Uncrowned Community Builders

We left Texas and moved to Oklahoma in 1916 settling in Pawnee. Three years later, we moved to Tulsa. We left Texas because conditions were just terrible for black farmers like my Dad. We heard that things were better in Oklahoma, especially in Tulsa which was a booming oil town then. We heard that there were many good jobs for black folks in Oklahoma, what with all those oil people coming in from the north and from the east. But I didn't find Tulsa to be much different from Texas. In Texas my first job when I was eleven or twelve years old was washing dishes for a white lady in exchange for piano lessons. In Tulsa the only job that I could find was being a maid for a white doctor in South Tulsa After the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, I left Tulsa. I just couldn't face the prospects of spending my life being a maid.

Oh, that riot was such a terrible thing. It left its mark on me; I just can't ever forget it. When the riot started, it was in the wee hours of the morning. I had gone to bed and after midnight, I got a telephone call from the doctor who was still downtown. I wondered why he was calling at that late hour. He told me not to go into Little Africa. That is what white people called North Tulsa in those days. I thought that was strange for him to tell me that. I wouldn't have been going into North Tulsa at that late hour anyway. Well later on the doctor called me again, and this time he was more urgent in telling me not to go into Little Africa. He said "Hell has broken out in Little Africa. Don't go down there!" I was safe in my maid's quarters in South Tulsa, but many of my friends in the Greenwood area had their homes burned to the ground. Before their homes were burned, some of the people were taken out of their beds. They went to detention centers in their pajamas and housecoats because the police wouldn't give them time to dress. I was so disturbed. I didn't know where my friends had been taken. Later I found out that most of them had been taken to the Convention Center. Five or six days after the riot blacks could get passes from the militia to go down into the Greenwood area to try to find friends and relatives. That riot was a tragic thing and it has stayed on my mind all these years.

Although I was safe in South Tulsa in my maid's quarters, I could see that red blaze, and since my boss had warned me, I knew that that blazing fire was destroying the beloved Greenwood community. When I did get down to Greenwood after the riot, I was so hurt by what I saw. To wake up and see nothing but ashes and building burnt to the ground, I couldn't keep the tears from falling. After the riot the job situation in Tulsa didn't get any better. The only jobs available to blacks were either in the service industries "in hotels, restaurants, lounges, etc, or as maids and housemen in south and west Tulsa mansions of oil millionaires. That's why I left Tulsa. I first went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where I worked seven years in the millinery business. Then I moved to Kansas City, Missouri and improved myself by going to nursing school and becoming a Licensed Practical Nurse. I enjoyed my career in nursing, but I returned to Tulsa in the 1970's to be near my sister, Katherine Butler. I worked thirteen years for the Tulsa Red Cross and retired in 1984.

I have seen a lot of changes in my lifetime. One thing that I wish is that people would listen more to what elderly people tell them. These people have lived longer, they have seen so much, and they can give so much good advice if only people would listen to them! Americans need to learn to respect older people more, and to respect people who are wise even if they are not formally educated. Too often they listen only to the educated, to the "high leaders." Uneducated people are not "ignorant." Many of them are good, wise, intelligent people who just may not have had the opportunity to get a formal education. We could learn a lot from them if only we would learn to listen. I've read that in other cultures, there is great respect for the elderly; unfortunately, this is not true in the United States. Here, they are often viewed as just a burden on society. That need not be the case. I'd like to tell people, especially young people, to get back to being more loving, caring people. Then we would have a more loving and caring nation like we used to have. Families were more together then and they reached out and helped others in the community. We cared about each other. We were raised to treat others as we would want others to treat us, barring none. We were taught to work for the betterment of all people, barring none. Reprinted with permission of author, Eddie Faye Gates.