WEBVTT - The Tulsa 'Race Riots' 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff You should know a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.760 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.800 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:20.319 there's Jerry over here. We have all come together in 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:26.320 the year where our silver jumpsuits as always I know, right, 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:33.040 and talk about a buried, overlooked blemish in the history 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:37.440 of the United States. Are we not gonna recount know 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.600 anything about this past year? Talk about this being the 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:47.559 first recording of the new year. All right, we've had 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:51.800 a break here, I said, I'm gonna push forward. We've 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.320 been off for a couple of weeks, which was pretty 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:59.240 glorious to not have to just over text my brain. 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:01.600 But it is also nice to get back in here 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:04.520 to the stank of this room. This room, I don't 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.760 think this room stinks well right now. It smells like 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:14.200 you're caramel vanilla frappe lape. This is just black coffee. 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.400 This happens to be flavor. It's really I mean, it 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.440 smells great. It's I think a green mountain or something. 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:27.240 Caramel vanilla coffee pot. Man, it is super fragrant. It's 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:29.240 nice in a great way. It makes me. It smells 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.640 like an ice cream Sunday. It's pleasant, it is very pleasant, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.679 but it's not doing the job. Like I'm still I'm 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.400 a little tired, a little groggy. You know, I had 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:44.080 a four shot latte earlier, and so I'm kind of gotcha. 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.360 Maybe that's what I mean. I'm zippy and go downstairs 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:48.040 to I know you don't like to pay for coffee, 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:52.760 but go downstairs to Spiller Park Hugh Atchison's place a 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:58.400 four shot latte. Yes, okay, that has me going. Well, 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.200 I give it about a half hour before Chuck crashes everybody. Yeah, seriously, anyway, 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:06.160 I'm glad to be back. Well, I'm glad you're back 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:11.079 to You know, we've been here the whole time. This 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.560 is where you spent Christmas and New Year's Yes, both 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.880 in this room and Thanksgiving, and I guess you, me 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:19.400 and Momo slept over there in the corner. They come 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.320 to visit sometimes they say, please, please come on, please 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:24.480 stop working. I say, I can't. They slide the food 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:28.840 trade through the slot. Um you know where I got 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.359 this idea, And I know you haven't watched it, but 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.160 the Watchmen I came across mention of that. I was like, 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.200 why is everybody talking about the Watchman with the Tulsa 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.639 race riot, or more appropriately, why is everyone all of 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:46.440 a sudden talking about the Tulsa massacre? Yeah? Yeah, because 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:48.600 the Watchman really put it on the map in a 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:53.119 big way. Uh, utilize it quite well in the storyline. 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:56.440 And I have a recommendation for everyone, even though it 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.760 is a marketing piece. There's a thing in the Atlantic 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:04.440 called the Massacre of Black Wall Street, paid for by HBO, 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.480 but it's a It tells the story in comic book 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.519 form in the Atlantic, and I didn't notice it was 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.880 a marketing piece until afterward. But well, it's still good, sure, 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:17.520 as long as the contents good. Yeah, it's cool and 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:23.600 very well done. So um, this is like, it's great 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.920 that The Watchman has brought attention to this because it 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.040 wasn't until about two thousand one, maybe the late nineties 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.760 really that people started talking about this and this this 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.360 event that we're going to talk about happened in and 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.720 almost the week after, basically the week after, everyone said, 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:48.080 don't talk about this, just forget it ever happened. We 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.080 was moving forward and we're going to bury the past, 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.960 literally buried people, the evidence, all this stuff that was 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.280 buried and people just acted like nothing happened in Tulsa, 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:01.800 Oklahoma for eighty years. And when you hear what we're 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:06.560 about to talk about, it's astounding that the community, both 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:11.720 black and white, agreed to just basically pretend this never happened, 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:15.760 at least publicly civically. Yeah, and um, it's hard to 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.479 find some of some information still on some of the 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.799 key events, and definitely some of the key players because 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.520 a lot of them died of old age without ever 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.320 having been interviewed. Yeah, no follow ups, Like I mean, 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:30.760 we'll get to it, but a couple of the most 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.880 key players is like, this is kind of all we know, right. 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:35.960 I looked them up to and it's like, what do 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.920 you mean you have no idea even who this this 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.360 guy was? Let alone? You know what became of him 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:43.839 or what? What do you mean? Like you just no 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.599 one kept track. But that's how complete and total this 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.800 cover up was. It was a cover up. So let's 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:53.680 talk about it. First. Let's talk about Greenwood, which I 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:58.000 was not familiar with. But Greenwood was a an affluent, 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:03.080 I guess almost suburb adjacent to Tulsa, just north of Tulsa. 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:05.760 And what was odd about the fact that it was 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.360 a fluent is that it was an all black community 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.919 in you know, the turn of the last century, and 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.320 yet it was one of the most affluent communities in 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.240 the entire United States. Yeah. I mean, now it's just 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.000 part of Tulsa like a neighborhood. But back then just 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.080 sort of like my neighborhood would have been a suburb 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.680 of Atlanta in the nineteen twenties, even though I'm you know, 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:31.000 five miles from downtown exactly. But in ninety one, it was, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.960 like you said, super affluent. They had a lot of 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.360 I think there were ten thousand black residents there. It's 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.599 called the Black Wall Street like I mentioned, and six 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:48.040 hundred businesses. There were fifteen African American millionaires living in 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:54.159 this district. Yeah, fifteen black millionaires in nine in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yeah. 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.160 And it and it wasn't I mean, like the whole 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.239 area was very well to do. There was like indoor plumbing, 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.760 the public schools there were like top notch, and in 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.920 many cases Greenwood had a lot to boast about that, 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.719 Like the white areas in Tulsa just over the railroad 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.520 tracks literally on the other side of the tracks. Um, 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.040 didn't have like that, Like, this is far better off 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:23.240 than some parts of white Tulsa. Yeah, including uh, one 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.200 of the top African American surgeons, if not the top 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.919 in the country, endorsed by the Doctor Mayo himself, the 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.200 Mayo Brothers. Yeah, this guy's Dr. A. C. Jackson, and 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:39.799 he was one of the people murdered in this massacre. Yeah. Yeah, 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:41.280 I was gonna say there was a spoiler, but I 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:45.600 guess we've already kind of mentioned there's a massacre coming, right, Yeah, So, um, 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.200 just to take a step back even further. So it's 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.800 pretty impressive to think of, like, this is the Jim 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:56.440 Crow era United States. This is we're talking about, you know, 0:06:56.520 --> 0:07:00.880 the this massacre took place in that's you know, fifty 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.360 years after the end of the Civil War UM. And 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.000 in many ways the Jim Crow era was just as 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:13.080 bad as the Antebellum slavery era. But so the idea 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.920 to us today looking back at this time of well, 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.400 there's a black community um in Oklahoma that was one 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.920 of the most affluent areas in the country. It's kind 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.440 of mind boggling. But if you dig even deeper into 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.880 how it was formed, almost you developed like a sense 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.480 of pride in this that these these these people came 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:36.280 together under these conditions and not only like survived, but 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.560 like thrived and created a carved out a place for 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:43.920 themselves where like being black was celebrated and where you 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.640 could be proud and you took pride in your home, 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.800 in your children and your children's education and the health 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:51.600 care that they were getting, in the bus service, and 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.680 the quality of the theater that you went to, um, 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.640 the confectionery, the soda fountain, like that's where you went 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.080 to go, like proposed marriage. Like it was just incredibly 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.560 developed community. And the one of the ways that it 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.640 was that it was able to flourish and was able 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.680 to kind of grow like this is because the first 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.840 thing that that Oklahoma did when it became a state. 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.560 Remember it was originally a territory for forced relocation of 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:24.000 Native Americans and their African slaves to this area. Um. 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.920 When it became a state, when the white settlers came 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:29.239 in and said, no, we want this instead, we're gonna 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.120 take this territory we gave you away and turn into state. 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:37.240 The first piece of legislation they passed was that um, 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.880 black people have to stay in their own area. They 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.480 can't marry outside their race, they can't frequent white owned businesses, 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.520 they have to stay over here. And so the people 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.160 agree would say, fine with us. We're going to pass 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.079 a covenant that says you have to be a black 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.840 person to own land here, or to even rent a 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.560 place here, to own a business here. There's a it's 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:02.560 a covenant restricted community. And we're gonna take a tremendous 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.360 amount of pride and in circulating our currency, our hard 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.680 earned money that we're making by working for these white 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.480 businesses that we're not allowed to patronize. We're gonna go 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.360 make our own businesses over here, and we're going to 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.360 support them with our with our community, not only because 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.080 we can't spend our money elsewhere, but because we have 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:23.720 a lot of pride in the businesses that we've built 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.920 over here. And so in this way, Greenwood flourished because 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.120 of and in spite of these Jim Crow era laws 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:33.880 that that black people had to deal with in Oklahoma 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.640 at the time. Yeah, and this was Dave Rouse helped 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.520 put us together, put this together, and some of the 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.800 research he got was from the book The Burning Colon 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:48.560 Massacre destruction and the Tulsa race ride of by Tim Madigan, 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.160 uh and very astutely points out that this was this 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.679 happened in Oklahoma, of course, but this kind of thing 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.480 was happening all over the country. Um, not just in 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.560 the South or the what you called Oklahoma. I guess 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:05.200 the West Moodwest, Yeah, but not Midwest. I don't know. 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:07.640 I think we just call it Oklahoma. It's interesting some 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.760 people there identify with the South, but if you're from Georgia, 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:15.840 Oklahoma might as well be you know, Montana. I think 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.280 of Oklahoma is like Native America. Yeah. And then what 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.240 it says on the license plate, maybe it says the 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.560 middle of the country with oh, with a little apostar 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.720 and there's a picture of the Mountain Doolo going. But um, 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.480 this was happening everywhere. There were In nineteen nineteen, there 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:38.480 were two dozen race riots, um in places like Chicago, Washington, 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.560 d C. St. Louis. Uh. In between the end of 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.040 the Civil War and World War Two, there were more 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:48.840 than four thousand lynchings in the United States, which is uh, 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.840 you know, it's important to point that out because what 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.600 and we'll get into the story here, but a lynching 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.320 is what was the aim of the white people of 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.040 Oklahoma on this night. Right, but I have seen also 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:03.880 one of the reasons why I went to so much 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:09.120 um lengths to explain Greenwood and part was too because 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:13.240 to show what was lost here, but also to show 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.600 um there's there are a lot of people who consider 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.920 this massacre to have been carried out or fueled in 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:25.000 part by envy, because the people of Greena were so 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.319 much better off in some instances than the white people 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.920 who were carrying out this massacre. All right, maybe we 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.959 should take a break, No, and then we'll come back. Man, 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.880 we gotta start with an argument over a break. Yeah, 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.080 let's do it, all right, let's take a break. We'll 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.559 come back and talk a little bit about the beginnings 0:11:43.800 --> 0:12:08.560 of what would end up being the Tulsa massacre. All right, 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:13.079 So we should talk about the key player here, or players, 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:17.199 And in this case it is Diamond Dick Rowland, one 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.520 of the greatest names I've ever heard in my life. 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:23.240 It's pretty good. He was a shoeshine boy in Tulsa, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.520 and by all accounts, he was smart, and he was 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:30.880 a handsome young guy, and he was uh sort of 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.400 a man about town. He was popular with the ladies, 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.920 had the world on a string. Yeah, pretty much. And uh, 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:39.720 there was a girl named Sarah Page who ran an 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.880 elevator at the Drexel Building, a building that I have 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.200 walked past with my own two feet. Oh wow. Right, 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:50.679 and she was white. She was white, and uh, you know, 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:52.720 Dick thought she was cute and he would go down 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.880 there and basically kind of make up excuses to ride 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.200 her elevator. Okay, I saw something different than that. Oh yeah, 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.400 I saw that he was on the elevator because he 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:08.160 was he could use the segregated bathroom on the top 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.520 floor of the Drugtle building only, so he had to 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.480 ride up the elevator up and down to get to 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.160 the bathroom, the closest bathroom for him to be able 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.080 to use. That's what I saw. So you're saying he 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.160 didn't fancy Sarah Page, I don't know. I don't know. 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:22.280 But I also saw a different explanation for why he 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.360 would have been on the elevator as often as he 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:28.160 supposedly was. All right, maybe it was both. Yeah, maybe 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.040 he went to the bathroom a little more often than 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:32.280 he had to because they did think Sarah Paget who knows. 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.840 I'm not saying they necessarily contradict each other. I'm just 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.640 saying I've seen other explanations as well that I said, 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.640 that's not a very loyally for some reason, didn't it. Man? 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:46.280 Maybe this is uh the new Yu Matlock. Josh Clark 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:52.240 esquire a spree that's different than esquire. So at any rate, 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.040 we should probably also point out that, um, and you know, 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.160 mixed race couples still get sideways looks in some parts 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:04.240 of America today, but certainly in nineteen twenty one and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Uh, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.559 the idea of a black man fancying a white woman, 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.200 he was even looking at a white woman. Yeah, it 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:15.120 was not only um untoward, but like a threat worthy 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.320 of a lynching. Right. It was still that time in 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:21.920 America where, um, if you made any advances, that was 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.440 sort of the biggest fear for some white men was 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.200 black men coming in and taking quote unquote their women. Yeah, um, 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:32.240 which was character popularized thanks to Birth of a Nation, 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.560 which depicts the clan you know, coming to the aid 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:37.880 of white women who were about to be raped by 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.760 maniacal black men who just couldn't couldn't help themselves. They 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.560 were just so uh in love with white women. That 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.200 they just had to ripe. That was just what black 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.400 guys did. That was the view of black guys at 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.000 the time, right, that that's just how it was so 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.880 to white people. Um, you like you you kept an 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:58.800 eye out for that, Like when you saw a black 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:00.240 man and there's a white woman over there, you want 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.480 to make sure that he wasn't going to you know. Yeah, 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.040 that was the mentality that people were walking around with 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.800 back then. Yeah, that movie was actually partially shot in 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.280 my old neighborhood in l A. You have a lot 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.720 to do with this episode. Well, it's just weird to 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.040 think about Birth of a Nation, uh, you know being 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:20.240 shot in Los Felis, which is this very like kind 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.600 of hip community and on the east side of Hollywood. 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:30.040 But anyway, on May uh, Dick Roland went into that 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.920 elevator to either flirt or use the restroom or both. 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.400 And what I saw was that the it was well 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.640 known that the third floor um landing did not land 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:47.240 flush with the threshold, and supposedly this is why, as 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.280 the story goes, Dick Roland tripped when he was getting 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.720 onto the elevator. So maybe if that bathroom was on 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.800 the third floor, that could make sense. I heard top floor. 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.600 I don't know how many floors, I don't remember. Actually 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.200 it was it more than I don't know, I don't remember. Actually, 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:04.080 I just I don't think they call a building this 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:06.640 something building if it only has three floors, you know 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:08.560 what I mean, you're probably right, that's like an eight 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:14.360 plus floor like Moniker. I think you're probably right. But 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.240 at any rate, he gets on the elevator. As the 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:21.240 story goes, Uh stumbles getting on and kind of falls 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.200 forward and grabs her arm, which was kind of the 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.280 first thing that he could get a hold of to 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.920 keep from falling. As the story goes, she started beating 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.400 him over the head with her purse because I guess 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.280 it's an old Looney Tunes cartoon, and she didn't have 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:40.600 a rolling pin. And the elevator opened. On the ground floor. 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:43.600 People see this sort of scuffle going on, or what 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.800 appears to be a scuffle. She allegedly cries out that 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.400 she had been assaulted, and people on the first floor 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:57.280 called the police as Dick flees on foot. Yeah, and 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.560 you know, no one knows exactly how this went down. 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.880 No one even knows exactly who Diamond Dick Roland was 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.480 or Sarah page for that matter always are. Yeah, all 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.119 we found out what was that she was an orphan. 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.320 She could have been a younger sixteen. I've seen reports 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:15.800 of seventeen and was working to pay her way through 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:20.840 business college. And that's what the Tulsa Tribune reported like 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.520 the day after. Yeah, and I saw that elsewhere. But 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.639 I also saw like literally nothing else about her. I 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.760 couldn't find anything. And then Dick Roland, they think that 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.520 he might have possibly been named Jimmy Jones. I saw 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.120 that too, and who was raised by his grandparents whose 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.960 last name was Roland, so he took their name. And 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.959 there is a guy who would have matched his birthdate 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.840 named Jimmy Jones that they found buried in Tulsa, but 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.520 he died like two months before these events took place, 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:51.399 so it couldn't have possibly been him. Yeah, there were 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.680 a few years apart two I think, right, Yeah, but 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.800 it's unbelievable that so much that this is lost to history. Yeah, 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.119 these two people who set the off this one of 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.480 the one of the most despicable events that has ever 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.320 taken place in this country's history, just vanish almost after 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.080 this point. It's just you guys played your role. Now 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:14.520 everyone else is going to step in. So Dick goes home, Um, 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.040 his mom, he I guess. He tells his mom what happened, 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.639 and she obviously was pretty scared right away because she 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.760 knew probably what this meant. But for that night, at least, 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:29.160 nothing really happened. Um. The next day he goes out 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.320 to meet up with some friends and the Tulsa police 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:36.320 pull up and, uh take him in basically on an 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.199 assault charge, right, which is I don't know why they 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.159 didn't go pick him up at home or whatever, but 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.199 they also read somewhere that they had arrested him on 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:48.280 the spot. But the what you're you're recounting matches what 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.440 I've seen mostwhere, right, Yeah, But that's that's history, especially 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.399 suppressed history. Right. One person writes, and then somebody else reports, 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.760 and then enough people reported, and then that's fact exactly, 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:03.360 that's the story. But so either way he came into 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.840 police custody, we know that is the way it is. 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:11.040 And then this is like a white sheriff named William Sullivan, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.560 I think, right, William McCullough. McCullough I was very close. Yeah, 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:16.920 And when you're starting to read the story, you hear 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.640 about this, you know, white mustache sheriff and immediately think, 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.480 oh boy, this guy's in trouble. Well, this guy had 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.760 replaced the last guy that he was trouble. Right, who 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:31.200 would allowed um, a white mob to take uh an 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.560 arrested black man out of his custody and lynch him. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:37.840 Oh it says here was a white person. Is that 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.919 not true? I think that's wrong. Okay, either way, he 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.240 let somebody be lynched by an angry mob. Yeah, which 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.679 I thought for sure Sheriff McCullough was going to do. 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:50.480 But apparently McCullough was intent on kind of going by 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.399 the book. He followed the Hectate school of sheriff ing, 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.520 how don't you know what that from from to kill 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.600 a mockingbird? Oh right, right, which was, hey, let's let 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.440 the all play out, let's give him a stay in court. 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.640 There will be no lynchings on my watch. So he 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:12.000 took um. He took Diamond Dick up to a room 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:14.600 on the upper floor. The only way to get there 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.520 was this one staircase. So he basically strategically hit him out, 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.159 went down to this white crowd and said, there's not 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:22.800 going to be any lynching today. Like Chuck said, the 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.960 thing is we've left out a really important point here. Yeah, 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:27.760 like why was there a white crowd to begin with? 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.639 There is a newspaper that was called the Tulsa Tribune 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:37.760 that um ran an article about Sarah Page being assaulted. 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.399 This is a news article, and the headline for said 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:47.639 news article was nabbed negro for attacking girl and elevator. 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:53.280 Not people might nab negro for attacking girl and elevator 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.879 police worried white mob might not. It's nabbed like go 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.880 do this. That was the headline for the article. Editorial 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:03.760 took it even a step further. And this is the 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:08.760 day after this event took place. Yeah, the editorial was 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:14.080 to lynch Negro tonight. And I gotta say, whoever is 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.760 writing these headlines, it's inflammatory, of course, but they also 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:21.639 don't make much sense. The poor construction. They're very poor construction. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:23.800 And I went to try and find the micro film 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:28.639 of this, and um, I think the first one is available, 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.000 but blurry the second one. The only copy of that 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:36.960 paper they have is a front page with an article 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:41.160 cut out that scanned in and everyone's like, it must 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.359 this must have been that editorial, But I literally couldn't 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:46.439 find any you know, because I was kind of curious 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:48.679 to read just how poor of a writer this person 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.760 was and get you know, probably what would not have 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.840 been accurate details. No, no, so no they I mean 0:21:55.880 --> 0:22:01.359 they basically reported in the first one, in the actual article, um, 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:05.719 that her her her clothes have been torn at they 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.240 been They really characterize it like he attacked her assault 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.639 right exactly. Um. And then the second one is just 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:16.919 basically like an all out editorial calling for Dick Rowland's lynching. 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.080 This is in the paper so that the local newspaper 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:25.280 has inflamed them, the white citizenry, into basically calling them 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:27.280 to action, to go do something about this. And they 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:32.000 all show up at the courthouse, um to to demand 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:35.240 that Sheriff McCullough hand over Dick Roland to them so 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:39.119 they can go lynch him. And he says no, back off, no, 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:43.520 But so before but I think he tells them like, no, 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.120 I'm not I'm not doing that like you said. But um, 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:51.520 before the crowd disperses, a second group comes and it's 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:55.639 actually a group of World War One veterans from Greenwood 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:58.440 who had found out that that that this white mob 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.160 was going to lynch Dick Roland. And they were like, no, no, 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:03.040 they're not. We're going to go see to it that 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:06.359 doesn't happen. Yeah. I mean, there were hundreds of w 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:10.960 W one veterans, black veterans in Greenwood. UM. They were 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:13.720 people who fought for this country. And it's sort of 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:19.560 that familiar despicable story, shed blood on European soil, come 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:22.360 back home to America, and you're still a second class citizen. 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.760 They had petition to UH and this is just sort 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:28.399 of a sidebar. They had petitioned to UH walk in 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.480 the Memorial Day parade UH for many years and we're 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:36.560 always refused. And was Memorial Day and that that same 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:39.600 year they had once again said can we participate in 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:42.199 the Memorial Day Parade as veterans And they say no, 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:44.399 we're only going to honor the white veterans. Now, I 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:47.240 think they wanted to be integrated in the parade with 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:50.400