Public Secrets Podcast Center for Public Secrets

In August of 1920, just 9 months before the infamous Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, the class divisions in Tulsa were starting to reach a fever pitch.

After the end of World War 1, the streets of Tulsa were awash in oil money and the wealthy and powerful of the day were hellbent on retaining their power over the day laborers that worked in the fields. One way they did that was to declare a “war on crime” in the city that specifically targeted at vagrants and the unemployed.

On the same day the 1920 “war on crime” was announced, a cab driver name Homer Nida was brutally assaulted and left for dead. The media firestorm that followed whipped the city into a frenzy and a young man named Roy Belton was arrested for the crime. After a series of suspicious events, Belton was hastily given over by the police to a large and angry mob and publicly lynched for his crime.

Our guest today is Randy Hopkins, a lawyer, and historian who has written a series of stories for The Chronicles of Oklahoma and the Center for Public Secrets. Hopkins discusses his account of the Bleton lynching from his recent article “Racing to the Precipice: Tulsa’a Last Lynching”

Our host is Michael Mason.

This podcast is presented by the Center for Public Secrets, a non-profit sub-cultural institution dedicated to uncovering the hidden and neglected history of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and beyond.

To learn more, visit our website at www.centerforpublicsecrets.org.

This episode was produced, mixed, and edited by Scott Bell. Our executive producers are Whitney Chapman and Stuart Hetherwood. The podcast art was made by Well-Told. Our host is Michael Mason. Thanks for listening.

While the Tulsa Race Massacre has grown to occupy a prominent position in the history of America’s struggle with race, the event itself was preceded by smaller, lesser-known events that set the stage for the Massacre of 1921.

In 1917, as America became directly involved in World War One, Oklahoma Governor Robert Lee Williams appointed 5 people from Tulsa’s most elite circles to the newly formed Tulsa Council of Defense. With the Oklahoma National Guard deployed to fight in the War, the Council took it upon themselves to create a new militia group in their place called the Tulsa Home Guard, a sort of private police force for the wealthy and powerful of the day.

In October of that year, the home of oil executive J. Edgar Pew was bombed. The blast was seized upon as an excuse to promote war hysteria. Immediately, the Tulsa Daily World reported that members of the International Workers of the World, or Wobblies, were behind the bombing and that they were enacting vast and sinister conspiracy. 

The Wobblies were a self-proclaimed socialist labor union that was the enemy of many powerful businessmen. This was their chance to get rid of the Wobblies once and for all.

The brutal outburst that followed has come to be known as the Tulsa Outrage and is now seen as the birth of the modern Ku Klux Klan in Oklahoma. 

Our guest today is Randy Hopkins. Hopkins is a lawyer and historian who has written a series of stories for The Chronicles of Oklahoma and the Center for Public Secrets, including a complete account of the Tulsa Outrage in his article “Birthday of the Klan: The Tulsa Outrage of 1917.” 

Our host is Michael Mason.

In the aftermath of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, there were numerous accounts of the bodies of victims being hastily buried in mass graves at sites across Tulsa. Nearly 100 years later, the search for mass graves began at Oaklawn Cemetery.

In 2019, Tulsa mayor G.T. Bynum made a commitment to investigate the presence of mass graves at Oaklawn in an effort to provide closure and justice for the victims and descendants ahead of the Massacre Centennial. But what transpired was filled with controversy, and many feel that the promises made were misleading.

As part of the investigation, a group of activists, descendants, and historians formed the Mass Graves Public Oversight Committee in order to balance the actions of the government with the voice of the people most deeply affected by the tragedy.

Our guests today are Chief Amusan and Kavin Ross of the Mass Graves Public Oversight Committee.

Chief Amusan is the founder of the Tulsa African Ancestral Society and a descendant of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Kavin Ross is a longtime activist and journalist with the Oklahoma Eagle.

Our host is Michael Mason.

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