HAWES ESCAPES

Lannie told me a story that happened some weeks after the tragedy. That’s what Lannie called it. The tragedy, as though it was some kind of sad movie instead of a mob of white people killing Negroes in the streets, burning down our homes and businesses.

Anyway, Lannie and his momma were shopping for groceries in downtown Tulsa because none of the Greenwood shops had reopened yet. Outside the fruit market, Lannie spots a white lady wearing a fur coat and a big rope of pearls.

“Momma, ain’t that your coat?” Lannie asks her. “The one Daddy got you when he sold the lot to the Shell people? And your pearls?”

“Shh,” his momma said. “Never you mind.”

“But Momma. They stole those from you.”

She glared up at him. “Don’t you say nothing about this, son,” she said. “You might start it all over again.”

Later his momma told him she was just glad to see they hadn’t been lost in the fire.

 

What Pegman Saw: Tulsa

 

Greenwood’s prosperity earned it the moniker “Negro Wall Street,” but the white people in South Tulsa called it “niggertown.” There was a brewing resentment among whites about the rising wealth and confidence of black Americans, not only in Oklahoma but around the United States.

The attack on Greenwood destroyed 1,256 houses and saw the looting of another 215, according to the American Red Cross, leaving 9,000 black Tulsans homeless. Virtually all the district’s businesses were gone. An accurate death toll will likely never be calculated, though eyewitnesses said they saw unidentified black bodies stacked onto trucks and dumped into unmarked graves.

But a new and better Greenwood rose from the ashes. When one person finished rebuilding their business, they grabbed the hand of their brother or sister and helped them do the same. By the end of 1921, Greenwood residents had rebuilt more than 800 structures in the neighborhood. By June 1922, virtually all of the area’s homes had been replaced. And by 1925, the National Negro Business League was holding its annual conference in Tulsa, indicating that Black Wall Street’s stature as an economic force had been restored.

But even as Greenwood prospered again, the massacre morphed into forgotten lore. No one learned about it in school. At home, some black families chose to bury the trauma rather than expose it to their offspring. This tragedy is not taught in schools and has largely been forgotten.

 

 

Nicote sat with his back against the dank stone, arms and legs weighed down by the immense chains bolted to his ankles and wrists. Ribeiro sat across fom him, similarly bound, his head drooping.

Nicote cleared his throat grinned, feeling the gap where the guard’s spear-butt had knocked out his front tooth. “Another tight spot, Salvador.”

Ribeiro’s right was swollen shut, but he returned the smile. “We’ve seen worse, Captain.”

“Do you remember the great bell of Shwedagon Pagoda?”

“I’ll not soon forget it. Trussed six ways from Sunday, yet still the knots slipped before we could load it onto the barge. A million of money dropped straight in the river, never to be seen again.”

“Got out of that one by the skin of our teeth.”  Nicote  peered around at the dark cell. “But we’ll not have such luck this time, I fear.”

 

What Pegman Saw: Burma

Historical note:
Filipe de Brito e Nicote (known as Nga Zinga in Burma) was one of the most colourful Portuguese pirate adventurers.  Nicote was born in Lisbon to a poor French family and shipped to Siam as a cabin boy, eventually taking service with the king of Arakan as a mercenary.

 In 1608 , Nicote plundered the Shwedagon Pagoda. His men took the 300-ton Great Bell of Dhammazedi intending to melt the bronze down and make cannons, but it fell into the Bago River. To this date, it has not been recovered.

He eventually rose to become the lord of Syriam. After failing to defend his kingdom against the forces of King Anaukpetlun. Nicote was captured, stripped naked and impaled on an iron stake atop a hill overlooking his ruined domain.  It took him three agonizing days to die.

The fate of his companion and lieutenant Salvador Ribeiro remains unknown, though he is rumored to have survived and returned to Portugal.

It was just after eleven when the bell began tolling. The loudspeakers played a recording from the San Francisco Temple days, the whole church singing

Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land
Tell ole Pharoah to let my people go

while Father’s voice, urgent yet  calm, said the words I’d come to dread these many months here:

White night! White night! Run for your lives!

After Aunt Essie had signed over the Indianapolis house to the Temple, I knew I needed to stay with her.

We’d gone to San Francisco, then to Ukiah, and finally here to Guyana.

At first I’d believed in Father, even thought he could read minds.

He was a powerful preacher and did real good in the community.

But now it was all astray.

He ranted and raved, never slept.

His boys all carried guns.

“We need to go, Auntie,” I said. “He’s lost his mind.”

She shook her head. “Father cares.”

 

What Pegman Saw: Guyana

 

From a survivor’s account of the Jonestown Massacre:

There were loudspeakers all over the compound, and Jim Jones’s voice was on them almost 24/7. He couldn’t be talking all the time, but he’d tape what he said and then play it back all day long. And the rule was that we couldn’t talk when Jim Jones was talking. So on the loudspeakers, he’d suddenly call out, “White Night! White Night! Get to the to the pavilion! Run! Your lives are in danger!” Everyone would rush to the pavilion in middle of the encampment.

Then he would tell us that in the United States, African Americans were being herded into concentration camps, that there was genocide on the streets. They were coming to kill and torture us because we’d chosen what he called the socialist track. He said they were on their way.

We didn’t know this at the time, but he’d set up people who would shoot into the jungle to make us feel as if we were under attack. And there were other people who were set up to run and get shot — with rubber bullets, though we didn’t know it at the time. So there you were, in the middle of the jungle. Shots were being fired, and people were surrounding you with guns.

Then a couple of women brought out these trays of cups of what they said was cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, or Flavor-Aid — whichever they had. Everybody drank it. If we didn’t drink it, we were forced to drink it. If we ran, thought we’d be shot. At the end of it, we were wondering, Why aren’t we dead?

And then Jim would just start laughing and clapping his hands. He’d tell us it was a rehearsal and say, “Now I know I can trust you.” And then, in the weirdest way, he said, “Go home, my darlings! Sleep tight!” We weren’t really in mood for sleeping tight at that point.