Sawners of Chandler: A Pioneering Power Couple in Pre-Civil Rights Oklahoma

by Hannibal Johnson

Overview

Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples with its Historical Racial Trauma, endorsed by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission and the 400 Years of African American History Commission, furthers the educational mission of both bodies. The book offers updates on developments in Tulsa generally and in Tulsa's Greenwood District specifically since the publication of Hannibal B. Johnson's, Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District.

 

Black Wall Street 100 is a window into what distinguishes the Tulsa of today from the Tulsa of a century ago. Before peering through that porthole, we must first reflect on Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District in all its splendor and squalor, from the prodigious entrepreneurial spirit that pervaded it to the carnage that characterized the 1921 massacre to the post-massacre rebound and rebuilding that raised the District to new heights to the mid-twentieth-century decline that proved to be a second near-fatal blow to the current recalibration and rebranding of a resurgent, but differently configured, community.  

 

Tulsa's trajectory may be instructive for other communities similarly seeking to address their own histories of racial trauma. Conversely, Tulsa may benefit from learning more about the paths taken by other communities. Through sharing and synergy, we stand a better chance of doing the work necessary to spur healing and move farther toward the reconciliation of which we so often speak. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681791203
Publisher:	Wild Horse Media Group LLC
Publication date:	08/27/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	266
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Hannibal B. Johnson, a Harvard Law School graduate, is an author, attorney, and consultant specializing in diversity and inclusion issues, human relations, leadership, and non-profit leadership and management. He has taught at The University of Tulsa College of Law, Oklahoma State University, and The University of Oklahoma. Johnson serves on the federal 400 Years of African-American History Commission, a body charged with planning, developing, and implementing activities appropriate to the 400th anniversary of the arrival, in 1619, of Africans in the English colonies at Point Comfort, Virginia. He is the education chair for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Commission. His books, including Black Wall Street, Up from the Ashes, Acres of Aspiration, Apartheid in Indian Country, and The Sawners of Chandler, chronicle the African American experience in Oklahoma and its indelible impact on American history. The 2011 National Black Theatre Festival showcased Johnson's play, Big Mama Speaks-A Tulsa Race Riot Survivor's Story. Big Mama Speaks has also been staged in Caux, Switzerland. Johnson has received numerous awards and honors for his work and community service.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter One: Wonders of the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Chapter Two: Life In Lincoln County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter Three: The Gentleman George Sawner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Chapter Four: The Lady Lena Sawner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Chapter Five: Mrs. Sawner's Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Appendices Appendix A: Oklahoma Abbreviated-A Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Appendix B: Milestones in African American Education . . . . . . . . 144

Appendix C: African American Civil Rights in the 

United States-A Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Appendix D: Ellis Family Education and Accomplishments . . . . . 166

Appendix E: Contributors to Chandler: The Ellis Family Story . .170

Appendix F: Informal Black Communities in Lincoln County . . . . . . . . 172

Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255