Volume 14 , Issue 47

Greenwood District of Tulsa, OK

[image on the left is a photo of captured negroes of Greenwood Disrict (Black Wall Street) on the way to the Convention Hall, during the Tulsa Race Riot, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1 June 1921, when the Greenwood District was completely destroyed by the KKK.]

J.B. Stradford, the son of a freed Kentucky slave, rose to prominence in Oklahoma during the early 1900s as one of the key developers of the all-black Tulsa enclave Greenwood. A lawyer and businessman, Stradford owned the 65-room hotel that sat right in the heart of the thriving community that would later become known as "the Black Wall Street."

On May 31, 1921, the arrest of a young black man, Dick Rowland, on a questionable charge of assaulting a young white woman touched off the deadliest race riot in U.S. history. Whites charged through the Greenwood District in retaliation, leaving hundreds of black people dead, and over ten thousands black residents homeless and 35 city blocks in ruin.

Stradford and sixty-nine other black men were subsequently charged with inciting the riot. Stadford jumped bail after his arrest and fled from Tulsa for Kentucky. Stradford's son, who was also a lawyer, used legal maneuvering to help his father avoid having to stand trial, which included filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to keep Stradfor from being unlawfully detained.

J. B. Stradford, who went on to run a successful law practice in Chicago, managed to avoid facing justice in Oklahoma and never returned to the state. It was not until seventy-five years after the riot, and six decades after Stradford death in 1935 in Chicago that J. B. Stradford was cleared of all charges.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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