Word of both the alleged incident in the Drexel Building, and of the subsequent arrest of the alleged perpetrator, quickly spread throughout the city's legal circles. Black attorney B.C. Franklin was sitting in the courtroom during a recess in a trial when he overheard some other lawyers discussing what he later concluded was the alleged rape attempt. "I don't believe a damn word of it," one of the men said, "Why I know that boy and have known him a good while. That's not in him."⁸⁷

Not surprisingly, word of both the alleged incident and of the arrest of Dick Rowland had also made it to the offices of Tulsa's two daily newspapers, the Tribune and the World. Due to the timing of the events, the Tulsa Tribune would have the first crack at the story. Not only had the alleged Drexel Building incident gone without notice in that morning's Tulsa World -- perhaps, one is tempted to surmise, because word of the alleged incident had not yet made it to the paper's news desk, which may have been short-staffed due to the holiday -- but Rowland's arrest had apparently occurred after that morning's edition had already been printed.⁸⁸ Being an afternoon paper, however, the Tulsa Tribune had enough time to break the news in its regular afternoon editions -- which is exactly what it did.

Precisely what the Tulsa Tribune printed in its May 31, 1921 editions about the Drexel Building incident is still a matter of some conjecture. The original bound volumes of the now defunct newspaper apparently no longer exist in their entirety. A microfilm version is, however, available, but before the actual microfilming was done some years later, someone had deliberately torn out of the May 31, 1921 city edition both a front-page article and, in addition, nearly all of the editorial page.

We have known what the front-page story, titled "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator", said for some time. In his 1946 master's thesis on the riot, Loren Gill printed the entire text of the missing -- and what he believed was no less than "inflammatory" -- story, which read:

A Negro delivery boy who gave his name to the public as "Diamond Dick" but who has been identified as Dick Rowland, was arrested on South Greenwood Avenue this morning by Officers Carmichael and Pack, charged with attempting to assault the 17-year-old white elevator girl in the Drexel Building early yesterday.

He will be tried in municipal court this afternoon on a state charge.

The girl said she noticed the Negro a few minutes before the attempted assault looking up and down the hallway on the third floor of the Drexel Building as if to see if there was anyone in sight but thought nothing of it at the time.

A few minutes later he entered the elevator she claimed, and attacked her, scratching her hands and face and tearing her clothes. Her screams brought a clerk from Renberg's store to her assistance and the Negro fled. He was captured and identified this morning both by the girl and the clerk, police say.

Tenants of the Drexel Building said the girl is an orphan who works as an elevator operator to pay her way through business college.⁸⁹

Since Gill's thesis first appeared, additional copies of this front-page article have surfaced. A copy can be found in the Red Cross papers that are located in the collections of the Tulsa Historical Society. A second copy, apparently from the "State Edition" of the Tulsa Tribune, could once be found in the collections of the Oklahoma Historical Society, but has now evidently disappeared.⁹⁰

This front page article was not, however, the only thing that the Tulsa Tribune seems to have printed about the Drexel Building incident in its May 31 edition. W.D. Williams, who later taught for years at Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, had a vivid memory that the Tribune ran a story titled "To Lynch Negro Tonight".⁹¹ In fact, however, what Williams may be recalling is not another news article, but an editorial from the missing editorial page.

Other informants, both black and white, buttress Williams' account. Specifically, they recalled that the Tribune mentioned the possibility of a lynching -- something that is entirely absent from the "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator" story, and thus must have appeared elsewhere in the May 31 edition. Robert Fairchild later recalled that the Tribune "came out and told what happened. It said to the effect that 'there is likely to be a lynching in Tulsa tonight'". One of Mary Parrish's informants, whom she interviewed shortly after the riot, provided a similar account:

The Daily Tribune, a white newspaper that tries to gain its popularity by referring to the Negro settlement as "Little Africa", came out on the evening of Tuesday, May 31, with an article claiming that a Negro had experienced some trouble with a white elevator girl at the Drexel Building. It also said that a mob of whites was forming in order to lynch the Negro.

Adjutant General Charles F. Barrett, who led National Guard troops from Oklahoma City into Tulsa the next day, recalled that there had been a "fantastic write-up of the [Drexel Building] incident in a sensation-seeking newspaper."⁹²

Given the fact that the editorial page from the May 31 Tulsa Tribune was also deliberately removed, and that a copy has not yet surfaced, it is not difficult to conclude that whatever else the paper had to say about the alleged incident, and what should be done in response to it, would have appeared in an editorial. "To Lynch Negro Tonight' certainly would have fit as the title to a Tribune editorial in those days. Moreover, given the seriousness of the charges against Dick Rowland, the aggressiveness of the paper's anti-crime campaign, and the fact that a Tribune editorial had mentioned the lynching of Roy Belton only four days earlier, it is highly likely that any editorial the paper would have run concerning the alleged Drexel Building incident would have surely mentioned lynching as a possible fate for Dick Rowland. Exactly what the newspaper would have said on the matter, however, can only be left to conjecture.

The Tuesday, May 31, 1921 edition of the Tulsa Tribune hit the streets at about 3:15 p.m.. And while the "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator" was far from being the most prominent story on the front page of the city edition, it was the story that garnered the most attention. Making his way through downtown toward his office in Greenwood shortly after the Tribune rolled off the presses, attorney B.C. Franklin later recalled that "as I walked leisurely along the sidewalk, I heard the sharp shrill voice of a newsboy, "A Negro assaults a white girl."⁹³

Indeed, lynch talk came right on the heels of the Tribune's sensational reporting. Ross T. Warner, the white manager of the downtown offices of the Tulsa Machine and Tool Company, wrote that after the Tribune came out that afternoon, "the talk of lynching spread like a prairie fire." Similar memories were shared by Dr. Blaine Waynes, an African American physician and his wife Maude, who reported that after the Tribune was issued that day, that rumors of the "intended lynching of the accused Negro" spread so swiftly and ominously that even "the novice and stranger" could readily sense the fast-approaching chain of events that was about to unfold. By 4:00 p.m., the talk of lynching Dick Rowland had already grown so ubiquitous that Police and Fire Commissioner J.M. Adkison telephoned Sheriff Willard McCullough and alerted him to the ever-increasing talk on the street.⁹⁴

Talk soon turned into action. As word of the alleged sexual assault in the Drexel Building spread, a crowd of whites began to gather on the street outside of the Tulsa County Courthouse, in whose jail Dick Rowland was being held. As people got off of work, and the news of the alleged attack reported in the Tribune became more widely dispersed across town, more and more white Tulsans, infuriated by what had supposedly taken place in the Drexel Building, began to gather outside the courthouse at Sixth and Boulder. By sunset -- which came at 7:34 p.m. that evening -- observers estimated that the crowd had grown into the hundreds. Not long afterwards, cries of "Let us have the nigger" could be heard echoing off of the walls of the massive stone courthouse^.95

Willard M. McCullough, who had recently been sworn in as the new sheriff of Tulsa County, however, had other ideas. Determined that there would be no repeat of the Roy Belton affair during his time in office, he quickly took steps to ensure the safety of Dick Rowland. Organizing his small force of deputies into a defensive ring around his now terrified prisoner, McCullough positioned six of his men, armed with rifles and shotguns, on the roof of the courthouse. He also disabled the building's elevator, and had his remaining men barricade themselves at the top of the stairs with orders to shoot any intruders on sight.

McCullough also went outside, on the courthouse steps, and tried to talk the would-be lynch mob into going home, but was "hooted down" when he spoke. At approximatley 8:20 p.m., in a near replay of the Belton incident, three white men entered the courthouse and demanded that the sheriff turn over Rowland, but were angrily turned away. Even though his small force was vastly outnumbered by the ever-increasing mob out on the street, McCullough, unlike his predecessor, was determined to prevent another lynching.⁹⁶

Word of the alleged incident at the Drexel Building, and of the white mob that was gathering outside of the courthouse, meanwhile, also had raced across Greenwood. After reading the stories in the afternoon's Tribune, Willie Williams, a popular junior at Booker T. Washington High School, had hurried over to his family's flagship business, the Dreamland Theater, at 127 N. Greenwood. Inside, he found a scene of tension and confusion. "We're not going to let this happen," declared a man who had leapt onto the theater's stage, "We're going to go downtown and stop this lynching. Close this place down."

Outside, similar discussions were taking place up and down Greenwood Avenue, as black Tulsans debated how to respond to the increasingly dire threat to Dick Rowland. B.C. Franklin later recalled two army veterans out in the street, urging the crowd gathered about them to take immediate action, while perhaps the most intense discussions were held in the offices of the Tulsa Star, the city's premier African American newspaper.

What went unspoken was the fact an African American had never been lynched in Tulsa. How to prevent one from taking place now was no easy matter. It was not simply the crime that Dick Rowland had been charged with -- although that, by itself, made the situation particularly dire. Rather, with the lynching of Roy Belton only nine months earlier, there was now no reason at all to place much confidence in the ability of the local authorities to protect Dick Rowland from the mob of whites that was gathering outside the courthouse. However, exactly how to respond was of utmost concern.

For A.J. Smitherman, the editor of the Tulsa Star, there was no question whatsoever that a demonstration of resolve was necessary. Black Tulsans needed to let the white mob know that they were determined to prevent this lynching from taking place, by force of arms if necessary. Others, including a number of war veterans as well as various local leaders, the most prominent being hotel owner J.B. Stradford, vigorously agreed. Moreover, when Dr. Bridgewater had led a group of armed men downtown to where three accused African American men were being held only two years later, a rumored lynching did not take place. "Come on boys", Smitherman is said to have urged his audience, "let's go downtown."

Not everyone agreed with the plan of action. O.W. Gurley, the owner of the Gurley Hotel, seems to have argued for a more cautious approach. So, too, apparently, did Barney Cleaver, a well-respected African American deputy sheriff, who had been trying to keep in telephone contact with Sheriff McCullough, and therefore have something of a handle on the actual conditions down at the courthouse.⁹⁷

Despite some entreaties to the contrary, at about 9:00 p.m. a group of approximately twenty-five African American men decided to cast their lot not only with an endangered fellow member of the race, but also, literally, upon the side of justice. Leaving Greenwood by automobile, they drove down to the courthouse, where the white mob had gathered. Armed with rifles and shotguns, the men got out of their automobiles, and marched to the courthouse steps. Their purpose, they announced to the no doubt stunned authorities, was to offer their services toward the defense of the jail -- an offer that was immediately declined. Assured that Dick Rowland was safe, the men then returned to their automobiles, and drove back to Greenwood.⁹⁸

The visit of the African American veterans had an electrifying effect, however, on the white mob, now estimated to be more than one thousand strong. Denied Rowland by Sheriff McCullough, it had been clear for some time that this was not to be an uncomplicated repetition of the Belton affair. The visit of the black veterans had not at all been foreseen. Shocked, and then outraged, some members of the mob began to go home to fetch their guns^.99

Others, however, made a beeline for the National Guard Armory, at Sixth and Norfolk, where they intended to gain access to the rifles and ammunition stored inside. Major James A. Bell, an officer with the local National Guard units -- "B" Company, the Service Company, and the Sanitary Detachment, all of the Third Infantry Regiment of the Oklahoma National Guard -- had already been notified of the trouble brewing down at the courthouse, and had telephoned the local authorities in order to better understand the overall situation. I then went to the Armory and called up the Sheriff and asked if there was any indications of trouble down there", Bell later wrote, "The sheriff reported that there were some threats but did not believe it would amount to anything, that in any event he could protect his prisoner." Bell also phoned Chief Gustafson, who reported, "Things were a little threatening."¹⁰⁰

Despite such vague answers, Major Bell took the initiative and began to quietly instruct local guardsmen -- who were scheduled to depart the next day for their annual summer encampment -- to report down at the armory in case they were needed that evening. Meanwhile, a guardsman informed Bell that a mob of white men was attempting to break into the armory. As Bell later reported:

Grabbing my pistol in one hand and my belt in the other I jumped out of the back door and running down the west side of the Armory building I saw several men apparently pulling at the window grating. Commanding these men to get off the lot and seeing this command obeyed I went to the front of the building near the southwest corner where I saw a mob of white men about three or four hundred strong. I asked them what they wanted. One of them replied, "Rifles and ammunition", I explained to them that they could not get anything here. Someone shouted, "We don't know about that, we guess we can." I told them that we only had sufficient arms and ammunition for our own men and that not one piece could go out of there without orders from the Governor, and in the name of the law demanded that they disperse at once. They continued to press forward in a threatening manner when with drawn pistol I again demanded that they disperse and explained that the men in the Armory were armed with rifles loaded with ball ammunition and that they would shoot promptly to prevent any unauthorized person entering there.

"By maintaining a firm stand," Bell added, ". . . this mob was dispersed."¹⁰¹

Major Bell's actions were both courageous and effective but as the night wore on, similar efforts would be in exceedingly short supply. With each passing minute, Tulsa was a city that was quickly spinning out of control.

By 9:30 p.m., the white mob outside the courthouse had swollen to nearly two- thousand persons. They blocked the sidewalks as well as the streets, and had spilled over onto the front lawns of nearby homes. There were women as well as men, youngsters as well as adults, curiosity seekers as well as would-be lynchers. A handful of local leaders, including the Reverend Charles W. Kerr of the First Presbyterian Church as well as a local judge had tried unsuccessfully to talk the crowd into going home.¹⁰²

Police Chief John A. Gustafson later claimed that he tried to talk the lynch mob into dispersing. However, at no time that afternoon or evening did he order a substantial number of Tulsa policemen to appear, fully armed, at the courthouse. Gustafson, in his defense, would later claim that because there was a regular shift change that very day, that only thirty-two officers were available for duty at eight o'clock on the evening of May 31. As subsequent testimony -- as recorded in handwritten notes to a post-riot investigation -- later revealed, there were apparently only "5 policemen on duty between courthouse & Brady hotel notwithstanding lynching imminent." Moreover, by 10:00 p.m., when the drama at the courthouse was approaching its climax, Gustafson was no longer at the scene, but had returned to his office at police headquarters.¹⁰³

In the city's African American neighborhoods, meanwhile, tension continued to mount over the increasingly ugly situation down at the courthouse. Alerted to the potentially dangerous conditions, both school and church groups broke up their evening activities early, while parents and grandparents tried to reassure themselves that the trouble would quickly blow over. Down in Deep Greenwood, a large crowd of black men and women still kept their vigil outside of the offices of the Tulsa Star, awaiting word on the latest developments downtown.¹⁰⁴

Some of the men, however, decided that they could wait no longer. Hopping into cars, small groups of armed African American men began to make brief forays into downtown, their guns visible to passersby. In addition to reconnaissance, the primary intent of these trips appears to have been to send a clear message to white Tulsans that these men were determined to prevent, by force of arms if necessary, the lynching of Dick Rowland. Whether the whites who witnessed these excursions understood this message is, however, an open question. Many, apparently, thought that they were instead witnessing a "Negro uprising," a conclusion that others would soon share.

In the midst of all of this activity, rumors began to circulate, particularly with regards to what might or might not be happening down at the courthouse. Possibly spurred on by a false report that whites were storming the courthouse, moments after 10:00 p.m., a second contingent of armed African American men, perhaps seventy-five in number this time, decided to make a second visit to the Courthouse. Leaving Greenwood by automobile, they got out of their cars near Sixth and Main and marched, single file, to the courthouse steps. Again, they offered their services to the authorities to help protect Dick Rowland. Once again, their offer was refused.¹⁰⁵

Then it happened. As the black men were leaving the courthouse for the second time, a white man approached a tall African American World War I veteran who was carrying an army-issue revolver. "Nigger", the white man said, "What are you doing with that pistol?" "I'm going to use it if I need to," replied the black veteran. "No, you give it to me." Like hell I will." The white man tried to take the gun away from the veteran, and a shot rang out.¹⁰⁶ America's worst race riot had begun.

While the first shot fired at the courthouse may have been unintentional, those that followed were not. Almost immediately, members of the white mob -- and possibly some law enforcement officers -- opened fire on the African American men, who returned volleys of their own. The initial gunplay lasted only a few seconds, but when it was over, an unknown number of people -- perhaps as many as a dozen -- both black and white, lay - dead or wounded.¹⁰⁷

Outnumbered more than twenty-to-one, the black men began a retreating fight toward the African American district. With armed whites in close pursuit, heavy gunfire erupted again along Fourth Street, two blocks north of the courthouse.¹⁰⁸

Dr. George H. Miller, a white physician who was working late that evening in his office at the Unity Building at 21 W. Fourth Street, rushed outside after hearing the gunshots, only to come upon a wounded black man, "shot and bleeding, writhing on the street," surrounded by a group of angry whites. As Dr. Miller later told an interviewer:

I went over to see if I could help him as a doctor, but the crowd was gathering around him and wouldn't even let the driver of the ambulance which just arrived to even pick him up. I saw it was an impossible situation to control, that I could be of no help. The crowd was getting more and more belligerent. The Negro had been shot so many times in his chest, and men from the onlookers were slashing him with knives.

Unable to help the dying man, Dr. Miller got into his car and drove home.¹⁰⁹

A short while later, a second , deadlier, skirmish broke out at Second and Cincinnati. No longer directly involved with the fate of Dick Rowland, the beleaguered second contingent of African American men were now fighting for their own lives. Heavily outnumbered by the whites, and suffering some casualties along the way, most were apparently able, however, to make it safely across the Frisco railroad tracks, and into the more familiar environs of the African American community.¹¹⁰

At the courthouse, the sudden and unexpected turn of events had a jolting effect on the would-be lynch mob, and groups of angry, vengeance-seeking whites soon took the streets and sidewalks of downtown. "A great many of these persons lining the sidewalks," one white eyewitness later recalled, "were holding a rifle or shotgun in one hand, and grasping the neck of a liquor bottle with the other. Some had pistols stuck into their belts."¹¹¹

Some were about to become, at least temporarily, officers of the law. Shortly after the fighting had broken out at the courthouse, a large number of whites - many of whom had only a little while earlier been members of the would-be lynch mob -- gathered outside of police headquarters on Second Street. There, perhaps as many as five-hundred white men and boys were sworn-in by police officers as "Special Deputies." Some were provided with badges or ribbons indicating their new status. Many, it appears, also were given specific instructions. According to Laurel G. Buck, a white bricklayer who was sworn-in as one of these 'Special Deputies", a police officer bluntly told him to "Get a gun and get a nigger."¹¹²

Shortly thereafter, whites began breaking into downtown sporting goods stores, pawnshops, and hardware stores, stealing -- or "borrowing" as some would later claim -- guns and ammunition. Dick Bardon's store on First Street was particularly hard hit as well as the J.W. MeGee Sporting Goods shop at 22 W. Second Street, even though it was located literally across the street from police headquarters. The owner later testified that a Tulsa police officer helped to dole out the guns that were taken from his store.¹¹³

More bloodshed soon followed, as whites began gunning down any African Americans that they discovered downtown. William R. Holway, a white engineer, was watching a movie at the Rialto Theater when someone ran into the theater, shouting "Nigger fight, nigger fight". As Holway later recalled:

Everybody left that theater on high, you know. We went out the door and looked across the street, and there was Younkman's drug store with those big pillars. There were two big pillars at the entrance, and we got over behind them. Just got there when a Negro ran south of the alley across the street, the minute his head showed outside, somebody shot him.

"We stood there for about half-an-hour watching," Holway added, "which I shall never forget. He wasn't quite dead, but he was about to die. He was the first man that I saw shot in that riot."¹¹⁴

Not far away, at the Royal Theater - that was showing a movie called "One Man in a Million" that evening -- a similar drama played itself out. Among the onlookers was a white teenager named William "Choc" Phillips, who later became a well-known Tulsa police officer. As described by Phillips in his unpublished memoir of the riot:

The mob action was set off when several [white] men chased a Negro man down the alley in back of the theater and out onto Fourth Street where be saw the stage door and dashed inside. Seeing the open door the Negro rushed in and hurried forward in the darkness hunting a place to hide.

Suddenly he was on the stage in front of the picture screen and blinded by the bright flickering light coming down from the operator's booth in the balcony. After shielding his eyes for a moment he regained his vision enough to locate the steps leading from the stage down past the orchestra pit to the aisle just as the pursuing men rushed the stage. One of them saw the Negro and yelled, "there he is, heading for the aisle". As he finished the sentence, a roaring blast from a shotgun dropped the Negro man by the end of the orchestra pit.¹¹⁵

Not all of the victims of the violence that broke out downtown were white. Evidence suggests that after the fighting broke out at the courthouse, carloads of black Tulsans may have exchanged gunfire with whites on streets downtown, possibly resulting in casualties on both sides. At least one white man in an automobile was killed by a group of whites, who had mistaken him to be black.¹¹⁶

Around midnight, a small crowd of whites gathered -- once again -- outside of the courthouse, yelling "Bring the rope" and "Get the nigger". But they did not rush the building, and nothing happened.¹¹⁷ Because the truth of the matter was that, by then, most of Tulsa's rioting whites no longer particularly cared about Dick Rowland anymore. They now had much bigger things in mind.

While darkness slowed the pace of the riot, sporadic fighting took place throughout the nighttime hours of May 31 and June 1. The heaviest occurred alongside the Frisco railroad tracks, one of the key dividing lines between Tulsa's black and white commercial districts. From approximately midnight until around 1:30 a.m., scores of blacks and whites exchanged gunfire across the Frisco yards. At one point during the fighting, an inbound train reportedly arrived, its passengers forced to take cover on the floor as the shooting continued, raking both sides of the train.¹¹⁸

A few carloads of whites also made brief excursions into the African American district, firing indiscriminately into houses as they roared up and down streets lined with black residences. there were deliberate murders as well.¹¹⁹ As Walter White, who visited Tulsa immediately after the riot, later reported:

Many are the stories of horror told to me - not by colored people - but by white residents. One was that of an aged colored couple, saying their evening prayers before retiring in their little home on Greenwood Avenue. A mob broke into the house, shot both of the old people in the backs of their heads, blowing their brains out and spattering them over the bed, pillaged the home, and then set fire to it.¹²⁰

It appears that the first fires set by whites in black neighborhoods began at about 1:00 a.m. African American homes and businesses along Archer were the earliest targets, and when an engine crew from the Tulsa Fire Department arrived and prepared to douse the flames, white rioters forced the firemen away at gunpoint. By 4:00 a.m., more than two-dozen black-owned businesses, including the Midway Hotel, had been torched.¹²¹

The nighttime hours of May 31 and June 1 also witnessed the first organized actions taken by the Tulsa units of the National Guard. While evidence indicates that Sheriff McCullough may have requested local guard officers that they send men down to the courthouse at around 9:30 p.m.,¹²² it was not until more than an hour later -- about the time that the fighting broke out at the courthouse - that the local National Guard units were specifically ordered to take action with regards to the riot. According to the after action report later submitted by Major James Bell to local National Guard commander Lieutenant Colonel L.J.F. Rooney:

About 10:30 o'clock, I think it was, I had a call from the Adjt. General asking about the situation. I explained that it looked pretty bad. He directed that we continue to use every effort to get the men in so that if a call came we would be ready. I think it was only a few minutes after this, another call from the Adjt. General directed that "B" Co., the Sanitary Det. and the Service Co. be mobilized at once and render any assistance to the civil authorities we could in the maintenance of law and order and the protection of life and property. I think this was about 10:40 o'clock and while talking to the General you appeared and assume command.¹²³

At approximately 11:00 p.m., perhaps as many as fifty local National Guardsmen -- nearly all of whom had been contacted at their homes -- had gathered at the armory on Sixth Street. Some were World War I veterans. It is unclear whether any of the men had been trained in riot control. Although various official and unofficial manuals were available in 1921 on the use of National Guard soldiers during riots, it is uncertain whether the Tulsa units had received any training in this area.¹²⁴

Another interesting aspect regarding the guardsmen who gathered at the armory exists. Not only were the Tulsa units of the National Guard exclusively white, but as the evening wore on, it became increasingly clear that they would not play an impartial role in the "maintenance of law and order." Like many of their white neighbors, a number of the local guardsmen also came to conclude that the race riot was, in fact, a "Negro uprising," a term used throughout their various after action reports. At least one National Guard officer went even further, using the term "enemy" in reference to African Americans. Given the tenor of the times, it is hardly surprising that Tulsa's all-white National Guard might view black Tulsans antagonistically. As the riot continued to unfold, this also would prove to be far from irrelevant.¹²⁵

Initially, the local guardsmen were deployed downtown. Sometime before midnight, one detachment was stationed in front of police headquarters, where they blocked off Second Street. Guardsmen also led groups of armed whites on "patrols" of downtown streets, an activity that was later taken over by members of the -- similarly all-white -- local chapter of the American Legion. Tulsa police officials also presented the guardsmen with a machine gun, which guard officers then had mounted on the back of a truck. This particular gun, possibly a war trophy, it turned out, was in poor operating condition, and could only be fired one shell at a time.¹²⁶

Taking the machine gun along with them, about thirty guardsmen then headed north, and positioned themselves along Detroit Avenue between Brady Street and Standpipe Hill, along one of the borders separating the city's white and black neighborhoods. Their deployment was far from impartial, for the "skirmish line" that the National Guard officers established was set-up facing - or soon would be -- the African American district. Moreover, the guardsmen also began rounding up black Tulsans, whom they handed over -- as prisoners -- to the police, and they also briefly exchanged fire with gunmen to the east. Far from being utilized as a neutral force, Tulsa's local National Guard unit along Detroit Avenue were, even in the early hours of the riot, being deployed in a manner which would eventually set them in opposition to the black community.¹²⁷

In Tulsa's black neighborhoods, meanwhile, word of what had happened at the courthouse was soon followed by even more disturbing news. A light-complexioned African American man, who could "pass" for white, had mingled with the crowds of angry whites downtown, where he overheard talk of invading the African American district. Carefully making his way back home, the man then related what he had heard to Seymour Williams, a teacher at Booker T. Washington High School. Williams, who had served with the army in France, grabbed his service revolver and began to spread the news among his neighbors living just off of Standpipe Hill.¹²⁸

All along the southern edge of Greenwood, in fact, a great amount of activity was in progress. Alerted to the news of the violence that had broken out downtown, garage and theater owner John Wesley Williams wasted no time in preparing for the possibility of even greater trouble. Loading his 30-30 rifle and a repeating shotgun, he positioned himself along a south-facing window of his family's second floor apartment at the corner of Greenwood and Archer. Later telling his son that he was "defending Greenwood," he was one of scores of other African American residents who were preparing to do exactly the same.¹²⁹

Other black Tulsans, however, reached a different conclusion on what was the best course of action. Despite the fact that many of the city's African American residents undoubtedly hoped that daylight would bring an end to the violence, others decided not to wait and find out. In the early hours of June 1, a steady stream of black Tulsans began to leave the city, hoping to find safety in the surrounding countryside. "Early in the evening when there was first talk of trouble," Irene Scofield later told the Black Dispatch, "I and about forty others started out of the town and walked to a little town about fifteen miles away." Others joining the exodus, however, were not as fortunate. Billy Hudson, an African American laborer who lived on Archer, hitched up his wagon as conditions grew worse, and set out -- with his grandchildren by his side - for Nowata. He was killed by whites along the way.¹³⁰

Adding to the confusion over what to do was the simple reality that, for most black Tulsans, it was by no means clear as to what, exactly, was going on throughout the city. This was particularly the case during the early hours of June 1. Intermittent gunfire continued along the southernmost edges of the African American district throughout the night, while down along Archer Street, the fires had not yet burned themselves out. Yet, as far as anyone could determine, Dick Rowland was still safe inside the courthouse. There had been no lynching.

At approximately 2:00 a.m., the fierce fighting along the Frisco railroad yards had ended. The white would-be invaders still south of the tracks. As a result, some of Greenwood's defenders not only concluded that they had "won" the fight, but also that the riot was over. "Nine p.m. the trouble started," A.J. Smitherman later wrote, "two a.m. the thing was done."¹³¹

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Regardless of whatever was, or was not, happening down by the Frisco tracks, crowds of angry, armed whites were still very much in evidence on the streets and sidewalks of downtown Tulsa. Stunned, and then outraged, by what had occurred at the courthouse, they had only begun to vent their anger.

Like black Tulsans, whites were not exactly certain as to what exactly was happening in the city, a situation that was, not surprisingly, tailor-made for rumors. Indeed, at about 2:30 a.m., the word spread quickly across downtown that a train carrying five- hundred armed blacks from Muskogee was due to arrive shortly at the Midland Valley Railway passenger station off Third Street. Scores of armed whites including a National Guard patrol rushed to the depot, but nothing happened. There was no such train.¹³²

Approximately 30 minutes later, reports reached the local National Guard officers that African American gunman were firing on white residences on Sunset Hill, north of Standpipe Hill. Moreover, it was said that a white woman had been shot and killed. Responding to the news, guardsmen including the crew manning the semi-defective machine gun were deployed along Sunset Hill, an area that overlooked black homes to the east.¹³³

In other white neighborhoods across Tulsa, a different kind of activity was taking place, particularly during the first hours following midnight. As word of what some would later call the "Negro uprising" began to spread across the white community, groups of armed whites began to gather at hastily-arranged meeting places, to discuss what to do next.¹³⁴

For "Choc" Phillips and his other young companions, word of this activity came while they were sitting in an all-night restaurant. "Everybody", they were told, "go to Fifteenth and Boulder". Phillips wrote:

Many people were drifting out of the restaurant so we decided to go along and see what happened at the meeting place. Driving south on Boulder we realized that many trucks and automobiles were headed for the same location, and near Fifteenth Street people had abandoned their vehicles because the streets and intersections were filled to capacity. We left the car more than a block away and began walking toward the crowded intersection. There were already three or four hundred people there and more arriving when we walked up.

Once there, a man stood up on top of a touring car and announced, "We have decided to go out to Second and Lewis Streets and join the crowd that is meeting there."¹³⁵

Returning to their automobiles, Phillips and his companions blended in with the long line of cars headed east. He later estimated, the crowd that had gathered was about six-hundred strong. Once again, men stood up on top of cars and began shouting instructions to the crowd. "Men," once man announced, "we are going in at daylight." Another man declared that they would be having, right then and there, an ammunition exchange. "If any of you have more ammunition than you need, or if what you have doesn't fit your gun, sing out," he said. "Be ready at daybreak," another man insisted, claiming that meetings like this were taking place all over town. "Nothing can stop us," he added, "for there will be thousands of others going in at the same time."¹³⁶

The Tulsa police also appear to have been scattered all over town. No doubt responding to rumors that armed blacks were supposedly en route to Tulsa from various towns across eastern Oklahoma, Tulsa police officers had been dispatched to guard various roads leading into the city. Indeed, no less than a half-dozen officers that by Chief Gustafson's subsequent calculations, was nearly one-fifth of the regularly scheduled available police force that evening, had apparently been posted at the ice plant overlooking the Eleventh Street bridge. Some local guardsmen also were deployed to stand guard at various public works as well including the city water works along the Sand Springs road, and the Public Service Company's power plant off First Street.¹³⁷

Word of what was happening in Tulsa was also making its way to state officials in Oklahoma City. At 10:14 p.m., Adjutant General Charles F. Barrett, the commandant of the Oklahoma National Guard, had received a long distance telephone call from Major Byron Kirkpatrick, a Tulsa guard officer, advising him of the worsening conditions in Tulsa. Kirkpatrick phoned again at 12:35 a.m. At that point he was instructed by Governor J.B.A. Robertson to prepare and send a signed telegram, as required by Oklahoma state law, by the chief of police, the county sheriff, and a local judge, requesting that state troops be sent to Tulsa. Kirkpatrick, however, ran into some problems as he tried to collect the necessary signatures, particularly that of Sheriff McCullough, who was still barricaded with his men and Dick Rowland on the top floor of the courthouse. However, Kirkpatrick persevered, and at 1:46 a.m., the needed telegram arrived at the state capital.¹³⁸ It read:

Govemor J.B.A. Robertson Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Race riot developed here. Several killed. Unable handle situation. Request that National Guard forces be sent by special train. Situation serious.

Twenty-nine minutes later, at 2:15 a.m., Major Kirkpatrick spoke again by phone with Adjutant General Barrett, who informed him that the governor had authorized the calling out of the state troops. A special train, carrying approximately one-hundred National Guard soldiers would leave Oklahoma City, bound for Tulsa, at 5:00 a.m. that morning.¹⁴⁰

Tulsa's longest night would finally be ending, but its longest day would have only begun.

In the pre-dawn hours of June l, thousands of armed whites had gathered in three main clusters along the northern fringes of downtown, opposite Greenwood. One group had assembled behind the Frisco freight depot, while another waited nearby at the Frisco and Santa Fe passenger station. Four blocks to the north, a third crowd was clustered at the Katy passenger depot. While it is unclear how many people were in each group, some contemporary observers estimated the total number of armed whites who had gathered as high as five or ten thousand.¹⁴¹

Smaller bands of whites also had been active. One group hauled a machine gun to the top of the Middle States Milling Company's grain elevator off of First Street, and set it up to fire to the north of Greenwood Avenue.¹⁴² Shortly before daybreak, five white men in a green Franklin automobile pulled up alongside the crowd of whites who were massed behind the Frisco freight depot. "What the hell are you waitin' on?," one of the men hollered, "let's go get 'em." But the crowd would not budge, and the men in the car set off alone toward Deep Greenwood. Their bodies, and the bullet-ridden Franklin, were later seen in the middle of Archer Street, near Frankfort.¹⁴³

Across the tracks in Greenwood, considerable activity also had been taking place. While some black Tulsans prepared themselves to face the onslaught, others decided that it was time to go. "About this time officers Pack and Lewis pushed up to us and said it would not be safe for us to remain any longer," recalled Mrs. Dimple Bush, who was with her husband at the Red Wing Hotel. "So," she added, "We rushed out and found a taxi which took us straight north on Greenwood."¹⁴⁴

Not far away, along North Elgin, Julia Duff, a teacher at Booker T. Washington High School, faced a similar crisis. Awakened by loud voices outside of her rented room shortly before dawn, the young teacher was soon nearly overcome with fear. As later described in a letter published in the Chicago Defender:

Mrs. S. came into her room and told her to dress-there was something wrong for soldiers were all around, and she looked out the window and saw them driving the men out of the houses on Detroit. Saw Mr. Woods running with both hands in the air and their 3-month-old baby in one hand and three brutes behind him with guns.

"She said her legs gave way from under her," the letter continued, "and she had to crawl about the room, taking things from her closet, putting them in her trunk, for she thought if anything happened she'd have her trunk packed, and before she got everything in they heard footsteps on their steps and there were six out there and they ordered Mr. Smart to march, hands up, out of the house.¹⁴⁵

Several eyewitnesses later recalled that when dawn came at 5:08 a.m. that morning, an unusual whistle or siren sounded, perhaps as a signal for the mass assault on Greenwood to begin. Although the source of this whistle or siren is still unknown, moments later, the white mobs made their move. While the machine gun in the grain elevator opened fire, crowds of armed whites poured across the Frisco tracks, headed straight for the African American commercial district.¹⁴⁶ As later described by one eyewitness:

With wild frenzied shouts, men began pouring from behind the freight depot and the long string of boxcars and evidently from behind the piles of oil well easing which was at the other end and on the north side of the building. From every place of shelter up and down the tracks came screaming, shouting men to join in the rush toward the Negro section. Mingled with the shouting were a few rebel-yells and Indian gobblings as the great wave of humanity rushed forward totally absorbed in thoughts of destruction.¹⁴⁷

Meanwhile, over at the Katy depot, the other crowd of armed whites also moved forward. Heading east, they were soon joined by dozens of others in automobiles, driving along Brady and Cameron Streets. As one unidentified observer later told reporter Mary Parrish, "Tuesday night, May 31, was the riot, and Wednesday morning, by daybreak, was the invasion."¹⁴⁸

While black Tulsans fought hard to protect their homes and businesses, the sheer numerical advantage of the invading whites soon proved to be overwhelming. After a valiant, night long effort, John Wesley Williams had to flee from his family's apartment once whites began to riddle the building with gunfire. Squeezing off a few final rounds a little further up Greenwood Avenue, Williams then faced the inevitable, and began walking north along the Midland Valley tracks, leaving his home and businesses behind.¹⁴⁹

He was hardly alone. Not far away, in her apartment in the Woods Building at 105 N. Greenwood, Mary E. Jones Parrish and her young daughter Florence Mary had sat up much of the night, uncertain of what to do. "Finally," she later wrote,

My friend, Mrs. Jones, called her husband, who was trying to take a little rest. They decided to try to make for a place of safety, so called to me that they were leaving. By this time the enemy was close upon us, so they ran out of the south door, which led out onto Archer Street, and went east toward Lansing. I took my little girl, Florence Mary, by the hand and fled out of the west door on Greenwood. I did not take time to get a hat for myself or Baby, but started out north on Greenwood, running amidst showers of bullets from the machine gun located in the granary and from men who were quickly surrounding our district. Seeing that they were fighting at a disadvantage, our men had taken shelter in the buildings and in other places out of sight of the enemy. When my daughter, Florence Mary, and I ran into the street, it was vacant for a block or more. Someone called to me to "Get out of the street with that child or you both will be killed." I felt that it was suicide to remain in the building, for it would surely be destroyed and death in the street was preferred, for we expected to be shot down at any moment. So we placed our trust in God, our Heavenly Father, who seeth and knoweth all things, and ran out of Greenwood in the hope of reaching a friend's home who lived over the Standpipe Hill in Greenwood Addition.¹⁵⁰

For Dimple Bush, the flight from Greenwood had bordered upon the indescribable. "It was just dawn; the machine guns were sweeping the valley with their murderous fire and my heart was filled with dread as we sped along,," she recalled, "Old women and men, children were running and screaming everywhere."¹⁵¹

Soon, however, new perils developed. As the mobs of armed whites rushed into the southern end of the African American district, airplanes -- manned by whites -- also appeared overhead. As Dr. R.T. Bridgewater, a well-respected black Tulsa physician, later described what happened:

Shortly after we left a whistle blew. The shots rang from a machine gun located on Standpipe Hill near my residence and aeroplanes began to fly over us, in some instances very low to the ground. A cry was heard from the women saying, "Look out for the aeroplanes, they are shooting upon us."¹⁵²

Numerous other eyewitnesses --both black and white -- confirm the presence of an unknown number of airplanes flying over Greenwood during the early daylight hours of June 1. While certain other assertions made over the years such as that the planes dropped streams of "liquid fire" on top of African American homes and businesses appear to have been technologically improbable, particularly during the early 1920s, there is little doubt but that some of the occupants of the airplanes fired upon black Tulsans with pistols and rifles. Moreover, there is evidence, to suggest that men in at least one airplane dropped some form of explosives, probably sticks of dynamite, upon a group of African American refugees as they were fleeing the city.¹⁵³

Gunfire soon erupted along the western boundary of the black community. Sharp fighting broke out along Standpipe Hill, where the local guardsmen positioned there traded fire with armed African Americans, who had set up defensive lines off Elgin and Elgin Place. Nearby, on Sunset Hill, the white guardsmen opened fire on the black neighborhood to the east, using both their standard issue thirty-caliber 1906 Springfield rifles as well as the semi-defective machine gun provided to them by the Tulsa police.¹⁵⁴

As the waves of white rioters descended upon the African American district, a deadly pattern soon emerged. First, the armed whites broke into the black homes and businesses, forcing the occupants out into the street, where they were led away at gunpoint to one of a growing number of internment centers. Anyone who resisted was shot. Moreover, African American men in homes where firearms were discovered met the same fate. Next, the whites looted the homes and businesses, pocketing small items, and hauling away larger items either on foot or by car or truck. Finally, the white rioters then set the homes and other buildings on fire, using torches and oil-soaked rags. House by house, block by block, the wall of flame crept northward, engulfing the city's black neighborhoods.¹⁵⁵

Atrocities occurred along the way. According to one account, published ten days after the riot in a Chicago newspaper,

Another cruel instance was when they [white rioters] went to the home of an old couple and the old man, 80 years old, was paralyzed and sat in a chair and they told him to march and he told them he was crippled, but he'd go if someone would take him, and they told his wife (old, too) to go, but she didn't want to leave him, and he told her to go on anyway. As she left one of the damn dogs shot the old man and then they fired the house.¹⁵⁶

There were near-atrocities as well. After armed whites had led his mother away at gunpoint, five-year-old George Monroe was hiding beneath his parents' bed with his two older sisters and his one older brother when white men suddenly entered the room. After rifling through the dresser, the men set the curtains on fire. As the men began to leave, one of them stepped on George's hand. George started to cry out, but his sister Lottie threw her hand over his mouth, preventing their discovery. A few minutes later, the children were able to escape from their home before it burst into flame.¹⁵⁷

Some of the fires in Greenwood appear to have been set by whites wearing khaki uniforms. The actual identity of these men remains unclear. Most likely, they were World War I veterans who had donned their old army uniforms when the riot erupted, rather than an officially organized group.¹⁵⁹

They were not, however, the only uniformed whites observed setting fires in Tulsa's African American neighborhoods. According to black Deputy Sheriff V.B. Bostic, a white Tulsa police officer "drove him and his wife from his home,"' and then "poured oil on the floor and set a lighted match to it."¹⁵⁹

Deputy Sheriff Bostic was not, however, the only eyewitness to report acts of criminal misconduct by Tulsa police officers during the course of the riot. According to one white eyewitness, a "uniformed [white] policeman on East Second Street went home, changed his uniform to plainclothes, and went to the Negro district and led a bunch of whites into Negro, houses, some of the bunch pilfering, never offered to protect men, women or children, or property." This particular account was buttressed by the testimony of an African American witness, who reported that he had seen the same officer in question "on the morning of the riot, June 1, kicking in doors of Negro homes, and assisting in the destruction of property."¹⁶⁰

Despite the daunting odds against them, black Tulsans valiantly fought back. African American riflemen had positioned themselves in the belfry of the newly-built Mount Zion Baptist Church, whose commanding view of the area just below Standpipe Hill allowed them to temporarily stem the tide of the white invasion. When white rioters set up a machine gun-probably the same weapon that had been used earlier that morning at the grain elevator, and unleashed its deadly fire on the church belfry, the black defenders were quickly overwhelmed. As "Choc" Phillips later described what happened:

In a couple of minutes pieces of brick started falling, then whole bricks began tumbling from the narrow slits in the cupola. Within five or six minutes the openings were large jagged holes with so many bricks flying from that side of the cupola wall that it seemed ready to fall.

The men stopped firing the machine gun and almost immediately the houses on the outer rim of the area that had been protected by the snipers, became victims of the arsonists. We watched the men take the machine gun from the tripod, wrap it in a canvas cover then lay it on the bed of the truck. They rolled up the belts with the empty shell casings, put away those that were still unused, and in what seemed less than ten minutes from the time the truck was parked at the location, drove away.

While standing on the high ground where the machine gun had been firing, we watched the activity below for a few minutes. Most of the houses were beginning to burn and smoke ascended slowly in to the air while people flitted around as busy as bees down there. From the number that ran in and out of the houses and the church, there had evidently been a couple of hundred who remained behind when the mob bypassed the area.

A short while later, Mount Zion was torched.¹⁶¹

Attempts by black Tulsans to defend their homes and property were undercut by the actions of both the Tulsa police and the local National Guard units, who, rather than focus on disarming and arresting the white rioters, took steps that led to the eventual imprisonment of practically all of the city's African American citizens. Guardsmen deployed on Standpipe Hill made at least one eastward march in the early hours of June 1, rounding up African Americans along the way, before they were fired upon, apparently by whites as well as blacks, near Greenwood Avenue. The guardsmen then marched to Sunset Hill, where they handed over their black prisoners to local police officers.¹⁶²

An arrest by a white officer was not a guarantee of safety for black Tulsans. According to Thomas Higgins, a white resident of Wichita, Kansas who happened to be visiting Tulsa when the riot broke out, "I saw men of my own race, sworn officers, on three occasions search Negroes while their hands were up, and not finding weapons, extracted what money they found on them. If the Negro protested, he was shot."¹⁶³

White civilians also took black prisoners. When the invasion began, Carrie Kinlaw, an African American woman who lived out toward the Section Line, had to run toward the fighting in order to help her sisters retrieve their invalid mother. Reaching the elderly woman in a "rain of bullets", Kinlaw later wrote:

My sisters and I gathered her up, placed her on a cot, and three of us carried the cot and the other one carried a bundle of clothes; thus we carried Mother about six blocks, with bullets falling on all sides. About six squads of rioters overtook us, asked for men and guns, made us hold up our hands.

Not all of her captors, however, were adults. "There were boys in that bunch," she added, "from about 10 years upward, all armed with guns."¹⁶⁴

Black Tulsans also faced dangers while in the custody of white civilians. James T. West a teacher at Booker T. Washington High School, was arrested by whites at his home on Easton Street that morning. "Some men appeared with drawn guns and ordered all of the men out of the house," he recalled immediately after the riot,

I went out immediately. They ordered me to raise my hands, after which three or four men searched me. They told me to line up in the street. I requested them to let me get my hat and best shoes, but they refused and abusively ordered me to line up. They refused to let one of the men put on any kind of shoes. After lining up some 30 or 40 of us men, they ran us through the streets to Convention Hall, forcing us to keep our hands in the air all the while. While we were running, some of the ruffians would shoot at our heels and swore at those who had difficulty keeping up. They actually drove a car into the bunch and knocked down two or three men.¹⁶⁵

Harold M. Parker, a white bookkeeper for the Oklahoma Producing and Refining Corporation at the time of the riot, later corroborated how armed whites sometimes shot at the heels of their black prisoners. "Sometimes they missed and shot their legs," Parker recalled a half century later, "It was sheer cruelty coming out."¹⁶⁶

The most infamous incident involving white civilians imprisoning African Americans was that which concerned Dr. A.C. Jackson, Tulsa's noted black surgeon. Despite the increasing gunfire, Dr. Jackson had decided to remain inside of his handsome home at 523 N. Detroit, along the shoulder of Standpipe Hill. But when a group of armed whites arrived on his front lawn, Jackson apparently walked out the side door of his home with his hands up, saying, "Here I am boys, don't shoot."¹⁶⁷ What happened next was later recounted by John A. Oliphant, a white attorney who lived nearby, in testimony he provided after the riot:

Q. About what time in the morning did you say it was Dr. Jackson was shot?

A. Right close to eight o'clock, between seven thirty and eight o'clock.

Q. Dr. Jackson was a Negro?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And he was coming toward you and these other men at the time he was shot?

A. Yes, Sir, coming right between his house, right in his yard between his home and the house below him.

Q. What did these men say at the time he was shot?

A. They didn't say anything but they pulled down on him; I kept begging him not to shoot him, I held him a good bit and I thought he wouldn't shoot but he shot him twice and the other fellow on the other side-and he fell-shot him and broke his leg.

Q. One man shot him twice?

A. Yes, sir, this is my recollection now.

Q. Then another one shot him through the leg?

A. Yes, I didn't look at that fellow.

Q. These same men that shot him carried him to the hospital?

A. No, they didn't.

Q. What did they do?

A. I have never seen them after that, I don't know a thing about what became of them.

Dr. Jackson died of his wounds later that day.¹⁶⁸

Not all black Tulsans, however, countenanced surrender. In the final burst of fighting off of Standpipe Hill that morning, a deadly firefight erupted at the site of an old clay pit, where several African American defenders were said to have gone to their deaths fighting off the white invaders. Stories also have been passed down over the years regarding the exploits of Peg Leg Taylor, a legendary black defender who is said to have singlehandedly fought off more than a dozen white rioters. Along the northern face of Sunset Hill, the white guardsmen posted there found themselves, at least for a while, under attack.¹⁶⁹

Black Tulsa, it was clear, was not going without a fight.

Despite their gallant effort, however, Tulsa's African American minority was simply outgunned and outnumbered. As the white mobs continued to move northward, into the heart of the black residential district, some of the worst violence of the riot appears to have taken place. "Negro men, women and children were killed in great numbers as they ran, trying to flee to safety," one unidentified informant later told Mary E. Parrish, ". . . the most horrible scenes of this occurrence was to see women dragging their children while running to safety, and the dirty white rascals firing at them as they ran."¹⁷⁰

In the wake of the invasion came a wall of flame, steadily moving northward. "Is the whole world on fire?" asked a young playmate of eight-year-old Kinney Booker, who was fleeing with his family from their home on North Frankfort. Not far away, a fiery horror was underway. As later recounted by Walter White in The Nation magazine:

One story was told to me by an eyewitness of five colored men trapped in a burning house. Four burned to death. A fifth attempted to flee, was shot to death as he emerged from the burning structure, and his body was thrown back into the flames.

Humans, however, were not the only victims of the conflagration. More that a few black Tulsans kept pigs and chickens in their backyards in those days. The too perished in the flames, as did some dogs and other family pets.¹⁷¹

Efforts made by the Tulsa Fire Department to halt the burning were of little effect. The earliest attempts by firemen to put out fires in the African American district were halted, at gunpoint, by crowds of white rioters. Thereafter, what efforts that were made appear to have been directed towards keeping the flames away from nearby white neighborhoods. This may also have played a role in how another new black church, the First Baptist Church located at Archer and Jackson, was spared. "Yonder is a nigger church, why ain't they burning it?" a white woman allegedly asked on the morning of June 1. Because, she was told, "It's in a white district."¹⁷²

As the morning wore on, and the fighting moved northward across Greenwood, there was a startling new development. On the heels of their brief gun battle with African American riflemen to their north, the guardsmen who were positioned along the crest of Sunset Hill then joined in the invasion of black Tulsa, with one detachment heading north, the other to the northeast. As later described by Captain John W. McCuen in the after action report he submitted to the commander of Tulsa's National Guard units:

We advanced to the crest of Sunset Hill in skirmish line and then a little further north to the military crest of the hill where our men were ordered to lie down because of the intense fire of the blacks who had formed a good skirmish line at the foot of the hill to the northeast among the out-buildings of the Negro settlement which stops at the foot of the hill. After about 20 minutes "fire at will" at the armed groups of blacks the latter began falling back to the northeast, thus getting good cover among the frame buildings of the Negro settlement. Immediately we moved forward, "B" Company advancing directly north and the Service company in a north-easterly direction.¹⁷³

More remarkable, the guardsmen came upon a group of African Americans barricaded inside a store, who were attempting to hold off a mob of armed white rioter's. Rather than attempt to get the white invaders and the black defenders to disengage, the guardsmen joined in on the attack. Again, as described by Captain McCuen:

At the northeast corner of the Negro settlement 10 or more Negroes barricaded themselves in a concrete store and dwelling and a stiff fight ensued between these Negroes on one side and guardsmen and civilians on the other. Several whites and blacks were wounded and killed at this point. We captured, arrested and disarmed a great many Negro men in this settlement and then sent them under guard to the convention hall and other points where they were being concentrated.¹⁷⁴

No longer remotely impartial, the men of "B" Company, Third Infantry, Oklahoma National Guard, had now joined in on the assault on black Tulsa.

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