American History Tellers - Tulsa Race Massacre - The Invasion | 3

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

By midnight on Tuesday, May 31, 1921, some Greenwood residents assumed the riot was calming down. Many families, far away from the action at the courthouse, hadn’t even heard about the violence, and went to bed as usual. But as much of the city slumbered, the white mob was transforming into something even more deadly: a highly organized, strategic force led by volunteer soldiers.That force held its fire until daybreak on Wednesday, June 1, when it sprang into action. All over Greenwood, men, women and children found themselves under siege, their homes, businesses and churches under attack from land and sky. Greenwood’s proud residents would defend themselves until they could defend themselves no more — calling the very survival of their fabled community into question.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's early morning on Wednesday, June 1st, 1921, the dawning of a bright, clear day. You take a sip of coffee and peek into the oven to check on the biscuits. When you open the oven door, the lovely scent of baking wafts through the house. You pull out the pan and call to your children in the other room. Go on and wash your hands. These biscuits will be ready any minute. You stiffen.

What was that noise? Is that gunfire? You heard rumors of trouble, but your husband left for work this morning all the same. The department store wasn't going to run itself, he said, and you both assumed the disturbance would blow over. You go to the window. Nothing seems out of place.

But now the gunshots sound like they're coming from right outside. Your six-year-old Olivia runs up and grabs at your skirts. Honey, come with me. Saying a quick prayer, you lead her and your other three children to the dining table and usher them underneath the long white tablecloth. Children, quick. Be quiet as mice. Sit under the table and don't say a word. They look at you, confused. But they see from your face that you are deadly serious, and they scramble under the table. Suddenly, your front door, which was locked, bangs open. Three white men holding guns have kicked it in.

You recognize one, Henry, a balding middle-aged salesman who does business with your husband. He's wearing a badge of some sort. Henry? What on earth? Now, Mrs. Hooker, just do as you're told and you won't have any trouble. The other men rush into the dining room and pull open the drawers. They grab fistfuls of your fine silverware and begin stuffing them into their pockets. How dare you? Henry points his pistol at you.

I told you to do as you're told. Shut up now. You stand stock still, overwhelmed with rage. Inside, another prayer. God, please keep my kids quiet. You wonder if you can reason with Henry, whom you've known for so long. Damn Negroes have nicer things than I do.

The men have started tearing up your older daughter's beautiful piano with a hatchet. And then they notice your beloved Enrico Caruso records next to the Victrola. They heave them against the wall and the records shatter into pieces. Why in heaven's name are you doing this? From under the table, you hear whimpering. You can tell Henry hears it too. He knows that the children are there. Henry, please, what is going on? You should be pointing your gun at them, not me. How am I supposed to do that? You give him a long look. You don't believe he'll shoot. In the corner, just a few steps away is your rifle. You take a chance and grab it, point it at him.

This is how. But he knows you're bluffing. You're no killer, even if your lives are in danger. Roughly, he steps forward and shoves the rifle aside as if it's a toy. You have to get these children to a safe place. I had a safe place. This is our home. Henry calls to his men.

Time to go. Leave the rest for later. As the men turn to go, one of them stalks over to the kitchen and grabs a handful of golden biscuits cooling on the counter. He marches outside, hurls them to the ground, and grinds them into the dirt beneath his boot. Henry turns to you. We'll be back. From the team behind American History Tellers comes a new book, The Hidden History of the White House. Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, intimate moments, and shocking scandals that shaped our nation. From the War of 1812 to Watergate. Available now wherever you get your books. From Wondery comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules.

Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? Paul can do it. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers, our history, your story. The Hookers owned the thriving Samuel D. Hooker Department Store. Over the years, Sam Hooker had given his wife Anita glittering jewelry and a string of pearls. When the looters arrived Wednesday morning, they ransacked her jewelry and silverware. Before they left, they poured oil over one of the beds and stuffed a dresser full of explosives. The men planned to return and torch the house. The previous night's commotion hadn't reached every household in the two-mile-square Greenwood neighborhood. Many residents

had gone to bed the night before, either unaware of the violence or believing that it would die down. Some families, like the Hookers, had already been asleep when it started. And so while they slept, thousands of white Tulsans had been organizing, preparing as if for war. The Hookers and others awakened to an onslaught. There was no longer just scattered fighting in the streets. Their homes, businesses, and churches were under attack from land and sky. This is episode three of our four-part series on the Tulsa Race Massacre, The Invasion. On Tuesday night, with street fighting escalating on both sides of the Frisco tracks, Police Chief John Gustafson was losing control. Both whites and blacks were being

murdered, dropping on the streets where they were shot. Gustafson didn't have a clear understanding of the situation or enough trained men to handle it. But what he did have in spades was a concern about his image and about Tulsa's image in the eyes of the state and the world. Like other city leaders, Gustafson was proud of Tulsa, which oil magnates, bankers, and businessmen called the Magic City. The nickname was adopted for how swiftly the oil boomtown had grown. Influential groups like the Chamber of Commerce loved the term. It implied that moving to Tulsa could transform you into an overnight success. And sometimes it could. In this culture of boosterism, neither Gustafson nor Sheriff

McCullough was eager to admit to outsiders that they couldn't control problems in their own magic city. But by about 10 p.m., news of the fighting had reached the state capitol. Adjutant General Charles Barrett, who commanded Oklahoma's National Guard, called Gustafson and offered assistance. Gustafson turned Barrett down, saying civil authorities could handle the trouble. He instead accepted assistance from National Guard troops stationed in Tulsa, perhaps because they were local boys. Several dozen arrived at the courthouse at about 10.30 p.m. under instructions from the governor to follow the orders of Tulsa law enforcement officials. Gustafson had just deputized and armed 500 members of the mob. There were suspected Klansmen among the deputies, and at least one

owned a machine gun, brought home from World War I. In military style, Gustafson and local National Guard captains took control of the ragtag group. They organized the new deputies into squadrons whose mission would be to clear the streets of African Americans, armed or not. They would do so with stunning brutality. Throughout the night, threats seemed to come from everywhere. At one point, there was a rumor that a train full of 500 African Americans was coming into Tulsa from Muskegee, and guard troops and police went to the train station to stop them. The panic was real, but there was no train. There were other rumors of out-of-town attacks, and the police and guard were spread thin, chasing stories and fighting street clashes. Overnight, the guard and

volunteer deputies arrested at least 250 men and brought them to the police station or a hastily set-up detention center in the cavernous Tulsa Convention Hall. But intense gun battles, though sporadic, continued. Finally, close to 2 a.m., Gustafson's worry overcame his pride, and he requested help from the National Guard headquarters in Oklahoma City. Sending a telegram to the governor, he requested troops 100 miles away and in the middle of the night. And while the Oklahoma City troops were being rousted out of bed, white rioters in Tulsa were also making their own strategic plans. In the early morning hours of June 1st, an army of white Tulsans gathered on the south side of the Frisco train tracks. They hid behind buildings and vehicles, waiting for warning and a signal to invade. Later reports would estimate this mob at 1,500 to 5,000 people.

Higher black population in Tulsa numbered only 10 or 11,000. At 5 a.m. the next morning, 109 sleepy officers and soldiers boarded a special train to Tulsa with their commander, Charles Barrett. In an eerie coincidence, at precisely the same time, a steam whistle in Tulsa blew in three loud bursts. On that signal, the rioters hidden at the Frisco train tracks rushed forward and descended on the sleeping residents of Greenwood, whooping at the top of their voices and firing guns in all directions. Those on Standpipe Hill, the mammoth rise overlooking Greenwood, began firing the machine gun, and soon airplanes rose into the sky.

The attorney Buck Colbert Franklin had spent Tuesday in a trial over a land dispute at the Tulsa Courthouse. One of a handful of lawyers in Greenwood, B.C., as he was known, was new to town, but he was already highly respected throughout the city by white and black residents alike. Forty-two years old, slim and bespectacled, Franklin was the grandson of a former slave. He had grown up in the Indian Territory and moved to the all-black town of Rentiesville to practice law in 1915, where he married his wife, Molly. But it was hard to make a living in that small town, and to make ends meet, Franklin also published a newspaper and served as the postmaster. So the big city beckoned. He moved to Tulsa in early 1921, believing he could make a better living in the boom town. He was right, and soon his family, Molly and their four children, would leave their farm 100 miles away and join him.

But on this day, Franklin was alone. Tuesday's trial had been difficult and absorbing. Though he'd heard the same rumors of a lynching, he'd been too busy to give them much thought. Tired, he'd return to his room in Greenwood as soon as the trial ended, well before dinnertime and before any of the mob had gathered. But later in the evening, he started hearing shooting. as soon as the trial ended, well before dinnertime, and before any of the mob had gathered. But later in the evening, he started hearing shooting. Random gunfights weren't unusual in lawless Tulsa, and at first he paid little attention. But as he heard more and more gunshots,

he grew concerned. Franklin would recount in a brief, unpublished memoir ten years later that he picked up the phone to call the sheriff, but could not get a connection. Before midnight, worried about his office on Greenwood Avenue, he walked a few blocks to his building, questioning everyone he ran into about the gunshots and the phone lines. Few people were inclined to talk, and those who were seemed to know as little as Franklin himself. At his office, he tried again to call the sheriff, and still there was no phone service. The gunshots were picking up pace, and still there was no phone service. The gunshots were picking up pace, and as the hour grew later, it dawned on Franklin. Greenwood was under siege by a white mob.

He wanted to go to the courthouse and help resolve the conflict, but under the circumstances, he felt it would be suicidal to walk south across the Frisco tracks to white Tulsa. Later, he would write, Here I am a peaceable and law-abiding citizen. I have harmed no one just like thousands of others of my race here, and yet I cannot now walk the street upon a peaceful mission in safety. So he collapsed on his sofa, but was too anxious to sleep. Finally, in the middle of the night, Franklin got up and walked to the porch outside his office. As he would recount later, Just before dawn, three shrill whistles split the air from the direction of Stampipe Hill. Immediately after, Franklin would write, 5,000 feet, it seemed,

were heard descending that hill in my direction. He heard men yelling at the top of their voices, he wrote, like so many cowboys. And as loud as it had been, the gunfire grew even louder. Franklin was dismayed. I now knew the mob spirit. I knew, too, that government and law and order had broken down. I knew that mob law had been substituted in all its fiendishness and barbarity. The scene grew even more surreal and terrifying. From Franklin's office window, he saw airplanes circling. First one, then seven, then finally he counted a dozen. He wrote, they hummed, darted, and dipped low over Greenwood Avenue. Then he saw the old Midway Hotel on fire, burning from the top down. As he watched,

more and more roofs went up in flames. Franklin was stunned. He wrote, what, an attack from the air too? I asked myself. Lurid flames roared and belched and licked their forked tongues in the air. A nearby filling station caught fire, and now Franklin feared an explosion. He fled into the street. There he saw another nightmarish sight. The sidewalks were literally covered with burning turpentine balls, he would write. He was convinced the circling pilots had dropped them. I knew all too well where they came from. I knew all too well why every burning building first caught from the top.

Later, survivors would tell story after story about seeing planes buzzing loudly, flying so low over the city that people walking the streets felt they might at times get hit. Survivor after survivor described explosives believed to be turpentine and nitroglycerin dropping from the planes, hitting buildings that would then burst into flames. Witnesses would contend that this was the first time American citizens were bombed from the air. Eyewitnesses also reported seeing men shoot high-powered rifles from the crop dusters in World War I-era planes. They took off from the nearby Curtis Southwest Field Airport. It was unclear who owned the aircraft, although there was a strong case to be made against Sinclair Oil, which housed its plane at the airport and whose plane matched the description

of one flown that day. Sinclair was one of the most powerful oil companies in the nation. But while terrified Greenwood residents recalled the aerial assault vividly, white Tulsans would later either deny their existence or explain them as reconnaissance planes, whose pilots were simply surveying the damage and looking for Black residents fleeing the city. Blocks away from Greenwood's business district, with the morning sun now higher in the sky, groups of white deputies, police, and Tulsa guardsmen systematically traveled from one house to the next. They rounded up hundreds of Black citizens at a time. As they made their arrests, they told the residents that they'd be safer in detention, despite later reports in which they would call their Black neighbors the enemy and

captured prisoners. Officials forced thousands at gunpoint to march several blocks to the convention center with their hands up. As the detainees marched in rows under the hot sun, white onlookers jeered. Spotting a business opportunity, photographers snapped pictures. Later, they would turn those snapshots into popular postcards. With an estimated 6,000 Greenwood residents forcibly removed from their neighborhood and thousands more on the run, their homes were left empty and defenseless. Looters arrived, some backing trucks right up to front doors and piling them with furniture, silver, vitrolas, and other valuables. White women filled shopping bags with clothing and jewelry.

All the while, businesses and homes were burning. Smoke and ash filled the air over Tulsa. It could be seen for miles. At 9.15 a.m. on Wednesday, June 1st, it was already hot. Pulling into the Frisco and Santa Fe Depot in Tulsa, 109 members of the Oklahoma National Guard woke up and readjusted their gray mohair uniforms, shaking out wrinkles from the four-hour trip. They were led by Charles Barrett, who at 60 had been a journalist, a state senator, and a military officer.

Like many of his troops, he'd served in World War I. Neither Barrett nor his men ever imagined they would see at home an apocalyptic scene like the one that greeted them in Tulsa. Throughout the train car, jaws dropped, and an astonished murmur rose amongst the troops. Black smoke billowed high above the city, making the morning look like dusk. The train station was riddled with bullet holes, its windows shut out. When the train squealed to a stop, Barrett led his troops into the station. In Greenwood, looting was at a fever pitch, and the mania among the white mob was something Barrett had never witnessed. Most of the houses had already burned, but the finest homes on Detroit Street were still standing,

probably because they were on the Jim Crow line, the border between white and black Tulsa. Those were the elegant houses owned by newspaperman A.J. Smitherman, surgeon A.C. Jackson, and Booker T. Washington High School principal Ellis Woods. They could probably be saved. Clearly, Tulsa needed Barrett's troops, and right now. But bureaucracy prevailed. First, Barrett had to confer with the police chief, the police commissioner, and Mayor T.D. Evans. Barrett took some troops with him.

The rest waited at the train station. Have breakfast, he told them. They'd need their energy for whatever was coming next. Imagine it's 9.30 a.m. on June 1st. You've just arrived in Tulsa with the National Guard. The place, you think, looks like hell. You're jumpy, ready to work, but the general has said you can't do anything yet.

You can't believe it. You shift your heavy duffel bag up higher on your shoulder and turn to your companion. Hey, Harry, what do you make of this? Never seen anything like it. You shift your heavy duffel bag up higher on your shoulder and turn to your companion. Hey, Harry. What do you make of this? Never seen anything like it. Well, not since the war. I know. You settle down at the base of a big tree. You pull out provisions. Salami, bread, cheese.

It's a picnic on the edge of a war zone. But you're not very hungry. You want my orange? Sure. Hey, some of the guys were saying they heard there's thousands of colored folk taken prisoner. Wonder what they did. Heard they were trying to make sure a young guy didn't get lynched. Yeah, can't blame him.

Eh, he probably deserved it. You're starting to feel anxious. The smoke seems to be getting even thicker. Where the heck is the general? We gotta go do something about this. You start shoving things into your duffel. Where do you think you're going? I'm not waiting anymore. You stand and haul your duffel back to your shoulder. Harry stands too, but grabs your arm. You can't just take off without orders. You'll get court-martialed.

You jerk your arm away and are about to step into the street to go do something, but a car speeds by so close it almost clips you. You start to yell after it when you notice something tied to the back. With shock, you realize it's a body. The white driver and his passenger are hooping and hollering, and the black corpse tied to the rear bumper flies up gruesomely over every bump. Jesus, has Tulsa gone mad? Just then, finally, General Barrett walks up. You stand at attention. It's time to go. It had taken about 90 minutes for Barrett to get approval to take control of the city.

Now the first order of business, he said, was to disarm the white mob. Probably overestimating, he thought it numbered some 25,000 people armed to the teeth, he said. He'd never seen a scene like this, he reported the next day. Whites ranging in utter and ruthless defiance of every concept of law. Motor cars bristling with guns swept through the city, firing at will. By the time Barrett returned to his troops, virtually all of the city's Black residents were in internment camps or had fled. The shooting was mostly over, and most of Greenwood was ablaze. But the white rioters wouldn't be satisfied until they had burned every bit of it

to the ground. Led by the very men deputized to keep the peace, they would enter home after home in saving the most elegant part of Greenwood for last. What would happen next would shock not just Greenwood's Black residents, but the entire nation. This is the emergency broadcast system. A ballistic missile threat has been detected inbound to your area. Your phone buzzes and you look down to find this alert. What do you do next?

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If you haven't listened yet, head over to Apple Podcasts to hear for yourself. Part of what made Greenwood such a remarkable place was that it had attracted professionals from all over the country. Eloquent and outspoken lawyers like B.C. Franklin, doctors and nurses who practice at Greenwood's own hospital, and educators like Booker T. Washington High School principal Ellis Woods, who told his students, All of these professionals built lives in Greenwood. who told his students, you're just as good as 90% of the people around here and better than the remaining 10%. All of these professionals built lives in Greenwood. They told friends elsewhere about this community of freedom

and economic independence, and Greenwood grew. One of Greenwood's most distinguished residents was surgeon A.C. Jackson. Jackson's skill was so renowned that the Mayo brothers, who founded the Mayo Clinic, called him one of the most able black surgeons in the country. But none of that mattered on the morning of June 1, 1921. As Charles Barrett's National Guard troops were chugging toward Tulsa on the train from Oklahoma City, flames were licking at a thousand Greenwood houses and virtually every business.

But Detroit Avenue, the district's most elegant street, remained untouched. Dr. Jackson lived there with his schoolteacher wife, Julia. Nearby were the equally impressive homes of other prominent Greenwood citizens, like newspaperman A.J. Smitherman. Another of Jackson's close neighbors was retired Judge John Oliphant. At first, Oliphant, who was white, had been unhappy when black people began building lavish homes down the hill. But grudgingly, he had come to like and respect his neighbors, especially the gentle and kind Dr. Jackson. All morning long, Oliphant had been watching the proceedings with horror. There were armed men in uniform on Standpipe Hill near his house,

shooting toward Greenwood's Mount Zion Church. Black men were in the church's belfry shooting back, and Oliphant could see roving bands of white men shooting whomever they saw. As whites encircled Detroit Street from all sides, Oliphant's black neighbors came out of their homes, one by one, with their hands up, surrendering to the motley forces and being led off. He hadn't yet seen Dr. Jackson, though. Possibly he was at the hospital, tending to the wounded. But Jackson wasn't at the hospital. At about 8 a.m., Oliphant saw the doctor walk out of his front door, too, his arms raised in the air. As the judge would recount later in court testimony, he was close enough to hear Jackson. Here I am. I

want to go with you, he said to the white thugs waiting outside. Oliphant saw two young teenage boys raise their guns. Don't shoot him, Oliphant yelled. That's Dr. Jackson. But Oliphant was too late. The larger boy, wearing a white shirt and cap, fired two shots into the doctor's chest. When Jackson fell, the second teen fired a shot into his leg. Some nearby soldiers, recognizing Jackson, scolded the boys and loaded the doctor into a nearby car.

He would be taken to the convention center, where he would later bleed to death. Oliphant stood speechless, stunned by the tragedy. He would tell the court later that he had just witnessed cold-blooded murder. It was now 9 a.m. The 73-year-old Oliphant was exhausted and feared what could happen next, that the mob would torch the beautiful Detroit Avenue houses. Maybe he could stop them. Now, with Jackson out of the way, looters were stripping his house and the neighbors' homes of everything they wanted. Oliphant recognized one man as a Tulsa police officer, although the man was wearing street clothes. The judge watched as the rowdy crowd, in a celebratory mood, hauled furniture, valuables, even pianos outside. Sitting down at the keys of one, a man played and others sang while people

danced in the street. Later, Oliphant would testify that the looters appeared to be having a rollicking good time. Oliphant had been calling the police station all morning, trying to get help. At one point, four police officers had arrived, but they joined in the looting. Then Oliphant called the fire department, but the man who answered said he had orders not to respond. Not only was Oliphant worried about the Detroit Avenue homes, he was anxious that if they went up in flames, the easterly wind could take his home as well. When he heard that the National Guard was sending state troops,

Oliphant's worry lessened. General Charles Barrett was a friend, and Oliphant knew he would do the right thing. He sent a note to the train station, asking for 15 troops to be sent immediately to his neighborhood. But minutes, then an hour passed, and no one came. When the looters had taken everything they could, they splashed Jackson's house with gas and coal oil and torched it.

The rest of Detroit Avenue, which the state troops could have saved, went up in smoke as well. Later, it would be Dr. A.C. Jackson's story that would be told again and again within Tulsa and throughout the country. His success seemed to symbolize everything black Americans had hoped for, and his murder, all that they feared. Like Judge Oliphant, there were hundreds of white Tulsans who sympathized with the Black community and who were affronted by the mob violence. Ruth and Meryl Phelps, former teachers who'd moved to the area to work in the oil business, lived a day's walk north of Tulsa. For about a week, they hid big groups of refugees in their basement. Ruth Phelps later said that she felt like her house was a modern-day stop on the Underground Railroad. In Tulsa, many white employers helped their domestic help flee town

and found them safe places to go, where they hid them in attics and basements. It took some courage. Officials had orders to hunt for black cooks, maids, and butlers and detain them, supposedly in case of a black revolt. Whites protecting Greenwood residents could be beaten or even killed. Imagine it's the night of May 31st, 1921, your 27th birthday. You're in your room at the YWCA, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. You celebrate this night with your friends from the building, but soon you heard gunfire. You all huddled together in front of a fifth-floor window,

watching an unruly mob at the nearby courthouse and worrying. Now you check your watch. It's almost midnight. You decide to get up and check on the building, make sure everyone's okay and all the doors are locked. You've just reached the basement hall when you hear frantic knocking on the screen door. Miss Mary, Miss Mary, let me in quick. They're after me. Jack? It's your YWCA porter. He's standing on your porch, his face pale with terror. Hurry, come inside. Why on earth did you come out today? There wasn't any place else to go. They have guns.

They're trying to kill me. Please hide me. You look around helplessly, but where? Quick, downstairs. You lock the screen door behind you and head for the basement. Here, Jack, in there. You practically push him into the only hiding space you can think of, the walk-in freezer. Huge frozen meat carcasses hang from the ceiling. Quick, go behind the meat. You pull the freezer door shut behind you, just in time. You go back upstairs, trying to slow your pounding heart. On the porch are three armed men. The burliest one is pointing a revolver at you through the screen door. But even though you are small, barely five feet, at this moment you don't feel scared.

You are too angry. You approach the door. Where'd he go? Where'd who go? That negro. Did you let him in here? Mister, I'm not letting anybody in here. You stare directly at the man with the revolver.

He looks at his companions, unsure. You are holding your breath, all too aware that Jack is only a few feet below you in the meat locker. But you don't break your gaze. At last, it seems to satisfy them. The three thugs turn together and run down the street, hoping to find their intended victim. You wait another several minutes, watching the street in case they return. Finally, you let Jack out of the meat locker. In his thin summer clothes, he is freezing, but he is alive. Mary Jo Earhart would later write that for decades afterward, she'd have nightmares about

what she might have found on the stoop if she'd waited a minute longer to start walking the corridors. Over the next week, she would waited a minute longer to start walking the corridors. Over the next week, she would organize an effort to house, feed, and clothe newly homeless Black women. Earhart and her fellow YWCA residents would shelter as many burned-out women as they could, packing army cots into every available common space. She made some enemies with her rescue effort, though. A number of women didn't want to sleep with black women in their dormitory.

Earhart, defiant, didn't care. During the attack, larger numbers of Greenwood refugees also sought shelter and comfort in Tulsa's churches, both black and white. Several white churches offered food and shelter to terrified Greenwood residents. In Greenwood, residents did their best to protect their churches and to use them as fortresses against the white aggression. In both black and white churches, the victims would find some kind of comfort. But in the black churches, they would also encounter terror.

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It was an order. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. In November 1991, media tycoon Robert Maxwell mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht in the Canary Islands. But it wasn't just his body that would come to the surface in the days that followed. It soon emerged that Robert's business

was on the brink of collapse, and behind his facade of wealth and success was a litany of bad investments, mounting debt, and multi-million dollar fraud. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show Business Movers. We tell the true stories of business leaders who risked it all, the critical moments that define their journey, and the ideas that transform the way we live our lives. In our latest series, a young refugee fleeing the Nazis arrives in Britain determined to make something of his life. Taking the name Robert Maxwell, he builds a publishing and newspaper empire that spans the globe. But ambition eventually curdles into desperation,

and Robert's determination to succeed turns into a willingness to do anything to get ahead. Follow Business Movers wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. For a neighborhood that had only existed for 15 years, Greenwood had 23 churches, an impressive number for a relatively small community. As Black churches do everywhere, Greenwood's churches served multiple purposes. Naturally, they were houses of worship, and they were also symbols of hope for people beset by the horrors of racism. The Methodist and Baptist faiths taught that all Christians were equal in the sight of God.

The churches were also centers of religious and political leadership. In the days before emancipation, when meetings between slaves were forbidden, slave owners considered the founding of a black church a sign of rebellion. So, along with lynchings, burning churches was a warning to the African American community, a reminder by white supremacists that assumptions of God-given equality would not be tolerated. This could be why, on June 1, 1921, rioters applied their torches to every church in Greenwood. Churches including Vernon AME, a beautiful two-year-old church on Greenwood Avenue. On Wednesday, although Pastor C.R. Tucker had fled town,

churchgoers sought refuge at Vernon, hoping God and the big building would keep them safe. A brave deacon led family after family down to the brick basement and shut the door. They huddled together and prayed. Surely no white mob would even think to look for them in the basement. Surely no one would burn this beautiful house of the Lord. But while a couple of dozen worshippers were hiding in the basement, the white mob arrived. They broke the stained glass windows, poured oil and gas in the lobby and the sanctuary, and torched the building. Soon the upper stories began to crackle and smoke. Vernon's refugees had nowhere to go.

Frightened, trapped in the brick basement with an inferno roaring above their heads, they could only pray for survival. On the other side of town, the Oklahoma City contingent of the National Guard had finally gotten to work. At 11.29 a.m., Charles Barrett received a telegram from the governor declaring martial law throughout Tulsa County and putting Barrett in charge. Soon after, a proclamation was posted throughout the city. It instituted an immediate curfew and warned that any private citizen found on the streets would be arrested and punished as a military court may direct.

Anyone found with a weapon wouldn't simply be prosecuted, they would be regarded as a public enemy. And in case the rioters did not take the order seriously, the proclamation warned, sufficient military forces are on hand to enforce this order, and it will be done. Barrett had already requested additional troops from around the state, and units arrived throughout the day. Barrett put the men to work disbanding the rioters. They confiscated a truckload of weapons and arrested and jailed 65 white looters. Also, as the Daily Oklahoman later reported, Barrett ordered Mayor Evans to withdraw all special police commissions after determining that several of these men were ringleaders in the riot.

With the imposition of martial law, the mob violence ended almost as suddenly as it began. But hundreds of fires across Greenwood were still raging. The troops were charged with helping the Tulsa Fire Department put them out, although in almost every case, they were too late. In Greenwood, more than 1,250 homes were now just rubble. Thousands had been left homeless.

Hundreds were wounded. About 200 businesses were gone, along with the hospital, the middle school, the library, all medical offices, and almost every church. It was only luck, or perhaps grace, that saved part of the Vernon AME Church. The two upper stories burned completely, but the basement remained intact. The worshipers hiding there, sure that any moment they would burn to death, survived. The following Sunday, they would borrow chairs from a funeral parlor and worship God once again in the basement they now regarded as holy.

By Wednesday afternoon, thousands of African Americans interned at the convention center and nearby McNulty Park were milling about miserably, searching for their missing loved ones. Many were wounded, but there was little to no medical care available. Everyone in Greenwood, from the wealthiest to the poorest, had lost family and friends. They'd lost their homes, their businesses, and their dignity. They had seen their loved ones dying in the street, and worse, driving through the streets, they had seen truckloads of bodies, one piled on another. Multiple witnesses saw white rioters throw black corpses into the Arkansas River and into unmarked mass graves at the local cemetery and at local fields, the shock was palpable. On this day and the next, at least eight women gave birth prematurely. Their newborns all died. Barrett forbade funerals for

black Tulsans, saying they would disrupt displaced residents using churches as shelters. But white funerals were allowed to take place. The lack of funerals and the haphazard secretive dumping of black corpses made an accurate count of the dead difficult. Later, the National Guard would claim some 35 people had died. The Red Cross, which arrived in the city that day, reported a more believable 300 victims, mostly black. General Barrett moved quickly to impose some structure to manage the imprisoned Black community and attempt to return the city to some sense of normalcy. But he would need help. He requested the Chamber of Commerce hold an emergency meeting the next morning. Imagine it's 11 a.m. on Thursday, June 2nd, 1921.

You rushed over to the city auditorium from work, leaving a brief half-finished on your desk. It's been only nine months since you moved here from Kansas, hoping to make your fortune as a lawyer for the oil business. Since you've arrived, you've noticed the racial tensions, but nothing could have prepared you for the last few days. Negroes, running around with guns. By the time you arrive, a man is just stepping down from the podium. There are 75 people here, you figure, mostly chamber members and city officials. You spot the mayor, T.D. Evans, talking with the

Sinclair oil chief, Harry Ford Sinclair, one of the richest men in the country. You grab a seat and lean over to the man next to you, a chamber member just like yourself. What did I miss? That was Barrett. He's asking for help feeding the Negroes. He says they need to rebuild. What about the cleanup? That too. I hope that first. The gathering starts breaking into smaller groups to address the priorities. Chamber officials quickly form a welfare committee that will feed and clothe the prisoners. Then they move on to the question of the Negro's liberty. One man you recognize as a long-time chamber member takes the lead.

Clearly, it is illogical to assume that we can keep them in camps indefinitely. However, we must keep in mind the danger of a Negro counterattack should we give them unwarranted freedom. You nod and raise your hand. What do you propose to do, sir? We need restrictions. What if we allow them to leave only if a white employer vouches for their character and assumes responsibility for their actions outside the camp? Many of these people are doctors, lawyers, school teachers. Some are millionaires. Will they go along with that? They will with the proper encouragement.

I make a motion for an employer voucher system. Do I have a second? Two or three people raise their hand. A vote is taken and the proposal passes overwhelmingly. And now the issue of cleaning up the city arises. Everyone agrees the issue is urgent. But Orville Steiner, the city's street commissioner, complains that he can't find enough labor, even at the exorbitant wage of $3.50 a day. Mayor T.D. Evans speaks up. There is such a simple solution to this problem, Mr. Steiner. The Negroes did this to themselves.

There is no reason why the city should bear the cost of feeding them. They will have to pay for their food. In return, the city will employ them to clean up for wages of two dollars a day. This seems like a pragmatic solution to you. Kill two birds with one stone, as it were. But something is bothering you. You raise your hand again. As I said earlier, many of these prisoners are educated, successful. Will they cooperate? Clean up the streets at reduced wages. They could make trouble. We'll make sure to keep a strict eye.

Thank you for raising the concern. You sit back, satisfied. You weren't sure when you arrived if you'd find a foothold here, if you belonged in Tulsa. But here among your fellow chamber members, you feel appreciated, valued by these like-minded men. By Friday, June 3rd, the chamber created an identification card system to allow prisoners to leave camp upon a white person's recognizance. African Americans were required to carry that ID card at all times or face arrest. They also had to wear a green tag labeled

Police Protection at all times, with the same consequences. The mayor ordered all able-bodied adults to work. Those without jobs were forced to clean up the debris and use their pitiful wages to pay for the equally pitiful rations. Soon, a postcard began circulating. The photograph would become iconic. It was a wide shot, an apocalyptic scene of Greenwood burning, black clouds billowing in the background.

Across it, someone had scrawled, running the Negro out of Tulsa. The Klan and its sympathizers felt like they won. They had obliterated Greenwood, but they had underestimated the resilience of their victims. Greenwood was anything but dead. From Wondery, this is episode three of the Tulsa Race Massacre for American History Tellers.

On the next episode, as Greenwood residents work to restart their lives after their violent interruption, Tulsa City officials try to ensure that Black Wall Street can never come back. But out of the ashes, Greenwood will rise again. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. This episode is written by Elaine Appleton Grant, edited by Doreen Marina, edited and produced by Jenny Lauer Beckman. Our executive producer is Marshall Louis, created by Hernán López for Wondery. Now streaming. Welcome to Buy It Now,

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