BLACK WALL STREET

In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma was considered the "Oil Capital of the World," and the black community that existed there was among the most prosperous in the nation. The area was home to several prominent black businessmen, many of them multimillionaires. Greenwood boasted a variety of thriving businesses that were very successful The Greenwood section of town was known both as:

 "Little Africa" and as "The Black Wall Street."

After the civil war many African-Americans settled in Oklahoma because of employment opportunities from the oil fields. Around 1908 the community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma was established. Based on the growth of African-Americans in Greenwood, Jim Crow laws legalizing segregation were passed in 1908.

However, following World War I, the United States Supreme Court declared the Jim Crow segregation laws unconstitutional in 1915. African-Americans progressed thereafter without restriction. Growth ensued. Consequently, the African-American community became subjected to continual harassment and other discriminatory actions from white mobs.

As time went on the level and frequency of violence against the black community, in Greenwood escalated. In 1919 two Black prisoners were removed from incarceration and lynched.

On the Night of May 31, 1921, mobs called for the lynching of Dick Rowland, A black man who shined shoes, who was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman named Sarah Page, an elevator operator. Although no "official" report of Ms. Page's accusation was ever made it was later uncovered that she informed authorities that Rowland had merely lost his balance and fell into her.

Seizing an opportunity to confront the successful black residents of Greenwood a local newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune, printed the fabricated story that Rowland tried to rape Page. A crime, for which he was never formally charged. In an editorial, the same newspaper told enraged white residents that a hanging was planned for that night.

The confidence of the black community members in the security of Dick Rowland was non-existent. Small groups of armed black men began to venture toward the courthouse in automobiles, partly for reconnaissance, but with their weapons visible, they were also demonstrating that they were prepared to take necessary action to protect Dick Rowland. The white community members quickly interpreted these actions as a "Negro uprising".

On June 1, 1921 confrontations between angry white mobs and the black people of Greenwood ensued. Outnumbered and outgunned Blacks were viciously attacked.  Led by the Ku Klux Klan and their sympathisers, "deputized" by ranking officials of the police department, the black people of Greenwood were lynched, shot, and murdered. Their homes were looted and burned. In a period spanning 12 hours, the carnage left over 300 Black Americans dead and over 600 highly successful businesses burned and destroyed. Over 1,500 homes were burned as members of the police flew airplanes overhead, dropping nitroglycerin and incendiary kerosene bombs on homes and businesses over a 35-square block radius. Although many of the residents affected by the riots had insurance, the insurance companies refused to make good on their policies.

The attack completely destroyed Greenwood. Those citizens who were not killed fled the area, because there was nothing to come back to. The governor declared martial law and the National Guardsmen reestablished law and order. Eventually, the community was rebuilt; however, it never again regained its former prominence.

In 2003, a lawsuit for reparations was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, seeking damages and restitution, based on violations of the Fourteenth Amendment. To date, no reparations have been given to the victims, or their descendants, of what has come to be referred to as the Black Holocaust.

DRED SCOTT DECISION

Born around 1800, Dred Scott later migrated westward with his master, Peter Blow. They travelled from Scott's home state of Virginia to Alabama and then, in 1830, to St. Louis, Missouri. Two years later in 1832, Peter Blow died; Scott was subsequently bought by army surgeon Dr. John Emerson, who later took Scott to the free state of Illinois. In the spring of 1836, after a stay of two and a half years, Emerson moved to a fort in the Wisconsin Territory, taking his slave, Scott with him. While there, Scott met and married Harriet Robinson, a slave owned by a local justice of the peace. Ownership of Harriet was transferred to Emerson.

Scott's extended stay in Illinois, a free state, gave him the legal standing to make a claim for freedom, as did his extended stay in Wisconsin, where slavery was also prohibited. But Scott never made the claim while living in the free lands, perhaps because he was unaware of his rights at the time. After two years, the army transferred Emerson again, this time to the south: first to St Louis, then to Louisiana. A little over a year later, a recently-married Emerson summoned his slave couple. Instead of staying in the free territory of Wisconsin, or going to the free state of Illinois, the two travelled over a thousand miles, apparently unaccompanied, down the Mississippi River to meet their master. Only after Emerson's death in 1843, when Emerson's widow hired Scott out to various families including an army captain, did Scott seek freedom for himself and his wife. First he offered to buy his freedom from Mrs. Emerson, then living in St. Louis, for the sum of $300. The offer was refused. Scott then sought his freedom through the courts.

Scott went to trial in June of 1847, but lost on a technicality he couldn't prove that he and Harriet were the property of  Emerson's widow. The following year the Missouri Supreme Court decided that case should be retried. In an 1850 retrial, the the St Louis circuit court ruled that Scott and his family were free. Two years later the Missouri Supreme Court stepped in again, reversing the decision of the lower court. Scott and his lawyers then brought his case to a federal court, the United States Circuit Court in Missouri. In 1854, the Circuit Court upheld the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court. There was now only one other place to go. Scott appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court.
The nine justices of the Supreme Court of 1856 certainly had biases regarding slavery. Seven had been appointed by pro-slavery presidents from the South, and of these, five were from slave-holding families. In his attempt to bring his case to the federal courts, Scott had claimed that he and the case's defendant (Mrs. Emerson's brother, John Sanford, who lived in New York) were citizens from different states. The main issues for the Supreme Court, therefore, were whether it had jurisdiction to try the case and whether Scott was indeed a citizen. Scott lost the decision as seven out of nine Justices on the Supreme Court declared no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S. citizen, or ever had been a U.S. citizen. As a non-citizen, the court stated, slaves had no rights and could not sue in a Federal Court and must remain a slave. 
Under the law whether or not the Scotts were entitled to their freedom was not as important as the consideration of their value as property.
The decision of the court was read in March of 1857. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a staunch supporter of slavery wrote the "majority opinion" for the court. It stated that because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The chief justice wrote, blacks had been "regarded as beings of an inferior order" with "no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The decision also declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820, legislation which restricted slavery in certain territories, unconstitutional.

 While the decision was well-received by slaveholders in the South, many northerners were outraged. The decision greatly influenced the nomination of Abraham Lincoln to the Republican Party and his subsequent election, which in turn led to the South's secession from the Union.

Peter Blow's sons, childhood friends of Scott, had helped pay Scott's legal fees through the years. After the Supreme Court's decision, the former master's sons purchased Scott and his wife and set them free.

Dred Scott died nine months later.

The 13th amendment abolished slavery

It is believed that the 14th amendment overturns the Dred Scott decision. This forum does not afford me the opportunity to offer my opinion as to whether or not this is the case. Read the 14th amendment yourself and decide if " substantive due process" is enough.

DENMARK VESEY, a Man of Conviction

Denmark Vesey

About 1767, Denmark Vesey was born with the name  Telemanque on the island of St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies, which today is the U.S. Virgin Islands. At a young age, Denmark assumed the surname of his owner, Joseph Vesey, a resident of Charleston, SC, who was the captain of a slave ship. Before they settled in Charleston, South Carolina in 1783, Denmark traveled along with his master on many slave-trading voyages.

While in Charleston, Denmark managed to educate himself as well as learning to read. In 1800, seventeen years after his arrival in Charleston, Denmark won $1,500.00 in a street lottery and used $600.00 of his winnings to buy his freedom. Now free, he stayed in Charleston and worked as a carpenter. But Denmark was not satisfied, because although free, all other blacks were still looked upon as property, subservient to their masters. Denmark hated slavery and often spoke out against the abuse and exploitation of his people.

With each passing day, Denmark witnessed the continued injustice tolerated by the slaves he saw in Charleston, which drove him to seek out and read abolitionist literature. With this knowledge, and the fact that he was aware of a successful slave revolt that occurred in Haiti in the 1790s, he began to organize and plot a similar slave uprising for Charleston.

He started by selecting a cadre of exceptional lieutenants. Vesey began organizing the black community in and around Charleston to stand up and fight for their freedom. Denmark's plan was to attack the arsenals in Charleston and seize the weapons. Upon accomplishing this, he would arm all the slaves who in turn were to burn the city and kill the white oppressors. Although not exact, this type of plan was similar to that which John Brown orchestrated at Harpers Ferry years later.

With his plan finalized, Denmark and nearly 9,000 slaves from the city of Charleston and nearby plantations were at the ready. This was the largest slave revolt in American history! The revolt was scheduled to begin on July 14, 1822. However, the day before his plot was scheduled to begin, a  house servant (house Negro), with knowledge of the plan, alerted the white authorities. They in turn made the necessary military preparations to confront Vesey and his followers. Later Denmark received word of the possible ambush. Now unable to fulfill his plans, he called them  off.

Over a period covering the following two months, 130 blacks were arrested and brought to trail. Of these, sixty-seven were accused and convicted of taking part in this slave revolt. Thirty-five of the sixty-seven, including Denmark, were hanged; the remaining thirty-two were exiled. Additionally, four white men were tried and convicted of having encouraged the revolt, and were fined and imprisoned for their part.

Upon Denmark Vesey's appearance in court, the following disposition was written:
On Thursday, the 27^th, (June) Denmark Vesey, a free black man, was brought before the court for trial; (assisted by his counsel, G.W. Cross, Esq.)

These facts of his guilt the journals of the court will disclose - that no man can be proved to have spoken of or urged the insurrection prior to himself.
All the channels of communication and intelligence are traced back to him. His house was the place appointed for the secret meetings of the conspirators, at which he was invariably a leading and influential member; animating and encouraging the timid, by the hopes and prospects of success; removing the scruples of the religious, by the grossest prostitution and perversion of the sacred oracles, and inflaming and confirming the resolute, by all the savage fascinations of blood and booty.
The peculiar circumstances of guilt, which confer a distinction on his case, will be found narrated in the confession of Rolla, Monday Gell, Frank, and Jesse, in the appendix. He was sentenced for execution on the 2^nd of July.

I offer the biography of Denmark Vesey not as a call for violence but as an example of a man who was willing to sacrifice everything he had, including his life, to help free his people. He was a living as a "free man" enjoying  the fruits of his own personal freedom but he understood that as long as one of us is in (mental) slavery none of us are truly free, as long as one of us in in extreme poverty, none of us truly have material wealth and most of all, as long as one of us remain ignorant, none of us are truly wise. We can learn and evolve from those who have gone before us, if we are willing to open our hearts, and minds.

ASE'