Editing Tulsa race massacre (section)

==Wednesday, June 1==
Throughout the early morning hours, groups of armed white and black men squared off in gunfights. The fighting was concentrated along sections of the [[St. Louis–San Francisco Railway|Frisco]] tracks, a dividing line between the black and white commercial districts. A rumor circulated that more black people were coming by train from [[Muskogee, Oklahoma|Muskogee]] to help with an invasion of Tulsa. At one point, passengers on an incoming train were forced to take cover on the floor of the train cars, as they had arrived amid crossfire, with the train taking hits on both sides. Small groups of whites made brief forays by car into Greenwood, indiscriminately firing into businesses and residences. They often received return fire. Meanwhile, white rioters threw lighted oil rags into several buildings along Archer Street, igniting them.{{sfn|Hirsch|2002|pp=96–97}}

As unrest spread to other parts of the city, many [[Social class in the United States|middle-class]] white families who employed black people in their homes as live-in cooks and servants were accosted by white rioters. They demanded the families turn over their employees to be taken to detention centers around the city. Many white families complied, but those who refused were subjected to attacks and vandalism in turn.{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|p=80}}

===Fires begin===
[[File:tulsariotpostcard2.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.35|Photo postcard showing fires burning along Archer and Greenwood during the massacre]]

At around 1 a.m., the white mob began setting fires, mainly in businesses on commercial Archer Street at the southern edge of the Greenwood district. As news traveled among Greenwood residents in the early morning hours, many began to take up arms in defense of their neighborhood, while others began a mass exodus from the city.<ref>{{cite web |last=Jones |first=F. |title=96 Years Later The Greenwood Cultural Center 1921 Race Riot Massacre Facts with Video |date=June 2017 |url=http://theoklahomaeagle.net/2017/06/01/96-years-later-the-greenwood-cultural-center-1921-race-riot-massacre-facts-with-video/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190306044409/http://theoklahomaeagle.net/2017/06/01/96-years-later-the-greenwood-cultural-center-1921-race-riot-massacre-facts-with-video/ |archive-date=March 6, 2019 |access-date=April 9, 2019 |language=en-US }}</ref> Throughout the night both sides continued fighting, sometimes only sporadically.

As crews from the [[Tulsa Fire Department]] arrived to put out fires, they were turned away at gunpoint.{{sfn|Hirsch|2002|p=103}} Scott Elsworth makes the same claim,{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|p=66}} but his reference makes no mention of firefighters.{{sfn|Parrish|1922|p=19}} Mary E. Jones Parrish, a survivor of the massacre, gave only praise for the National Guard.{{sfn|Parrish|1922|p=20}} Another reference Elsworth gives to support the claim of holding firefighters at gunpoint is only a summary of events in which they suppressed the firing of guns by the rioters and disarmed them of their firearms.<ref name="Voorhis letter" /> Yet another of his references states that they were fired upon by the white mob, "It would mean a fireman's life to turn a stream of water on one of those negro buildings. They shot at us all morning when we were trying to do something but none of my men was hit. There is not a chance in the world to get through that mob into the negro district."<!--article right next to this article states that there was a mob of a thousand black and 500 white people at the railroad. --><ref name="guthrie1" /> By 4 a.m., an estimated two dozen black-owned businesses had been set ablaze.

Tulsa co-founder and Ku Klux Klan member [[W. Tate Brady]] participated in the riot as a night watchman.<ref>''Tulsa Daily World'', June 1, 1921</ref> ''[[This Land Press]]'' reported that previously, Brady led the [[Tulsa Outrage]], the November 7, 1917, [[tarring and feathering]] of members of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]]—an incident understood to be economically and politically, rather than racially, motivated.<ref>{{Cite news |date=November 10, 1917 |title=Modern Ku Klux Klan Comes Into Being: Seventeen First Victims |work=Tulsa Daily World |url=https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc134561/ }}</ref>

===Daybreak===
Upon sunrise, around 5 a.m., a train whistle sounded (Hirsch said it was a siren). Some rioters believed this sound to be a signal for the rioters to launch an all-out assault on Greenwood. A white man stepped out from behind the Frisco depot and was fatally shot by a sniper in Greenwood. Crowds of rioters poured from their shelter, on foot, and by car, into the streets of the neighborhood. Five white men in a car led the charge but were killed by a fusillade of gunfire before they had traveled one block.{{sfn|Hirsch|2002|pp=98–99}}

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of attackers, black residents retreated north on Greenwood Avenue to the edge of town. Chaos ensued as terrified residents fled. The rioters shot indiscriminately and killed many along the way. Splitting into small groups, they began breaking into houses and buildings, looting. Several residents later testified the rioters broke into occupied homes and ordered the residents out to the street, where they could be driven or forced to walk to detention centers.{{sfn|Hirsch|2002|pp=97–105, 108}} A rumor spread among the rioters that the new [[Mount Zion Baptist Church (Tulsa)|Mount Zion Baptist Church]] was being used as a fortress and armory. Purportedly twenty caskets full of rifles had been delivered to the church, though no evidence was found.{{sfn|Hirsch|2002|p=107}}

===Attack by air===
[[File:TulsaRaceRiot-1921.png|left|thumb|Flames across the Greenwood section of Tulsa]]

Numerous eyewitnesses described airplanes carrying white assailants, who fired rifles and dropped firebombs on buildings, homes, and fleeing families. The privately owned aircraft had been dispatched from the nearby [[Curtiss-Southwest Field]] outside Tulsa.<ref name="MADIGAN">Madigan, Tim. 2001. ''The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921''. New York: [[St. Martin's Press]]. pp. 4, 131–132, 144, 159, 164, 183–184, 249. {{ISBN|0-312-27283-9 }}</ref> Law enforcement officials later said that the planes were to provide reconnaissance and protect against a "Negro uprising".<ref name="MADIGAN" /> Law enforcement personnel were thought to be aboard at least some flights.{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|pp=73–74}} Eyewitness accounts, such as testimony from the survivors during Commission hearings and a manuscript by eyewitness and attorney [[Buck Colbert Franklin]], discovered in 2015, said that on the morning of June 1, at least "a dozen or more" planes circled the neighborhood and dropped "burning [[turpentine]] balls" on an office building, a hotel, a filling (gas) station, and multiple other buildings. Men also fired rifles at black residents, gunning them down in the street.{{sfn|Franklin|1931|p={{page needed|date=February 2021}}}}<ref name="MADIGAN" />

Richard S. Warner concluded in his submission to The Oklahoma Commission that contrary to later reports by claimed eyewitnesses of seeing explosions, there was no reliable evidence to support such attacks.{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|p=107}} Warner noted that while a number of newspapers targeted at black readers heavily reported the use of [[nitroglycerin]], turpentine, and rifles from the planes, many cited anonymous sources or second-hand accounts.{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|p=107}} Beryl Ford, one of the pre-eminent historians of the disaster, concluded from his large collection of photographs that there was no evidence of any building damaged by explosions.{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|p=106}} Danney Goble commended Warner on his efforts and supported his conclusions.{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|p=6}} State representative Don Ross (born in Tulsa in 1941), however, dissented from the evidence presented in the report concluding that bombs were in fact dropped from planes during the violence.{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|p=viii|loc=prologue}}

In 2015, a previously unknown written eyewitness account of the events of May 31, 1921, was discovered and subsequently obtained by the [[Smithsonian Institution|Smithsonian]] [[National Museum of African American History and Culture]]. The 10-page typewritten letter was authored by [[Buck Colbert Franklin]], noted Oklahoma attorney and father of [[John Hope Franklin]].{{sfn|Franklin|1931|p={{page needed|date=February 2021}}}}<ref>{{cite news |last1=Keyes |first1=Allison |title=A Long-Lost Manuscript Contains a Searing Eyewitness Account of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-lost-manuscript-contains-searing-eyewitness-account-tulsa-race-massacre-1921-180959251/ |work=Smithsonian Magazine |date=May 27, 2016 |access-date=December 21, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181212083245/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-lost-manuscript-contains-searing-eyewitness-account-tulsa-race-massacre-1921-180959251/ |archive-date=December 12, 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Notable quotes include:

{{blockquote|Lurid flames roared and belched and licked their forked tongues into the air. Smoke ascended the sky in thick, black volumes and amid it all, the planes—now a dozen or more in number—still hummed and darted here and there with the agility of natural birds of the air.

Planes circling in midair: They grew in number and hummed, darted, and dipped low. I could hear something like hail falling upon the top of my office building. Down East Archer, I saw the old Mid-Way hotel on fire, burning from its top, and then another and another and another building began to burn from their tops.

The sidewalks were literally covered with burning turpentine balls. I knew all too well where they came from, and I knew all too well why every burning building first caught fire from the top.

I paused and waited for an opportune time to escape. 'Where oh where is our splendid fire department with its half dozen stations?' I asked myself, 'Is the city in conspiracy with the mob?'|author=|title=|source=}}

Franklin reports seeing multiple machine guns firing at night and hearing "thousands and thousands of guns" being fired simultaneously from all directions.{{sfn|Franklin|1931|p=4}} He states that he was arrested by "a thousand boys, it seemed,... firing their guns every step they took."{{sfn|Franklin|1931|p=8}}<!-- earlier version had gross misrepresentation of Franklin's quote. The details can be found on p. 6 of the Smithsonian document.
 --> An account of Franklin's experiences during this event appears in his autobiography, ''My Life and an Era''.<ref name="LSUPress">{{cite web |title=My Life and An Era: The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin |url=https://lsupress.org/books/detail/my-life-and-an-era/ |website=LSU Press |publisher=Louisiana State University |access-date=June 27, 2022 }}</ref>

===Arrival of National Guard troops===
[[File:Tulsaraceriot1921-wounded-pickedup-fullpicture.jpg|thumb|National Guard with the wounded]]

Adjutant General [[Charles F. Barrett]] of the Oklahoma National Guard arrived by special train at about 9:15&nbsp;a.m., with 109 troops from Oklahoma City. Ordered in by the governor, he could not legally act until he had contacted all the appropriate local authorities, including Mayor [[T. D. Evans]], the sheriff, and the police chief. Meanwhile, his troops paused to eat breakfast. Barrett summoned reinforcements from several other Oklahoma cities. Barrett declared [[martial law]] at 11:49&nbsp;a.m.,{{sfn|Hirsch|2002|p=107}} and by noon the troops had managed to suppress most of the remaining violence.

Thousands of black residents had fled the city; another 4,000 people had been rounded up and detained at various centers. Under martial law, the detainees were required to carry identification cards.{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|pp=123–132}} As many as 6,000 Greenwood residents were interned at three local facilities: Convention Hall (now known as the [[Tulsa Theater]]), the [[Tulsa State Fair|Tulsa County Fairgrounds]] (then located about a mile northeast of Greenwood) and McNulty Park (a baseball stadium at Tenth Street and Elgin Avenue).<ref name="messerbell">{{cite journal |last1=Messer |first1=Chris M. |last2=Bell |first2=Patricia A. |title=Mass Media and Governmental Framing of Riots |journal=Journal of Black Studies |date=July 31, 2008 |volume=40 |issue=5 |pages=851–870 |doi=10.1177/0021934708318607 |jstor=40648610 |s2cid=146678313 }}</ref><ref name=mcnulty>{{Cite news |url=https://tulsaraceriot.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/mcnulty-park/ |title=McNulty Park |date=March 6, 2013 |work=The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 |access-date=November 3, 2018 |language=en-US |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181103092217/https://tulsaraceriot.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/mcnulty-park/ |archive-date=November 3, 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{sfn|Oklahoma Commission|2001|pp=83, 177}}

A 1921 letter from an officer of the Service Company, Third Infantry, Oklahoma National Guard, who arrived on May 31, 1921, reported numerous events related to the suppression of the riot:
* taking about 30–40 black residents into custody;
* putting a machine gun on a truck and taking it on patrol, although it was not functioning and much less useful than "an ordinary rifle";
* being fired on by black snipers from the "church" and returning fire;
* being fired on by white men;
* turning the prisoners over to deputies to take them to police headquarters;
* being fired upon again by armed black residents and having two [[Non-commissioned officer|NCOs]] slightly wounded;
* searching for black snipers and firearms;
* detailing an NCO to take 170 black residents to the civil authorities; and
* delivering an additional 150 black residents to the Convention Hall.<ref name="Voorhis letter">{{cite web |url=https://digitalprairie.ok.gov/digital/collection/race-riot/id/265 |title=Letter Captain Frank Van Voorhis to Lieut. Col. L. J. F. Rooney |date=July 30, 1921 |pages=1–3 |website=digitalprairie.com |access-date=June 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200608150057/https://digitalprairie.ok.gov/digital/collection/race-riot/id/265/ |archive-date=June 8, 2020 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Captain John W. McCune reported that stockpiled ammunition within the burning structures began to explode, which might have further contributed to casualties.<ref>{{cite web |title=Letter Chas F. Barrett, Adjutant General to Lieut. Col. L. J. F. Rooney, 1921 June 1 |url=https://digitalprairie.ok.gov/digital/collection/race-riot/id/168 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200608145724/https://digitalprairie.ok.gov/digital/collection/race-riot/id/168/ |archive-date=June 8, 2020 |access-date=June 18, 2020 |quote=...very often it was difficult to tell where bullets came from owing to the fires and also to the fact that so much ammunition exploded in the building[s] as they were being consumed...At all times I warned them to not fire until fired upon as we had been ordered by Col. Rooney to fire only when absolutely necessary to defend our lives. }}</ref> Martial law was withdrawn on June 4, under Field Order No. 7.<ref>{{cite news |title=Barrett Commends Tulsa for Co-operation With the State Military Authorities |page=2 |newspaper=The Morning Tulsa Daily World |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042345/1921-06-04/ed-1/seq-2/ |date=June 4, 1921 |access-date=August 14, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814202642/https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042345/1921-06-04/ed-1/seq-2/ |archive-date=August 14, 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>