THE BRIDGE: Black History & Race Riots
By
Darryl James
The
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called riots the "voice of the
unheard." African Americans have been speaking with this voice
since the days of slavery, even as American history pretends that
we sat idly by waiting for good natured whites to come and save us.
In many instances, we saved ourselves, or at least fought the good
fight. It is important for us to study the history of rioting in America,
so that we understand how we fought back before the 1960's. Some of
those riots will provide us with a look inside the lives of African
Americans before integration with surprising results.
1921--The
Black Wall Street
One of the bloodiest, and perhaps most significant race riots of this
nation¹s history was the Tulsa, Race Riot of 1921 in Oklahoma.
Its importance stems not from its resultant death toll, but from its
shroud of mystery. Shortly after the bloody massacre, history closed
its mouth and attempted to erase memory of the ugly event.
The Tulsa Race Riot was also significant because it represented white
backlash against Blacks who were attempting to enjoy the promises
of capitalism and democracy with their own communities and their own
commerce.
In Tulsa, the Black area called the "Greenwood District"
was nationally recognized as an area of high entrepreneurial activity,
dubbed the "Black Wall Street of America."
Blacks came from all over the nation, hearing of the economic opportunities
available on The Black Wall Street, where the concept of recycling
Black dollars was thriving in the face of segregation which gave Blacks
no other option but to conduct commerce amongst themselves.
The community grew and flourished economically. Whites in the remainder
of Tulsa were not only jealous, but afraid of what Black prosperity
meant for their own growth potential.
In the same fashion as the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, the Tulsa
Race Riot erupted based on the assumption of Black sexual assault
against a white woman named Sarah Page.
The white woman in question was actually having an affair with a Black
man, named Dick Rowland. A hotly debated incident in a local elevator
lead the white citizens to believe that the white woman, who was also
married, had been attacked by Rowland.
Rowland was arrested and the white mob that came to the jail looking
for their own brand of justice, commonly referred to as lynching,
was met by an armed group of Blacks, preparing to defend Rowland.
One of the white men tried to disarm one of the Black men and the
gun discharged, setting off mass confusion and an all-out race war,
complete with burning and looting.
While the Blacks were outnumbered, the majority of them were former
soldiers and began to battle military style. Unfortunately, they and
the Tulsa police were overwhelmed by the swelling mob of hatred, which
chased even the firefighters away. Before the National Guard arrived,
the Greenwood District was burned to its foundation.
Official estimates placed the death count at ten whites and twenty-six
Blacks, however, later reports place the total at more than three
hundred dead, with property damage in the millions.
Even though the entire area was leveled, eventually, the residents
returned to their community and rebuilt it from the ground up.
Toward the end of the twentieth century, survivors of the horrible
event began to speak, and in 1997, The Tulsa Race Riot Commission
was formed to investigate the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.
1923--
Rosewood, Florida
Two years after the Black Wall Street was burned to the ground, the
prospering Black community in Rosewood, Florida was also burned to
the ground, based on friction between the races (and the white effort
to "protect" the chastity of white womanhood from the sexual
advances of the Black man), as well as white hatred of any Black advancement.
Similar in origin to Tulsa, Rosewood's rioting was begun by murderous
whites who assumed that a white woman had been sexually assaulted
by a Black man.
Rosewood was a small community with a majority of Black citizens who
owned their homes and their land. It was named for the red cedar that
grew nearby.
That cedar was cut and shipped to New York to become pencils, which
made the community prosperous. When the cedar ran out, so did the
majority of the white citizens. Of the mostly Black population that
remained, the men went to work at a sawmill in a nearby town and the
women mostly did domestic work. Some Blacks even worked for Goins
& Brothers, a Black-owned Naval store in Rosewood, whose owners
also owned or leased most of the land in a section called "Goin's
Quarters."
The town also had a general store owned by a Black family, a Black-operated
sugar mill, and a private school of their own. Rosewood even had its
own train station.
The difficulties between the races that led to a major race war in
Rosewood, Florida had been brewing for at least three years.
In the summer of 1920, smaller incidents included the lynching of
four Black men who were removed from jail after being arrested for
the alleged rape of a white woman.
In November of that same year, two whites and five Blacks were killed
following a dispute over voting rights. Ococee, a Black community,
was destroyed, including twenty-five homes, two churches and a Masonic
lodge.
In 1921 and 1922, several Black men were lynched or burned at the
stake for alleged assault or murder of white women.
In January of 1923, a white woman reported an attack by a Black man
she couldn't identify. The sheriff apparently decided he could make
the identification and apprehended one Black man, while a posse of
white vigilantes apprehended and killed another.
Descendants of Blacks in Rosewood recall that the man who assaulted
the white woman was actually her white lover. They also say that the
woman, who was married and having an adulterous affair, protected
her reputation by creating the Black assailant.
The next day more than two hundred whites gathered and converged on
Rosewood, murdering two Black men. Many of the Black citizens escape
Rosewood to Gainesville by train.
Two days later, the white mob returned to Rosewood and burned every
building in sight.
All tolled, eight people lost their lives--six Black and two white.
A grand jury was convened to investigate the riot, but claimed to
find "insufficient evidence," and did not prosecute anyone.
In the cases of both The Black Wall Street and Rosewood, Blacks fought
back even though they were outnumbered and overwhelmed. American history
likes to ignore these stories mainly because they were prosperous
Black neighborhoods, thriving in the era of Jim Crow.
We should remember such stories during Black History Month and year
round.
