Dr. Kerr's inspection of the
destruction of Greenwood by City Government as city
policy to
suppress fictitious 'Negro Insurrection':
Still
dressed in his Prince Albert frock coat, Dr. Charles W. Kerr
went from his First Presbyterian
Church's Holyroodhouse-type sanctuary
to Greenwood to see for himself the extent
of the damage inflict by Tulsa's City Government as an act
of public war upon the Greenwood Blacks:
No other Tulsan was interested in discovering the number
of Blacks who had been murdered:
The City Government gave deliberately deflated figures:
'After all,' as
one Tulsa City Official later told Dr. Kerr, 'they waz only
Niggers'....
During
his immediate inspection of the devastation of the Greenwood
district in the company of a State Militia Officer, Dr. Kerr
discovered direct evidence of the mass murder of Greenwood's Black population
by the City of Tulsa executing its city policy of suppressing
a fictional 'Negro Insurrection'
often
called 'The Tulsa Race Riot'.
Throughout his inspection of Greenwood, Dr. Kerr smelled burning
human flesh.
Dr. Kerr saw block-after-block of homes, businesses, public
facilities, and even Christian churches which had been
systematically burnt to the ground by 'Green Country'
Tulsans
executing
city policy to suppress a non-existent
'Negro Insurrection'
with petrol
which he latter discovered had been freely supplied by the Tulsa City Government: Nothing was left standing. Dr.
Kerr wept when he visited the smouldering ruins of the churches
and parsonages of the many Greenwood Pastors whom he knew. See 21 O. S. §1401
Smouldering
ruins of
Greenwood Inspected by
Dr.
Kerr on
Wednesday 1st
June 1921:
Ώ Green
Country ?
Dr. Kerr saw Black bodies stacked like sacks of potatoes on the
north end of the old Convention Hall:
He saw garbage men bringing in loads of bodies of Blacks
murdered by Tulsans on trash trucks.
During his inspection of Greenwood Dr. Kerr saw hundreds of Black
bodies stacked up on street corners everywhere throughout
Greenwood being hauled away in City trash and garbage trucks.
Dr. Kerr also saw truck load after truck load filled with the
bodies of the dead Greenwood Blacks
headed for destinations
unknown: Dr. Kerr declared that such actions made it clear that
the identification of these murdered Blacks was being suppressed
deliberately by
the City Authorities to cover up all evidence of the City's
crimes: Without
proper identification of these dead Blacks, the City could not
be made financially liable for their wrongful deaths.
Dr. Kerr learned from the white trash men picking up corpses that
the bodies of many murdered Blacks were being to potters' fields
as well as being buried in unknown location through out north
Tulsa. No attempt was ever made by the City Government to
identify or even count any of the hundreds of dead Blacks. This
left no corpus delicti
to be found later as evidence of the City's mass racial
murders of the Greenwood Blacks.
Black
children held
prisoners-of-war
by
Tulsa City
Government:
Ώ What
was their
crime
being Black ?
Dr. Kerr personally witnessed mass trench graves being dug at
Tulsa's Oaklawn and Rosehill
Cemeteries by
conscripted Blacks:
Dr. Kerr watched as the bodies of hundred of unidentified Blacks
were being hastily dumped into such mass graves like dogs and
unceremoniously covered with dirt.
Although the bodies were searched by City workers
for valuables, no attempt was made by the City
Authorities to identify any of the dead.
Elsewhere in Greenwood Dr. Kerr watched as trenches were dug in
open fields through
out north Tulsa and filled with
the bodies of dead Black people.
Dr. Charles W. Kerr was particularly incensed when the City
Authorities forbad him to say the rite of Christian Burial for
the murdered Blacks
who were being buried like animals in unhallowed ground.
Dr. Kerr saw hundreds of distinguished Black educators and
ministers being marched double-time by 'Magic Empire' Tulsans to
concentration camps as the prisoners-of-war of Tulsa's City
Government. Amongst
these captives Dr. Kerr recognised a number of the Greenwood
Pastors who telephoned him the night before asking him to
intervene with the lynch mob at the Courthouse.
Gleeful
'T-Towne' Tulsans insult
Black prisoners-of-war:
Ώ 'GREEN
COUNTRY' brotherhood
?
With great indignation Dr. Kerr witnessed white 'T-Towne' Tulsans
gleefully running alongside Tulsa's Black prisoners-of-war in
mock imitation, calling them 'Niggers, Coons, Jigaboos,
Shinola's' and so forth. Keeping
their dignity, these
captured Blacks made no response to the myriad of insults from
Tulsans.
Captured
Greenwood prisoner-of-war
of City
of Tulsa
When Dr. Kerr
attempted to give water from a garden hose to one group of
captive Blacks, an angry white Tulsa-type woman came out and
turned the hose off, 'I don't want to run up my water bill for
no Niggers': Dr.
Kerr paid this Tulsa woman a dollar to turn the water back on.
Allowed to accompany a group of captive Blacks to the old
fairgrounds; Dr.
Kerr discovered that they were being housed by the Tulsa City
Government in hog and cattle pens like animals in a dog pound.
Captive
Blacks treated like animals
by
City of
Tulsa Government
After requesting the use of State Militia tents for the Black
Captives, Dr. Kerr
is refused on the grounds that the Blacks might infect such with
'social disease'.
Dr. Kerr noticed that all able-bodied Black men were conscripted by
the City of Tulsa into forced labour battalions to dig graves
for fellow Blacks murdered by Tulsa's City Government -- these
Black men told Dr. Kerr that
they felt like convicts on a Georgia chain-gang.
Forced
labour of
Greenwood Blacks:
Ώ
'GREEN COUNTRY'
justice ?
Dr. Kerr was told by the driver of a private truck commandeered by
the City of Tulsa that fleets of private trucks were assigned to
take hundreds and hundreds of Black bodies to be dumped down
abandoned coal mine shafts at Henry Scales' coal mines at the
eastern edge of town
to be filled in and ploughed over to
erase all evidence of the enormous number of Blacks murdered by
the City of Tulsa. (After
the hostilities when Dr. Kerr attempted to visit the site to say
the Rite of Christian Burial over the mine shaft, he was forced
to leave at gunpoint.)
Noticing
that a young Black mother in an obvious daze despite the fact
that a hungry little Black boy of about two was pulling at her
for attention, Dr. Charles W. Kerr asked an older woman nearby
what the problem was: 'She
and the boy was forced out of her house by Tulsa gunmen.
Her husband was hurt real bad.
One of them Tulsa men saw her new baby boy in a crib and
done blasted that poor baby away with a shotgun.
How can Tulsa people do such a thing to a poor little
baby --
even if he was Coloured ?'
After
getting the older woman to feed and to care for the little boy,
Dr. Kerr knelt down in the mud by the dazed young mother.
Bowing his head in deep humility, Dr. Kerr took her
trembling hands into his and prayed from
his heart for her healing by Jesus Crucifixion:
'Dear Jesus, by Your agony in the Garden of Gethsemane the night
before You were crucified for our sins please come and comfort
this Mother in her agony of seeing her new-born baby so terribly
murdered.'
' Oh, Jesus, by Your scourging with whips by the brutal soldiers
please come and heal this young mother by the stripes You bore
for the terrible sin which has been committed against her and
against her innocent child like those Children of Bethlehem
murdered by King Herod.
Please, Jesus, by Your Stripes heal her wounded husband
and restore him to full health.'
'Jesus, by the insult given to Your Divine Kingship when You were
crowned with Thorns please come and help this young woman bear
the insult to her motherhood of this wilful murder of her little
baby boy..'
'Oh, Divine Master by the strength with which You bore the Cross to
Calvary please give this
young mother the strength to care for her older son and husband.
Dear Jesus, by Your death on the Cross for our sins
please die to the terrible pain, sorrow, and loss from which
this young mother is suffering.'
'By the Power of Your Resurrection, Jesus, please resurrect this
young mother and please restore her husband to good health.
Father, we ask all of this in Jesus' Name, Amen.'
The
young mother was still in a state of severe shock.
So, Dr. Charles W. Kerr looked right at her and asked, 'Please
forgive me, Lady, for being a white man?'
Although she did not say anything,
the young mother did squeeze Dr. Kerr's hand.
By
this time Dr. Kerr's long
Prince Albert frock coat was soaked with the blood of all of the
captured Greenwood Black people whom he had been comforting at
the fairground.
