Social dimensions and causes of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot

Tulsa Race Riots of 1921

Several sociological inquiries have been done on the study of race. One of the issues often included in the studies is racial conflict with race riots being the greatest manifestation of the conflicts. Most of the rioting cases had deeper unreported issues as the real causes of the disturbances. While others have argued that the riots were caused by high unemployment levels, further digging points to valid cases of racial discrimination being the root causes (Cowell 2005; Roy 2005). Many of the riots associated with race that have taken place in the history of the United States can be linked to unemployment and discrimination. The riots share almost similar structures and features and the organizational as well as individual responses also share similarities (Cited in Messer, 2008).

The global phenomenon of race riots makes the subject worthy of deeper study. Race riots are always viewed as social situations that are isolated in place and time. In studying the various riots that have taken place over the years, researchers have spotted patterns. Further, race riots have also been seen as events that begin on a given day and that end in a few hours of days. The real truth is that the causes of these riots may have been around for a long-time way before the riots took place. The riots that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma is a perfect example (Messer, 2008).

This research\'s purpose is examining race riots, using the case of the Tulsa riot of 1921. This is therefore a case study and will focus on the precursors and causes of the riots as well as the media and societal responses to the Tulsa riots. Worth noting is the fact that while this research makes use of the term \"race riots,\" other factors besides racial factors might also have been contributing factors. An analysis will be done on the before and after of the events. The goal of the analyses is identifying the key issues linked to the Tulsa riot that can also be causatives for other riots; issues that other studies may have ignored or failed to identify (Messer, 2008).

There are two reasons for the selection of the Tulsa riots. The first reason is that it bears semblance to various other riots that took place in other locations in the 20th century and the final chapter on the legacy of these riots has not yet been written. A commission was in fact established recently to examine what impact the riots have had on the present day (Oklohama Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 -- 2001). The riots can therefore be evaluated and studied as historical events but also as processes that continue to influence present day realities. Second, a lot of historical data can be found on the Tulsa riots and this allows for a more thorough comprehension of the events leading into the riot and those after. It is always the case that riots are considered in isolation without putting them into context. This study seeks to avoid making this mistake (Messer, 2008).

The Event

On May 30, 1921, a time when Jim Crow racial segregation issues were still alive, a Black lad going by the name Dick Rowland took an elevator in the Drexler Building to go to the top floor to use the building\'s only public bathroom that Blacks could use. The doors of the elevator opened on a floor and the people on the floor observed him leaning against an elevator operator who happened to be a White lady. The position he assumed seemed to point either him embracing the lady to kiss her or him assuming a steadier position as the elevator came to a stop. It is possible that the two might have been having an affair. The young man faced accusations of sexual assault and he was apprehended. An editorial in a local paper called for him to be lynched and a mob gathered by the courthouse in response. Some other Black men also assembled by the courthouse to shield Rowland from the mob. Shots were fired and this triggered a messy two days of looting, killing and burning in the Black Greenwood district. These are the events that would be later referred to as the Tulsa Race Riot. It so happens that the Greenwood area was at the time one of the richest black communities in the USA and was aptly called \"The Black Wall Street\" (cited in Greenwood, 2015, pp. 338 -- 339).

As per the Tulsa Race Riot Commission (2001) reports, about 300 Blacks were killed over the 2-day riot. More than 1.4 m dollars were made in insurance claims but all were rejected because of riot exclusion clauses. As Johnson (1998) stated, the City of Tulsa passes fire ordinances that curtailed the residents of Greenwood from rebuilding their businesses and homes. In spite of the obstructions and the failure to get insurance compensations, the city did rebuild but it would later face a wave of destruction in the 1950s under what was termed as \"urban renewal\" (cited in Greenwood, 2015, p. 339).

While the Black residents of Tulsa quietly passed the riot story to the next generation, their white counterparts systematically eradicated it from their memory. There is no known existing copy of the newspaper articles that are believed to have incited the lynch attempt. There were great omissions and misrepresentations of the events by Oklahoma history books. This was the case until Ellsworth (1992) published Death in a Promised Land in 1992 (cited in Greenwood, 2015, p. 339).

The Oklahoma state legislature formed the Tulsa Riot Commission in 1997 to study the riot\'s events. The commission reported its findings and stated that it was necessary that reparations be made to the Black Greenwood community in a real and tangible manner so as to help heal the wounds that the events of the riots had brought on the members of the community. The TRC found Tulsa City culpable and made the following recommendations (1) survivors should get direct payments, (2) survivor\'s descendants should get direct payments, (3) an economic enterprise zone should be created in Greenwood, and (5) a memorial should be held. The state would later pass the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act in 2001 and it provided for a memorial, a scholarship as well as an economic enterprise zone but no direct payments to survivors or descendants of survivors. Various groups responded by calling for action to realize all the recommendations TRC had made while most Whites were in support of the decision to exclude direct payments from the Act (Greenwood, 2015, p. 339).

Underlying Causes

Several accounts of the events surrounding the Tulsa riots give clues to the possible causes of the riot. Primarily, one of the deeply rooted triggers concerns the wealth of the Black community and the prevailing race relations in the community at the time, and generally the race relations in the South at the time (for instance Ellsworth 1982; Butler 1991; Johnson 1998). Previous research points to the community reaching a financial standing that had not been seen among other similar communities at the time. The authors note that the Whites expected the Blacks to \'know their place\' and economic advancement wasn\'t one of those places. These accounts point to the local Black community rejecting the hypocrisy of Americans in preaching equality to the world when it could not offer equality to its citizens at home (cited in Messer, 2008, pp. 8-9).

Immediate Responses

The events which took place right after the riot ended have also been extensively documented. Black survivors who didn\'t flee the city were arrested and placed in intermittent camps around the city for days and weeks and also months. Those who were able to leave early were made to get permission from the city which was made possible by them agreeing to go to work. Those who could not leave immediately were placed under forced labor which mostly involved sanitation work (Messer, 2008).

Most of the responses to the events were based on the racist mindsets and the discrimination that prevailed at the time. The responses were both at an individual and organizational level and the blame for how the issue turned out was placed on Blacks. The people considered the riot an uprising (Messer, 2008).

Organizationally, the responses were the same. This is supported by Madigan (2001) who notes that a grand jury was invited to investigate the events and establish who was responsible. The jury was mainly composed of white men who placed the blame on Blacks. Besides the blacks, they blamed law enforcement and the Chief of Police was fired weeks later for the failure of law enforcement during the riots (cited in Messer, 2008).

Reparations Movement

The riot and its effects can still be debated today. It was not until 80 years passed when a commission was formed to look into the riot. The commission\'s report came in 2001 and it provided a much clearer picture of what took place. Prior to the report\'s completion, the riot was mentioned very few times and nothing had been done to help the survivors, many of whom had now passed on. The report acknowledged the atrocities of the riot and recommended that reparations be made. The recommendations led to the memorial that was placed close to the area but no reparations were given (Messer, 2008).

Previous research done by Alfred Brophy (2002) gives four good reasons why reparations are actually a good and necessary step towards addressing the injustices: 1) Tulsa city was culpable; 2) survivors were there; 3) the damage was concentrated in one place and time; and 4) even immediately after the riot, a few city leaders acknowledged moral responsibility and made promises that what had been destroyed would be rebuilt. Bocskiewicz (2004) notes that reparation battles continued and made their way to the Supreme Court in 2004 but the Supreme Court would decide not to consider the case citing statute of limitations. Reparation battles today not only cover the rights violations executed by the city of Tulsa but also by the United States government. Charles Ogletree (2005), an attorney who represented the riot\'s survivors, brought suit against the United States by bringing the case before the American Commission on Human Rights (cited in Messer, 2008).

Societal Impact

A lady by the name Mary E. Jones Parrish opined that an enemy had organized in the dead of the night and invaded their district the same way the Germans invaded Belgium and France. As morning dawned, Greenwood was engulfed in a wall of smoke and fire as the mob broke into houses, sometimes murdering the houses\' occupants, often setting on fire or looting the components of the house, the same treatment the Jews had been subjected to in Eastern Europe. Greenwood was wiped away. Over time, the loss of spiritual vitality and leadership proved to be even more testing. Since its office had been burnt down, Franklin\'s law firm set up office in a tent that overlooked the tracks and made preparations for the coming legal battle. The city informed the world that it would avail funds for rebuilding the community and discouraged all efforts that were being made all over the nation to raise funds. But the funds they promised didn\'t come. In fear of a repeat of the events, Blacks didn\'t talk about the riot and never mentioned it to their children or newcomers (Staples, 1999, pp 68-69).

The Tulsa riots show that historical events can shape contemporary life. Race riots shouldn\'t be taken as isolated events that only affect a specific group of people at a given time. They have far reaching consequences that can persist for years and that can be embedded in political, social and economic situations (Messer, 2008).

Race still has a big role in the society in America today. Evidence of this can be seen in discrimination, prejudice, scapegoating and stereotyping. As Massey (2007) notes, Blacks in the United States still have lower paying jobs and job positions. Alexander (2005) noted that Blacks are still overrepresented in our correctional facilities while Thernstrom & Thernstrom (2003) opines that they enjoy inferior educational opportunities. And Hart (2007) states that Hurricane Katrina showed that local and governments do not respond fast when the Black community is facing a calamity (Cited in Messer, 2008).

Theoretical Explanations of Race Riots

The earliest research done on collective behavior attributed riots to collectively-formed and crazed participants\' mindsets. Theorists like Park and Lebon argued that normative and rational behavior break down during a period of social unrest. Turner and Killian expanded the literature by making arguments that riots can be explained by examining \"emergent norms,\" which emphasize the making of new and temporary norms that take the place of pre-existing conventional ways of behavior. Several studies that have been done on riots have adopted deprivation arguments. \"Absolute deprivation\" points-of-view argue that riots take place in cities where a minority group experience societal disadvantages at a level that is higher than normal. \"Relative deprivation\" points-of-view point to those instances where a minority group adopts the expectations the majority has and so setting themselves up for disappointment and frustration. The arguments tend to emphasize the concept of deprivation instead of actual real life conditions (cited in Messer, 2011, p. 1218).

Many structural factors have been identified by research to be contributing factors to riots. They include population distribution, segregation, diffusion, competition, deprivation as well as municipal and occupational characteristics. An integrative perspective analyzes the connection between structure and culture. It looks into how structures shape cultural factors and also the cultural factors that shape the structures (Messer, 2011, p. 1220).

Hirsch\'s Riot and Remembrance gives a convincing account of the class existing between memory and history. The author evaluates the differing accounts Whites and Blacks gave of the events that took place. White Tulsans put the blame on lawless and violent blacks who had invited the destruction onto themselves. According to them, \"uppity\" blacks had pushed too fast and too far in their quest for racial equality. The political and business leaders in Tulsa also argued that the blacks had brought the troubles on themselves. White Tulsans quickly let the events slip from their memory as the local newspapers and history textbooks refused to report and write on the 1921 events (Sugrue, 2002).