User:Joe M Cavanagh/sandbox

= Dick Rowland = Dick Rowland (born James “Jimmie” Jones; 1902-?) was an African American shoe shiner in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On May 31, 1921, Rowland, 19, was arrested for the suspected assault of Sarah Page, a 17 year old elevator operator at the Drexel Building. While Rowland was never prosecuted, his arrest and defamation in the Tulsa media are believed to be the impetus for the Tulsa Race Massacre which began later that same day.

= Early Life = The place and exact date of Rowland’s birth are unknown, however it is reported that the year of his birth was likely 1902, and by 1908 he and his two sisters were orphans living in Vinita, Oklahoma. Rowland’s birth name was James “Jimmie” Jones. This claim is made by his adopted mother and is corroborated by Booker T. Washington High School’s 1921 yearbook which shows Jones in multiple photos, including a class photo, basketball team photo, and football team photo. At some point in his school years Jones changed his last name to “Roland” to honor his grandparents who adopted him. Later still, he changed his first name to “Dick” out of personal preference. Rowland may have also gone by “John Roland” at one point in his teens, as there was a resident by that name living in Tulsa, in the 1920 census, though this is speculative as the resident was listed as age 16 and Rowland would have likely been age 18 at the time. Furthermore, a reporting error after his arrest changed his name from “Roland” to “Rowland.” The press also published his nickname, “Diamond” though Robert Fairchild Sr., a shoe shiner that worked with Rowland alleges that the media created this name, arguing; “The Tribune called him ‘Diamond Dick.’ Me, or nobody on Greenwood ever heard that name for him before. They invented it. Dick Rowland was poor as me. Neither of us probably ever saw a real diamond.”

He dropped out of high school to take a job shining shoes in a white-owned and white-patronized shine parlor on Main Street in downtown Tulsa. As Tulsa was a segregated city where Jim Crow practices were in effect, black people were not allowed to use toilet facilities used by white people. There was no separate facility for blacks at the shine parlor where Rowland worked and the owner had arranged for black employees to use a segregated "Colored" restroom on the top floor of the nearby Drexel Building at 319 S. Main Street.

Arrest and Violent Disturbances
On the morning of Tuesday, May 31, 1921, Dick Rowland was taken into custody by two Tulsa police officers for the suspected assault of Sarah Page. Detective Henry Charmichael and patrolman Henry C. Pack arrested Rowland on Greenwood avenue and took him to the Tulsa County Courthouse where he was detained in a jail cell on the building’s fourth floor. Yet even as Rowland was being taken into custody, news of the supposed assault had begun to spread throughout Tulsa. An article published by the afternoon edition of the Tulsa Tribune, a local white owned newspaper, gave an inflammatory account of Dick Rowlands encounter with Sarah Page under the headline “Nab Negro For Attacking a Girl in an Elevator,”. The article made the unsubstantiated claim that Rowland had assaulted Page. It also referred to Rowland as “Diamond Dick,” a name fabricated by the Tribune to discredit Rowland. First hand accounts have also said that the Tribune published an op-ed titled “To Lynch a Negro Tonight,” though there is no full copy that day's Tribune to confirm this claim.

Spurred to action by the news of Rowlands arrest, hundreds of white Tulsans began arriving at the courthouse. The mob demanded that Rowland be released into their custody to face vigliante “justice,” however, the sheriff prevented this from happening. Hundreds of whites formed outside the courthouse by 7:30pm. At 9 p.m., 25 armed African American Tulsans arrived at the courthouse and volunteered to help the sheriff protect the courthouse. This was at a time when African Americans were rallying against the violence faced by their communities at the hands of the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacists. The 25 African American men who arrived at the courthouse would have perceived the whites as a would-be lynch mob, and sought to protect Rowland from racially motivated violence. Yet, even as the mob grew to include some 2000 white residents, the sheriff refused their assistance. Upon his refusal, the group returned to the Greenwood neighborhood, yet the white mob remained despite the sheriff’s calls for their dispersal.

Later that same evening, a second group of 75 armed African American men arrived at the courthouse from the Greenwood neighborhood. They once again offered their assistance to the sheriff in order to protect Rowland from the white mob, and they were once again turned away. However, upon attempting to leave the courthouse, a member of the white mob attempted to disarm one of the African American men. In the ensuing skirmish between the two men, a shot was fired. Upon hearing the gunshot both the white mob and the African Americans began shooting at one another, killing members of both groups. While the African Americans eventually retreated back to Greenwood, this firefight signalled the beginning of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Tulsa Race Massacre
During the Tulsa Race Massacre, which lasted from May 31, 1921 until June 1, Dick Rowland remained locked inside the Tulsa County Courthouse. The police took measures to keep Rowland from falling into the hands of the mob, including barricading the fourth floor of the courthouse; disabling it’s elevators; and protecting Rowland with armed guards. After the massacre had begun, Rowland seems to have been forgotten by the white mob. On the morning of Wednesday, June 1, 1921, he remained safely on the fourth floor of the courthouse.

Legacy
Although very little is known about the rest of Rowland’s days, it is believed that, once charges were dropped against him, he headed west to Kansas City, Missouri, and then landed somewhere within the Pacific Northwest. The charges against him were dropped soon after he fled. Damie Ford, his adoptive mother, spoke with interviewer Ruth Avery a few months before her passing, and said that she had met with Rowland once after he fled Tulsa. There is no concrete evidence to support their meeting other than the oral history from Ford. She said that he had gained weight, and left before morning so that he wouldn’t be recognized by others. There is no traceable evidence that links him to states along the PNW, and it is possible that he was never there to begin with.

In 2004, Dr. Lindsay Davidson wrote an opera about the Tulsa Race Massacre from the perspective Dr. Charles William Kerr, who was a pastor of Tulsa’s First Presbyterian Church during the years of 1900-1941. Rowland is briefly mentioned in the beginning, as the first act highlights the lynch mob who was searching for Rowland.