Holocaust in the Homeland Quotes

“He told the mob that he was unarmed and that he wanted to go with them. He believed they were there to take him to safety at Convention Hall. As he walked out onto his front lawn, two men shot him down. While he was lying on the lawn, another man shot him in the leg. He bled to death in tremendous pain,”
― Corinda Pitts Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Riots and lynchings were so prevalent as to go almost unnoticed during the turbulent years following World War I.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“What gives us power over others?” Smitherman leaned forward bringing his face closer to mine. The whites of his eyes seemed to glow. “Money.” “How about laws and governments? Do they empower one class over another?” “Of course.” “And how does that happen? Who makes laws? What are they designed to do?” Smitherman continued.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“People are not colors or religions or Americans or Africans—they are people. Each one has a past. That past may include injustice, injury, loneliness, loss, and regret, and that past will influence actions. Faulkner insisted that “the past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” It never is. It makes us who we are.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Hindsight is always 20/20, but no one in Tulsa had the advantage of hindsight in 1921. We do, however. We don’t have to let events such as this occur ever again.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Dr. A.C. Jackson was a nationally recognized surgeon who was said by the Mayo Clinic to be the best African-American surgeon in the country. Jackson was one of fifteen African-American physicians in Tulsa at the time of the riot. He was only forty years old when he was gunned down outside his Greenwood home as he stood facing the vigilantes with his hands up. He told the mob that he was unarmed and that he wanted to go with them. He believed they were there to take him to safety at Convention Hall. As he walked out onto his front lawn, two men shot him down. While he was lying on the lawn, another man shot him in the leg. He bled to death in tremendous pain, unable to get help from the medical profession he so loved. He was a gentle man who sought only to do good for humanity and was beloved by both black and white associates.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“On reaching the house, I saw my piano and all of my elegant furniture piled in the street. My safe had been broken open, all of the money stolen, also my silverware, cut glass, all of the family clothes, and everything of value had been removed, even my family Bible. My electric light fixtures were broken, all of the window lights and glass in the doors were broken, the dishes that were not stolen were broken, the floors were covered (literally speaking) with glass, even the phone was torn from the wall. (Tulsa Reparations Committee Report)”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“considered lynchings to be a stain upon society. He asked for justice and fairness for all. He was a highly educated attorney and he could see the lawlessness of society in 1920 was tearing society apart. He believed a man was innocent until proven guilty, but often he stood alone.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Smitherman railed about the issue, saying, “There is no crime, however atrocious, that justifies mob violence.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Smitherman survived the holocaust but Dr. Jackson did not. He believed in the goodness of man right up to the moment the shotgun blast knocked him to the ground on his front lawn. He was unarmed with his hands in the air in front of his own home. He had never looked for trouble in his entire life, but it found him.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Gentlemen, we must not allow this to happen if a man of color is accused in this town. Lynchings are occurring all over the country. A mania is spreading like the plague as white men try to come to grips with our presence among them. They fear us, and for good reason. We have more strength than they as we have been forged with the fire of the whip and chains. We must be worthy adversaries and hold our own in this struggle. That is the only way we survive as a race of men. Many among us fought in the war and returned as heroes, but our lighter-skinned counterparts still do not see us as men. Some of our fathers were born into a chained world where men were sold as cattle and herded in even less propitious circumstances into worlds they could not control. We owe it to them to take back our dignity and protect our world today as best we can. We cannot allow one more act of violence and injustice to be perpetrated upon us. We must head off any potential threat by show of force and unity,” Smitherman said.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Sam, if the white citizens of Tulsa would do this to one of their own, what do you think will happen if a Negro man is accused of such crimes?”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“That is where we had to begin. Of course, we could never have secured that right without money. You may look around and see much wealth and perhaps envy the luxury many citizens of Greenwood enjoy, but that wealth did not fall into our pockets and many of us do not flaunt the privilege. But we had to amass this bankroll before we could live like human beings.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Do you understand how many lynchings have taken place over the years? How many human beings have lost their lives, some for infractions as simple as looking at a white woman? The hysteria swirling in this country over the imagined uncontrollable desire Negro men have to bed white women is as pernicious as hemlock. One whiff of it and a man dies. No proof is needed, just the perception.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“It is not my way to remain silent when words or actions are needed. Silence serves no one well. Three years ago an angry mob of white people burned twenty homes of my people. Local law enforcement seemed unwilling to help them, so I went to the statehouse and reported the episode directly to Governor Williams. Consequently thirty-six white men were arrested, including the mayor of the town. This is the kind of thing the NAACP strives to do.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“if I didn’t write articles that some readers don’t take well, I would not call myself a journalist,”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Settle down, boys. You know we can’t do that. He’ll get a trial. We’ll hang him but we gotta go through the motions,” Wooley said, clutching the keys. Suddenly he laid the keys on the desk and continued, “Course, I couldn’t do nothin’ about it if you boys was to overpower me.” His wide grin exposed a gap where someone had most likely knocked out one of his front teeth. The Stetson picked up the keys and said, “Sheb you hold the sheriff’s arms while I take care of business.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“No, man. I shot him because he shoved me. It was self defense. Yeah, that’s what it was. But he shoulda give me the money, too. They ain’t going to convict me cause I was just defending myself. Anyway if that don’t work, I know how to act real crazy,” Belton said then he began to dance around and make monkey sounds.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Greenwood was a close-knit group of perhaps 10,000 citizens. They kept their business quiet and within their own borders so money that came into the town from jobs in the white sector of Tulsa re-circulated only in Greenwood. This practice soon built a group like no other.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Williams was a true entrepreneur and his entire family worked together to create significant wealth.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“I came here in 1906. I had been in Arkansas and sold some land for a nice profit so I thought I’d try my luck here in Oklahoma. I thought maybe I’d manage to buy some land with oil beneath its surface, but it appears that I might have missed the mark on that goal. I bought 40 acres and opened a boarding house since it presented some difficulty for people of color to find lodging in these parts. I could see that many people were arriving here to work in the oil fields and they needed a place to stay, so I figured I might as well provide that service. It was a small property located on a dusty road but it did quite well. Then I ventured out and built three office buildings where doctors, lawyers, dentists, and realtors could set up shop. Later we added barbershops and beauty salons to take care of the tenants. Those ventures proved to be good investments and provided me with the capital to build this hotel. As you can see, we have a rather tame clientele but they pay the bills.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“most merely took advantage of the opportunity to turn hard work into cold cash. Jim Crow laws prevented them from shopping in the white businesses of Tulsa, so entrepreneurs turned this fact into advantage and built their own shops. Money that filtered into Greenwood from workers in white Tulsa stayed in Greenwood. They spent their money with their own. In a relatively short time, many Greenwood residents enjoyed such prosperity that they became known as “Black Wall Street.” They were living the American Dream.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“North of the light-skinned throngs, Greenwood sprang up, almost unnoticed at first. Greenwood was a close-knit community of approximately 10,000 African Americans. Some of them had arrived with the Native Americans at the end of the Trail of Tears, some had travelled to Tulsa to escape discrimination left over from the days of slavery, and still others had come in search of fortune. Many of them found their dreams.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“the mix often bringing the inevitable clash between the desires of the wealthy and the willingness to satiate those desires by those less fortunate. The two sides of the tracks fed each other and fueled the fire.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“the time has come to put the pieces together and try to tell the story that was swept under the rug and kept there for more than half a century. The story was kept so quiet that children born in Tulsa for several decades after were totally unaware that it ever occurred. Even the white population who were proud of their feat when conversing with their peers knew not to disclose the facts to the world, and those who were genuinely ashamed would never have dared tell what they knew. Fortunately, some of them talked to me.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Most of us cried in those days, but more Tulsans than I want to believe strutted around and boasted of winning the war. Their perceived victory brought another plague to Tulsa that ruled for decades before reason brought them to ruin or at least forced them into the shadows. That plague walked on two feet and wore a white hood.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“Human nature wants to blame someone for problems and humans prefer to place blame whenever possible on ones we perceive as enemies, particularly if we don’t know them or we envy them.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days

“They were a significant link in a chain of events that turned into a holocaust in the homeland. Those journalists forgot that while hype sells, truth protects. If truth had prevailed, none of this would have happened, but that would have hurt newspaper sales.”
― Corinda Marsh, Holocaust in the Homeland: Black Wall Street's Last Days