Tulsa County Expungement Hearing
Greenwood Cultural Center
Tulsa, Oklahoma
December 11, 2007

Barbara A. Seals Nevergold, PhD

First, I’d like to thank District Attorney Harris for accepting my request to revisit the record of Andrew Jackson Smitherman; for tolerating my numerous calls and most importantly for determining that the right thing to do was to dismiss the charges not only against Smitherman, but against all of the men, who were unjustly accused of “the crimes of murder, robbery and arson” per the June 6, 1921 Grand Jury indictment.

I didn’t start out, initially, to advocate for the expungement of Smitherman’s record, in his indictment as an instigator of what he described in his epic poem, as the “Tulsa Race Riot and Massacre”.   In fact, I was ignorant, like so many other Americans, of the catastrophic events of May 31-June 1, 1921, which culminated in the destruction of Greenwood, tremendous loss of life and altered the lives of countless survivors and their descendents in ways that are still having an impact on those survivors to this day.

My colleague, Dr. Peggy Brooks-Bertram and I, are co-founders of the Uncrowned Queens institute – an organization that identifies, collects and preserves the histories of African American community builders.  In 2003, the Uncrowned Queens of Oklahoma Centennial Project was accepted for the State’s Master Plan.  Our project is the only out-of-state Centennial project.  Throughout this year, we have traversed your state from Oklahoma City, to Altus, to Tulsa, to Enid, Lima and Shawnee, to recognize and celebrate the role African American women have played in the development of this state before and since statehood was granted in 1907.   One of our Uncrowned Queens is your own Eddie Faye Gates, who we met several years ago.   It was through Eddie Faye that I became knowledgeable about the “riot” and aware of Mr. Smitherman’s Tulsa-Buffalo connection.  This knowledge sparked my interest in researching his life.

Smitherman’s flight from Oklahoma led to residency in Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts, before he settled in Buffalo, New York in 1925.  In Oklahoma, he had been, by all accounts, a crusading reporter of his time; a warrior with a pen, fighting against City Hall corruption, the Grandfather’s clause and other attempts to deny Blacks their rights; and outright defiance of the rule of lynch law.  In my research on Mr. Smitherman I came across the 1996 report of the expungement of J.B. Stradford’s record.  Stradford was also named in the 1921 indictment.  This information spurred my decision to request a similar action in Mr. Smitherman’s case.  But it was Mr. Smitherman, himself, who inspired me to persevere in seeking acknowledgment of the injustice which he and the other men have had on their records for 86 years!

And what of his life in Buffalo?  Like other black Tulsans, Smitherman suffered material losses – his printing business, newspaper and home worth more than $40,000.  However, psychological trauma was also experienced by race riot survivors.  I doubt that Mr. Smitherman escaped psychic pain and his life in Buffalo was not without hardship.  Yet a decade after the riot, during the height of the Great Depression, he started a new newspaper, the Buffalo Star, sounding a new call for equality and justice for African Americans.  His newspaper’s motto:  “Freedom, Justice & Equality for All.  Love for God and our fellow man.  Doing all the good we can for our community.”

In 1957, among numerous awards, four years before his death, Smitherman was awarded the Americanism Award from the local VFW Post, “… in recognition of his devotion and service to the public.  Through … his weekly newspaper and commending him for his journalistic bouts in combating bigotry on the local, state and national levels…”

I won’t go on with a long litany of Mr. Smitherman’s community service and civil rights contributions in Buffalo and Western New York as I have a handout with samples of remembrances of A.J. Smitherman by some Buffalonians, who knew him.  They attest to the character of a moral, socially conscious and socially active man, who can truly be cited for his efforts as a community builder – someone we call an Uncrowned King.

I have spoken regarding Mr. Smitherman for reasons I’ve just explained, but I also want to acknowledge the 54 other Uncrowned Kings, who undoubtedly have histories of community building that also should be recognized.

Last week, Dr. Bertram and I followed, and even joined in the reader response to the article in the Tulsa World about today’s proceedings.  A number of the readers wrote that the riot was old news; that we should stop talking about it, forget about it and just move on!  In other words, they would have us relegate it to a musty old history book and set it on a shelf somewhere.  That view promotes the mistaken belief that the historical past has no relevance to our present or our future.  Moreover, it ignores the significant fact that there are many survivors who lived that history and continue to live with the impact of that history on their lives.

In October when Mr. Harris informed me that after extensive review he had determined that this dismissal was the right and just thing to do, he added that he thought Tulsa needed a healing”.

Mr. Harris, I found the use of this word “healing” in the active voice, particularly meaningful and powerful.  Healing is a process; it’s on-going.  Healing requires a thorough examination of the history, a willingness to expose the truth and a determination to take corrective measures to eliminate the barriers that might prevent the process from going forward.

Mr. Harris, we commend you for contributing to the healing process through this action.  We’re pleased that the Uncrowned Queens Institute could play a role in this aspect of the healing process and we applaud Eddie Faye Gates and others who continue the movement to bring about a full and complete healing.