Fact checking myths and misconceptions of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old Black shoe shiner, attempted to enter an elevator at the Drexel Building on South Main Street in Tulsa the day before the massacre. A few moments later, 17-year-old elevator operator Sarah Page screamed.
“We think what happened was that as he walked onto the elevator, he tripped,” said Ellsworth, noting that particulars are still unclear a century later. As Rowland tried to break his fall with his hands, he may have grabbed Sarah Page’s arm. “She was startled so she screamed and he ran out of the elevator and out of the building.”
The police were called but “they didn’t seem to be particularly worried” that a crime had been committed, said Ellsworth, adding it’s doubtful that Rowland attacked Page: The two probably knew each other by sight. Because Rowland and many other Black teenagers worked as shoe shiners or at white-owned and white-patronized businesses, there were no bathroom facilities available to Black employees.
Ellsworth recalled interviewing massacre survivor Robert Fairchild, who worked alongside Rowland as a shoe shiner, in 1978. “He told me that there was no way that Rowland would have ever attacked Sarah Page,” Ellsworth said. Fairchild also debunked the persistent myth that Rowland and Page were romantically involved, said Ellsworth. “He said that that's not true and it wouldn't have happened.
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