James Earl Jones Research Paper

Newspaper clipping “Nab Negro for attacking girl in elevator”(scrolling)
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VO#1 James Earl Jones: A negro delivery boy who gave his name to the public as “Diamond Dick” but who has been identified as Dick Rowland, was arrested on South Greenwood avenue this morning by Officers Carmichael and Pack, charged with attempting to assault the 17-year-old white elevator girl in the Drexel building early yesterday. He will be tried in municipal court this afternoon on a state charge. The girl said she noticed the negro a few minutes before the attempted assault looking up and down the hallway on the third floor of the Drexel building as if to see if there was anyone in sight but thought nothing of it at the time.
A few minutes later he entered the elevator she claimed, and attacked her, scratching her hands and face and tearing her clothes. Her screams brought a clerk from Renberg’s store to her assistance and the negro fled. He was captured and identified this morning both by the girl and the clerk, police say. Tenants of the Drexel building said the girl is an orphan who works as an elevator operator to pay her way through business college.

Francis Jordan Interview
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1:07
SOT: When the 13th Amendment ended overt slavery in the USA in 1868, thousands of newly freed African Americans migrated to Tulsa to start a new life.

Within 30 years, the Greenwood District was one of the most prosperous cities in the entire USA.
Tim Madigan Interview
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1:15
SOT: After Oklahoma became a state, the first law passed by the Oklahoma legislature was senate bill 1, that completely segregated the state.
Robin Walker Interview
:06
1:21
SOT: The African-American community is Tulsa was relatively prosperous despite the prevailing racism of the time.
Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper

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1:29
SOT: He had a job shining shoes, you could make good money shining shoes in the white neighborhood, but you couldn’t use the restroom
Francis Jordan Interview
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1:33
SOT: And he gets in the elevator, a white woman screamed.
Dr. Corinda Pitts Interview
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1:39
SOT: The Tulsa tribune put it in the afternoon on the front page. Nab Negro for attacking girl in elevator.
Robin Walker Interview
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1:44
SOT: within the next hour, there was lynch talk and whites started gathering.
Hannibal Johnson Interview
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1:55
SOT: And as there leaving a white man goes up to a tall black vet and said where you going with that gun nigger? A struggle, the gun goes offs and the worst race riot in history started.
J.B. Stradford Montage

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2:00
Louis Armstrong original Hot Five - Cornet Chop Suey
Rare 1920s Footage: All-Black Towns Living the American Dream (Smithsonian)
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2:17

VO#2 Stradford was born a slave in Versailles, KY, the son of Julius Caesar Stradford. The J. B. Stradford family moved to Tulsa, OK, in 1899. J. B. was a graduate of Oberlin College and Indiana Law School. He and his wife, Augusta, had lived in several cities, including Lawrenceburg, KY, before settling in Tulsa.

Fade in/Hannibal Johnson Interview
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2:36
SOT: You see, at the time, Oklahoma was set aside to be a Black and Indian state. There were over 28 Black townships there. A lot of Blacks owned farmland, and many of them had gone into the oil business. When Blacks intermarried into the Indian culture, some of them received their promised “40 acres and a mule” and with that came whatever oil was later found on the properties…
Rare 1920s Footage: All-Black Towns Living the American Dream (Smithsonian) Cont’d
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2:44
VO#3: Hannibal Johnson: …The dream of a politically powerful, black-friendly state lured Stradford from Indianapolis to the dirt streets of Tulsa’s undeveloped Greenwood area.
Montage of O.W. Gurley
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3:04
SOT: Prior to the turn of the century O. W. Gurley, a wealthy African American land-owner from Arkansas, traversed the United States to participate in the Oklahoma Land run of 1889. In 1906, Gurley moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma where he purchased 40 acres of land which was "only to be sold to colored" [9]. Black ownership was unheard of at that time.