Posts by James Bullis

Photo of Vernon AME Church, in 1919, courtesy of pastor Robert Turner. In 1777, Richard Allen converted to Methodism. In 1780, Stokely Sturgis agreed to let Allen hire himself out in order to earn money to purchase his freedom for $2000. In addition to doing manual labor, Allen began to preach at Methodist churches in…

Photo of Simon Berry courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center. Greenwood produced many great entrepreneurs but perhaps none has left such a lasting legacy on Tulsa as Simon Berry. Social entrepreneurship is a current buzz word in the business community but this was the type of business that Berry conducted throughout his life. Berry’s businesses…

Photo of J.B. Stradford courtesy of Laurel Stradford, Stradford family historian. On the morning of Tuesday, December 1st, 1908, J.B. Stradford and his wife Augusta boarded a train from Kansas on the Katy line to Tulsa, Oklahoma. They refused to ride in the furthest train car, reserved for Black passengers, behind the cars that carried…

Photo courtesy of Langston University, from Fire on Mount Zion: My Life and History as a Black Woman in America by Mabel Little. On a warm summer Tuesday evening on June 1st, 1971, dozens of parishioners and community members gathered at Mt. Zion Baptist Church to hear Mabel Little speak. W.D. Williams, son of John…

Photo of A.C. Jackson courtesy of the Department of Special Collections & University Archives, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa Every Tulsa historian would agree that among the most tragic of the deaths which occurred during the Race Massacre of 1921 was that of Dr. A.C. Jackson. The esteemed physician and surgeon was well-respected not…

Photograph of John & Loula Williams courtesy of the Tulsa Historical Society & Museum. Tulsa historian Scott Ellsworth’s Death in a Promised Land opens with the story of a young Bill Williams asking his father why they relocated from Mississippi to Oklahoma. “Well,” his father answered, “I came out to the Promised Land.” For black…

Photograph of O.W. Gurley (front row, second from the left) courtesy of the Tulsa Historical Society & Museum. During his life, O.W. Gurley was an educator, a church founder, a presidential appointee, a general store owner, a hotel proprietor, a landlord, a deputy police officer, and most famously, the founder of the Greenwood District in…

A. J. Smitherman photo courtesy of the University of Buffalo. A.J. Smitherman is best known for being the founder of The Tulsa Star—Tulsa’s first black newspaper and the first black daily newspaper in the nation, according to his obituary in the Buffalo Evening News. However, there is much more to celebrate about Smitherman’s life and…