OPAL LONG DARGAN
1916-1994
Child at the time of the Massacre; Veteran Teacher; Founder of Several Historical Initiatives
Painting of Opal L. Dargan on display at the Greenwood Cultural Center
Opal Long Dargan was born September 21, 1916, in Beggs, Oklahoma. Her parents were originally from Mississippi but moved to Oklahoma around 1905-1906 undoubtedly in search of better economic opportunities and safety from lynching and other forms of racial violence. Beggs was likely because it was quickly developing into a railroad town, a process which began in September 1900, when the U.S. constructed railroads through Creek land. The new railroad depot, established by C.H. Beggs, offered exciting job prospects for many families. Opal’s father, Charles Wesley Long, had been a railroad worker in his younger years. He likely worked in this industry for a few years, though he later became an independent oil lease broker. The shift in his employment matched changes in Begg, which emerged as an oil hub with a 1918-1936 oil boom. The population exploded, rising from 855 people to 5,000 in 1910.
As an oil lease broker, Charles Wesley Long served as a middleman between landowners and oil companies by researching court records of landownership in the region, inquiring about leasing interest, and contracting nearby drilling companies. Long’s form of employment was rare for Black people. He would have been one of four African American oil lease brokers. The others resided in Tulsa or Muskogee. The occupation of Opal’s mother, Alma Owens Long, is unclear, although a later newspaper suggested that she was a schoolteacher near Okmulgee. Although the major and college are unknown, a census record shows that Alma Long attended college for four years. Opal’s childhood may have been one of relative comfort when compared to other Black families of the time.
The family relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the late months of 1920 or early months of 1921. This move meant that Opal’s mother stood out for breaking barriers. For several years, she taught at Dunbar Elementary School. Afterward, she sold girdles despite department stores drawing the color line. Later, and perhaps briefly, in the 1930s, she took an entrepreneurial path, opening her own seamstress shop. By the 1940s, she was working as a seamstress for Spencer Company, a national brand known for its made-to-order, and thus more expensive, foundation garments.
The family’s home in Tulsa consisted of a three-room shotgun house. One of Opal’s earliest memories was sitting on the front porch reading to the kids in the neighborhood fairy stories. That education was taken seriously in the Long home was evident; she read to others in the neighborhood even before she was enrolled at Dunbar Elementary School. Opal also spent a fair amount of time “playing school,” where she often took on the role of teacher. Both were early hints of her future passion for education.
Courtesy of Tulsa Historical Society & Museum.
Among Opal’s most impactful events in her childhood was the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Like those of many survivors, her story would be lost to the record if not for the efforts of Eddie Faye Gates, whose meticulous work documented the memories and resilience of survivors. Through Gates’ commitment, Opal’s voice—and those of countless others—continues to reveal the profound impact and lasting scars left by the massacre and the strength that emerged in its aftermath. In her interview with Gates, it is clear that Opal was sick from measles when the violence began. Her family initially tried to remain in their home, but on June 1, they were forced to leave. With her dad carrying her and her mom carrying the small belongings they could quickly gather, they joined others walking down the railroad tracks, trying to escape the chaos.
The chaos increased. By the early afternoon, some people running down the tracks informed the party that the National Guard was rounding up all the men. It was not long after that the National Guard took Opal’s father. In a 1993 account, Opal recalled that the Long family found refuge in the home of a white physician who turned his house into a shelter for fleeing Greenwood residents. In this account, Opal stressed to listeners, “We must learn to look at people as individuals… we saw some of the most despicable behavior imaginable which white mobsters committed, but we also saw some touching and tender behavior by some whites.” In a separate interview ten years earlier, however, when she told the story, Opal told that the physician was Black, named Dr. Keyes, and lived on Madison Street. This scenario seems the most likely as enduring records reveal that Monroe Keyes, a Black physician, lived on Madison, about a mile north of Pine Street and on the border of Greenwood. Even more, Roanna Henry McClure, another survivor whom Gates interviewed, recalled taking refuge in Dr. Keyes’s house.
Unlike many Greenwood residents, their home was still standing when the Long Family returned to Greenwood the following day. To be sure, looters had ransacked the house and attempted to burn it down by piling papers on the mattress. The mattress’s feathers, however, smothered the fire before it could spread. The next morning, her dad was released and reunited with the family.
In the years that followed, the Long family rebuilt their lives. Opal completed her studies and, in 1933, graduated salutatorian at Booker T. Washington High School. Her high school years coincided with the Great Depression, a time of widespread economic hardship. Opal recalled wearing patched dresses and occasionally lacking necessities. Reflecting on those days, she held, “…you held your head up and went on and prayed the next day there would be enough to eat.” However, she recalled feeling loved and secure even in these scarce times. Her mother spent time teaching her how to sew, and her father regularly bought her magazines to enjoy.
After her graduation, Opal worked as a seamstress for a decoration company. While she was happy to have work, her pay at five dollars a week, put her annual income ($260, or $5,800 in 2024 money) far below the yearly wage of Black women in the 1930s ($327 around $7,400 in 2024 money) and even father below that of White men ($1,419 around $32,000 in 2024 money).
Remarkably, Opal saved enough money to enroll at Kansas State Teachers College (now Emporia State University). There, she pursued a degree in Home Economics with a minor in history. In 1936, she took a leave of absence from college due to appendicitis. While at home recovering from her surgery, she met her future husband, Theodore Dargan. The couple married on June 2, 1938, and welcomed a son, Adrian Dargan, in November.
While Opal soon returned to college, Theodore worked to support her and their growing family. He worked in the locker rooms at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa. Founded in 1935, the club met an increasing demand for a family-oriented space that granted access to a golf course, swimming pool, and stables. Though the club’s bylaws did not explicitly exclude people of color as members, its exorbitant membership fee and referral policy (requiring sponsorship from current members) effectively limited the diversity of its membership. Upon her graduation, Opal returned to Tulsa, and Theodore then took his turn deepening his education, earning both his local and state license as a plumbing contractor. In January 1944, the family welcomed their daughter, Olita Elizabeth.
Credit: Oklahoma, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1890-1995, Ancestry.com
Shortly after, Opal took a teaching position at the district’s elementary school (later renamed Charles S. Johnson), which moved into the Booker T. Washington building after a new high school was constructed. She taught first graders for 21 years (until around 1965). She also continued her education. After obtaining a Reading Specialist Certificate, she transferred to Anderson Junior High (which later became Anderson Elementary School), where she remained for about 15 years.
In 1971, Opal obtained a master’s degree in reading from Tulsa University, one of the city’s prestigious private universities, while working in its reading clinic. In 1979, she left Anderson, just three years shy of retirement eligibility, because of management issues. She remained busy, even serving on a joint committee between the State Arts Council of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Folklife Council that compiled the 1989 cookbook Treasured Family Recipes: Oklahoma Cooks. Opal was one of the two members who were committed to securing recipes from People of Color.
Opal’s enduring impact on Greenwood was evident not only in her teaching but also in her extensive community service. She was an impactful member of Vernon A.M.E. Church, which included her passionate advocacy for senior needs through the congregation’s Silver-Haired Legislature. Shortly after the arrival of urban renewal in the 1960s, she co-founded (with Thelma Whitlow) the North Tulsa Heritage Foundation Board to preserve Greenwood’s rich history. She deepened this effort by working with the Tulsa Historical Society, an organization established in 1963 to document the city’s past. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Opal worked with the Greenwood Cultural Center, a newly constructed educational and community site that offers historical tours, auditorium space, a bookstore, offices, and classrooms. There, she served as a guide for the Greenwood Cultural Center, sharing its history with visitors worldwide. She also led the Summer Arts program, which sought to foster creativity and cultural pride among young people. The initiative provided a way for residents to reconnect with their heritage and offered young people a platform to express their emotions. Opal also led a fundraising campaign that would allow the restored Mable B. Little House to serve as a site for community programs.
Opal’s activism outside of Greenwood is also extensive. She served Black families throughout the city by becoming a charter member of Tulsa’s chapter of Jack and Jill. This organization aims to stimulate children’s growth and development through educational programming, dissemination of educational materials, the offering of community and charitable events, and lobbying. In 1992 and 1993, she was appointed to the Tulsa Parks Board, which sought to improve the lives of Tulsans through parks and other recreation facilities. In 1993, she served on the Oklahoma Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging.
For her significant contributions, Opal earned many awards and accolades. In 1975, she was named Teacher of the Year 1975 in part to honor her establishment of reading programs for struggling students. In 1989, the State Arts Council awarded her its Community Service Award. In March 1994, one week before her death, she received the Pinnacle Spirit Award from the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women and the Tulsa Women’s Foundation. The award recognizes women who have made significant contributions to the community and women. Walter Helmerich III, with whom she served on the Tulsa Park and Recreation Board. Walter generously donated $10,000 to create Opal’s statue at the Greenwood Cultural Center.[5] Although the statue was never built, a painting of her, made a year after her death, still hangs in the Greenwood Cultural Center today to honor her. The center also named its meeting and banquet space “The Opal L. Dargan Renaissance Hall.” Opal Dargan passed away on March 11, 1994, after a lengthy illness.
Opal’s husband and two children survived her: Adrian, a graduate of Oklahoma State University who worked in the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado, and Olita Harris, who became an associate dean at San Diego State University. She also left behind three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. In an interview with Gates, Theodore said that Opal’s final wish was for her awards, honors, memorabilia, her father’s typewriter, and a sewing machine to be donated to the Greenwood Cultural Center. These objects are now on display at the Mable B. Little House, which Opal helped restore. These emblems and Opal’s rich legacy reveal dedication to her family, community, and the causes she held dear.
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Citation: Anna Leport, Kailey Nader, Jathan Brockman, and Louie Lu, “Opal Long Dargan,” in Brandy Thomas Wells, Ed. Women of Black Wall Street, 2025, https://blackwallstreetwomen.com/opal-long-dargan/ (Access date).
Any use of images on the website must be attributed to the original site/copyright holder.
Sources:
“Dargan Remembered for a Lifetime of Service,” The Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 17 17 March 1994.
US Federal Census, 1930 [Tulsa, Oklahoma], accessed via Ancestry.com.
Opal Dargon, interviewed by Joan Todd, August 12, 1983, Oklahoma Historical Society.
Opal Dargon [sic], interviewed by Joan Todd, August 12, 1983, Oklahoma Historical Society.
Martin Hegwood, “Introduction to Oil and Gas Leasing,” Mississippi State University Extension.
Opal Dargan, “Greenwood, The Best of The Story….” Oklahoma Eagle, (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 1 September 1988.
US Federal Census, 1940 [Tulsa, Oklahoma], accessed via Ancestry.com.
“Opal Long Dargan,” in Eddie Faye Gates, They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought Promised Land in Tulsa (Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 1997), 191-195.
“…Dargan, ” Tulsa World, 12 March 1994.
Olinger Funeral, Cremation, and Cemetery: “Obituary,” Dignity Memorial.
Oklahoma, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1890-1995, accessed via Ancestry.com.
“About Us: Rich History. Timeless Tradition.” Southern Hills Country Club.
Ken Macleod, “Clubs Confront Discrimination Question,” Tulsa World, 20 July 1990.
Francine Robinson, “Living Legends: ‘Every day is a new day,’ says Daran.” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 18 November 1993.
Laureen Gilroy, “Pinnacle Winner Dead, 77,” Tulsa World, 12 March 1994.
“Museum History – Tulsa Historical Society & Museum.” www.tulsahistory.org. October 26, 2018.
James S. Hirsch, Riot, and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company), 219.
“Tulsans on way to Capitol for Arts Awards,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 30 November 1989.
“About us,” Jack and Jill of America, Inc.
Mike Staniford, “Opal Dargan to be Appointed to Park Board,” Oklahoma Eagle (Tulsa, Oklahoma), 6 August 1992.