butler, who had become ill and disabled. Alongside caring for Katherine, she worked for the Tulsa Red Cross for 13 years, retiring in 1984. She became a well-known member of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Mount Zion Baptist was born in 1909 out of a one-room schoolhouse and the commitment of members and the first minister, Sandy Lyons. Though the building was just a few months old, like a half dozen other churches, it was torched during the Massacre. For a time, the congregation met at the home of Mable B. Little. In 1948, Mt. Zion completed its new building and continued as one of the active and well-known churches in the Greenwood area.
While attending Mt. Zion Baptist Church in 1983, LaVerne recommended that church leaders and members feed the unhoused and unemployed. This recommendation and her determination to aid the poor is what sparked Project HELP, which continues to offer hot meals and nonperishable food items to families and individuals in need. The work has also included supplying food backpacks to children at Emerson Elementary School, the only Montessori school in the historic Greenwood District. LaVerne served in Project HELP until her health began to deteriorate. In 2003, she moved into Vintage Heights Residential Living Center, where she created new friends and a family that cared for her deeply. She died on June 10, 2010, at the age of 106.
LaVerne’s words of wisdom shared with Gates was two-part. Citing the international cultures that she read about, she encouraged young people to listen to and care for older adults more. She also encouraged respect for those not formally educated, highlighting that many are often barred from getting a better education. She made clear that, whatever the circumstances that led to their condition, people without formal education can be and often are full of wisdom and intelligence. It is clear that LaVerne learned and lived out this lesson as the child of farmers, her work as a Black domestic, and her service to the community as an LPN, Red Cross worker, and the founder of Project Help.
Citation: Carter Wilson, Nathan Womack, Kierra Peters, and Charles Brydon, “LaVerne Cooksey Davis,” in Brandy Thomas Wells, Ed. Women of Black Wall Street, 2024 (2021), https://blackwallstreetwomen.com/laverne-cooksey-davis/(Access date).
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Sources:
US Federal Census, 1870 [Kaufmann, Texas], accessed via Ancestry.com.
US Federal Census, 1880 [Kaufmann, Texas], accessed via Ancestry.com.
US Federal Census, 1900 [Tulsa, Oklahoma], accessed via Ancestry.com.
Sheri Stodghill Fowler, “Royse City (Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2012).
Brian Hart, “Royse City, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed January 06, 2025.
Eddie Faye Gates, “Laverne Cooksey Davis, “They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought Promised Land in Tulsa, (Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 1997), 62-65.
Shirle Lamb Williams, “Wagoner.” Oklahoma Historical Society | OHS, Last modified January 15, 2010.
Linda D. Wilson “Pawnee (Town).” Oklahoma Historical Society | OHS, Last modified January 15, 2010.
Eddie Faye Gates, 2023. “North Tulsa Oral History Project.” Gilcrease Museum.
“1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.” 2024. 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre | Tulsa Library. Accessed November 11.
Lisa Wardle, 2017. “Then vs. Now: See How Pittsburgh Has Changed since the 1920s.”
Pennlive. https://www.pennlive.com/life/2017/04/aerial_pittsburgh_1920s_2017.html.
“Obituary Information for Laverne Davis.” 2024. Obituary Information.
“Lincoln University of Missouri.” 2024.
Mount Zion Baptist Church, Tulsa, “Our History,” Last modified 2023.
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