From a Kentucky paper published Sunday, August 3, 1969 in The Lexington Herald-Leader:
Ahh, #Karma.
It was but a few years later that hungry descendants of these same floggers met with similar scorn and revulsion:
Source: Published 5 Sept. 1967 in The Tulsa Tribune,
and found via the Tulsa City-County Library at their Digital Collections database online
Today's TulsaWorld newspaper has a guest columnist's piece on an appalling land grab 100+ years ago in Creek Nation, Indian Territory. No, not THE big land grab when the U.S. Government broke its zillioneth contract with indigenous peoples by declaring their territory the 46th state in 1907. This is about a woman cheated of control of her very own allotment.
Written by a former Tulsan and a forever-Okie, Russell Cobb adapted the story of Millie Naharkey from his new book, The Great Oklahoma Swindle: Race, Religion, and Lies in America’s Weirdest State.
https://t.co/CNXx8iOFOC?amp=1
(I pray my link leads you to the article. Holler, if not).
Because I can't wait for Prime to bring Cobb's book to my doorstep (we ARE practicing "social distance" in lieu of Covid-19), I plugged Millie Naharkey's name into Newspapers.com.
From the front page of an October 5, 1922 newspaper:
Because front pages of old newspapers rock, here's a partial shot from the same paper. Look who was en route to Muskogee that week. See "Comrades Attention!" at the top:
I was happy to learn from Cobb's article of Millie Naharkey's hard-fought legal victory against Charles Page, head of the corporation named "Sand Springs Home." Good for her! Although she saw little of the profit from the land thanks to her guardians at 1st National Bank of Tulsa. Imagine what the Bank's lawyers hourly fee was to represent themselves in that lawsuit, I mean, Ms. Naharkey.
Having her repeatedly declared "an incompetent Indian" before a judge and then stealing her inheritance! Reminds me of Wells Fargo's recent fine for twice setting up fake accounts under customer's names so it could profit by moving money around--without knowledge or approval from customers, FFS.
Have you ever wished bankers could be tarred and feathered?
https://law.justia.com/cases/oklahoma/supreme-court/1936/23023.html
If you also read Newspapers.com, here's the 1922 article's link: https://www.newspapers.com/image/608081786/
From the warmth of our home we watched the televised Veterans Day Parade held in downtown Tulsa. I think the mid-day wind chill was about 28 degrees. Several hundred hearty people appeared to watch the parade in real time.
Did you ever wonder what your local paper had to say on Armistice Day when The Great War ended? Me, too.
And this front page of The Tulsa Daily World is from the next day, November 12, 1918.
When enlarged the small print is still difficult to read. Here are two articles that share a poor description of how Tulsans made merry shortly after hearing the splendid news of the War's end. Both articles are from the pages shown above:
This from Lee Roy Chapman's June 2, 2015 post on Twitter concerning Tulsa's massacre of its citizens just 97 years ago.
Was way more than a "riot." It was a bloody massacre. Educate yourself.
I work in the Brady District in downtown Tulsa, and am fascinated by its history. Steve Warren shared a short clip to Youtube prepared by Tulsa's Historical Society of a meeting of Confederates at what is today known as the Brady Theater, adding: "The national reunion of the United Confederate Veterans was held in Tulsa in September of 1918."
Among those veterans, I recognize several names of Tulsa's white pioneers. (Many Creek Nation cattlemen and their families had lived for decades in this area that was later "discovered" by white businessmen and lawyers) This reunion must have helped push the new city into prominence. Discovery of oil had already given Tulsa its first boost.
Tate Brady's Theater is just a few blocks west of the site of one of our nation's worst race riots. Oklahoma's "Black Wall Street" and hundreds of homes were demolished by fire brought by white rioters just three years after this 1918 reunion.
New to Tulsa's sordid history? My old friend Lee Roy Chapman best describes events leading up to our city's most shameful occasion: http://thislandpress.com/2012/04/18/tate-brady-battle-greenwood/
In my hunt for an elusive ancestor, I scour archives using his surname in keyword searches. Interesting "hits" pop up. This Childers' story is from the front page of the Muskogee Phoenix, December 7, 1893:
Early Tulsa pioneer J.M. Hall provided a location for this shootout. It occurred near where I work in downtown Tulsa.
Hall wrote: "Sam caught "Yockey' one day while the latter was sitting on his horse in the middle of Main street between First and Second Street and shot him off. He lived for a short time but would not reveal his true name nor his home town."
http://www.tulsaokhistory.com/hall/pg055.html
http://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc99419/m1/1/?q=childers
Nice seeing you here! Please return for my next post.