Editing Tullahassee, Oklahoma (section)

==History==
The town began in 1850, when the [[Creek Nation]] approved the Tullahassee Mission School at this site on the [[Texas Road]]. It was founded by [[Robert McGill Loughridge]], a [[Presbyterian]] minister who had been serving in the Creek Nation since 1843 and had founded another mission that year.

In the years before the [[Emancipation Proclamation]], many Creek citizens of the town had Black slaves.<ref name=MORE /> In the early 1880s, the population of [[Creek Freedmen|freedmen]] had increased in the area, while the number of Muscogee Creek had declined. The freedmen were formerly enslaved African Americans and their descendants who were emancipated and granted citizenship in the Creek Nation after the [[American Civil War]]. Some also had Creek ancestry.

After a destructive fire at the school, the Creek Council decided to relocate most of their people, and transferred the Creek children to Wealaka Mission. They gave the school and community of Tullahassee to the freedmen in 1881.<ref name=Reboot>{{cite web|url= https://tulsaworld.com/news/state-and-regional/tullahassee-leaders-drive-revitalization-in-oklahoma-s-oldest-surviving-all-black-town/article_36e71072-43f6-11ec-a7aa-cf1fea690f2c.html |title= Tullahassee leaders drive revitalization in Oklahoma's oldest surviving all-Black town|date= November 15, 2021|publisher=Justin Ayer, Tulsa World, November 15, 2021|accessdate=November 16, 2021}}</ref> The Creek paid to have the school's main building replaced.

The residents opened a post office in 1899, and the town was incorporated in 1902. The Tullahassee Town Site Company was established to aid developing the town, and it both platted the town in 1907<ref name=Reboot/> and recruited black residents from throughout the post-Reconstruction South, where [[Jim Crow]] oppression was increasing. A. J. Mason served as president and L. C. Hardridge as secretary. This is now the oldest of the 13 surviving all-Black towns in the state, which were established during the period of [[Indian Territory]]. At one time there were 50 all-black towns.<ref name="EOHC-Tullahassee"/>

The A. J. Mason Building is listed in the [[National Register of Historic Places]] (NR 85001743). [[Carter G. Woodson]] School, named for a prominent black historian, is listed in the Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory, and noted for its link to African-American history.<ref name="EOHC-Tullahassee"/>

In 1914, the [[African Methodist Episcopal Church]] (AME) opened Flipper-Key-Davis College, also called Flipper-Davis,<ref name=Reboot/> in the former Tullahassee Mission building.<ref name="EOHC-Junior College">{{cite web|url=https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=JU005 |title=Junior College Movement| last=Everett| first=Dianna| date=n.d. |access-date=August 24, 2021}}</ref> It was a period when private, municipal and state junior colleges were being founded. Flipper-Davis College was then the only private, higher-level education institution for African Americans in Oklahoma. This junior college closed in 1935 during the [[Great Depression]].<ref name="EOHC-Tullahassee"/>

In June 2021, Tullahassee Mayor Keisha Cullin was one of 11 mayors to form MORE ([[Mayors Organized for Reparations and Equity]]), a coalition of mayors who promised to create reparation pilot programs in their municipalities.<ref name=MORE /> Other members of MORE included the mayors of such large cities as [[Los Angeles]], [[Denver]], [[Sacramento, California|Sacramento]], and [[Kansas City, Missouri]].<ref name=NPR>[https://www.npr.org/2021/06/18/1008242159/11-u-s-mayors-commit-to-developing-pilot-projects-for-reparations "11 U.S. Mayors Commit To Developing Pilot Projects For Reparations,"] ''Associated Press'' (June 18, 2021)</ref>