Tulsa son’s ‘From Slavery to Freedom’ textbook still inspires – Oklahoman.com

At the Oklahoma History Center, we share African American stories every day of the year, but in February we add an extra effort to connect the dots of history through topics such as the All-Black towns, the author of a groundbreaking textbook and the most violent racial event in American history.

When the federal government forced the Five Tribes to give up their communally owned lands in the 1890s and early 1900s, the freedmen of the tribes and their descendants typically selected fertile land allotments adjacent to family and clan members. Out of those farm communities grew more than 30 self-segregated All-Black towns such as Boley, Clearview and Taft.

One of those All-Black towns was Rentiesville, a small community on the KATY railroad tracks north of Checotah that attracted a young attorney who was the grandson of a former Chickasaw slave. His name was B.C. Franklin. In 1921 he left Rentiesville to establish a law practice in the boomtown of Tulsa, with his wife, daughter, and son to follow in 1925.

Tulsa had its own All-Black town, the segregated city-in-a-city called Greenwood. It was an island of hope for many African Americans a prosperous community of 9,000 people that Booker T. Washington called Black Wall Street.

Despite the promise that attracted African Americans such as B.C. Franklin, however, racial tension between the white and black communities was about to explode.

From the evening of May 31 to the mid-morning of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was destroyed by a mob of approximately 20,000 angry white people, including the city chief of police and a small army of his deputized mobsters told to get a gun, get a n-----.

When the smoke cleared, more than 35 square blocks were burned or looted, several schools and churches were ashes, and dozens of people were dead. The exact count will never be known.

B.C. Franklin survived and set up a tent to seek justice for his African American neighbors.

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Tulsa son's 'From Slavery to Freedom' textbook still inspires - Oklahoman.com