Dr. Bridgewater on the Events of the Tulsa Disaster
Dr. R. T. Bridgewater recounts his experiences in the destruction of the Greenwood district of Tulsa Oklahoma, sometimes known as "Black Wall Street"
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Events of the Tulsa Disaster by Mary E. Jones Parrish, 1922.
Tulsa, Okla., June 22, 1921.
Causes: Race prejudices and the national lack of confidence in law enforcement. This lack of confidence in law enforcement causes the Negro to feel that it is necessary to protect himself in most cases of threatened lynching. If the party is a member of our group he is most generally lynched, even though promised the assurance of protection by law, and if of the other group, he is not lynched if given such protection.
The lynchers often not only get the guilty parties but wreak vengeance upon the innocent as well. Hence, the circulation of a report of lynching of members of our group is a signal to get ready for self-defence. It’s like a spark in gasoline, it is generally uncontrolable and does not require leadership to mass its forces. But it often requires cool heads to prevent a conflagration and catastrophe. This was even employed in the Tulsa Riot.
First the report of lynching, the signal to arms, the promise of protection, the rapid spreading of lawlessness, the cooler heads failing to act with sufficient alacrity to prevent the catastrophe.
Shortly after daylight on Wednesday, June 1, 1921, I received a call to come to the hospital to dress two wounded men. I dressed hurriedly and started to the hospital. Just as I opened my front door a shot was fired at me from a nearby hill, the bullet grazed my leg. I shut the door. A few moments later my wife, hearing the shots, slightly opened the door and a second volley was fired. At this time the shots struck the porch. We shut the door and my wife said, ‘‘Doctor, let us go, our lives are worth more than everything.” I sat my cases down in the hall and my wife and niece hurriedly dressed, locked the house and departed.
Shortly after we left a whistle blew. The shots rang from a machine gun located on the Stand Pipe 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.” The shots continued to be fired in rapid succession from high powered guns from the vicinity of the hill. We continued to flee until we were about two miles northeast of the city. There we tarried at the home of a friend. Shortly the fire broke out, the bullets continued to whistle. The fire grew rapidly, we saw it spreading over our entire district south of the hill.
About 10 o’clock men came out in cars and told us the troops had come. Shortly afterwards we saw men dressed as soldiers in automobiles rounding up the people and asking them to go back, that they were safe, and on our return my wife and niece were told to go up Greenwood Street and I was searched and told to go in another direction to Convention Hall, where I was marched with hands up and hat off. I was searched with hands up by two or three different sets of officers. I reached Convention Hall about 10:30. On the way to Convention Hall, possibly thirty minutes after the troops came, there was only one small fire north of the hill, but the next day when I viewed the devastated area, there were hundreds of houses burned after the troops had rounded up the men and taken them to Convention Hall.
I remained at the Convention Hall until I was released and sent with a Red Cross worker and the County Physician to the Morning Side Hospital to assist in treating the wounded in company with the County Physician. I came by my home to see if it was destroyed and to get my medicine cases.
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 clothing, and everything of value had been removed, even my family Bible. My electric light fixtures were broken, all 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. In the basement we gathered two tubs of broken glass from off the floor. My car was stolen and most of my large rugs were taken. I lost seventeen houses that paid me an average of over $425.00 per month.
I worked heroically for the Red Cross and being the Assistant County Physician my work was doubly hard. For the first three days did not stop to clean up my house, save moving my furniture onto the porch. I worked extremely hard for three or four days after the riot, I al- most collapsed. We slept out at the Fair Grounds, the first night without any bed, on the hard floor; spent the next night or two at the schoolhouse, then we came home and slept in the house with the doors broken and the window lights out. In the meantime I was assigned to a sanitarium, where the slightly wounded were treated. I dressed a number of cases without any assistance, in the meantime answering a number of calls out in city for the Red Cross.
About the fourth night after the riot I received a call to go to the Fair Grounds, where a large number of Negro refugees were assembled. My wife being nervous and suffering other infirmities as a result of the Riot, urged me to stay with her as she was seriously sick. I asked to be excused as I had already made two calls that same evening. The next night I was asked to go to the Fair Grounds, not having sufficiently recovered my strength and doing heavy work during the day I asked them to see if they could not get another doctor in my stead, so they found one. I continued to work at this sanitarium for the slightly wounded and also treated cases in the city.
To my surprise, about a week or ten days later I saw statements in the paper that I refused to work with the Red Cross without pay. And the White Medical Association voted to discontinue an allowance of $25.00 per week for the above reason. A day before this, however, I was given the credit of leading a riot two years ago; going up to the police station and demanding to see if a certain prisoner was safe who was threatened to be lynched. Of this occurrence I knew nothing at the time it happened until the next morning and for two years after this said event occurred. Although many were quite familiar with it, my name was never mentioned.
It seems that several things have been said and done to discredit and to kill the influence of the men who have large holdings in this burned district.
By Dr. R. T. Bridgewater, Assistant County Physician.
Parrish, Mary E. Jones. Events of the Tulsa Disaster. Mary E. Jones Parrish, 1922.
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