Category: Events

As we are now at the hundredth anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, people look back at the atrocity with questions even today. They wonder how such a thing could happen. The Tulsa massacre occurred when white mobs attacked the affluent Greenwood African American community. The complete devastation of the Greenwood neighborhood, known as Black Wall Street, that was burned to the ground is hard to comprehend. It has been called the deadliest and most destructive massacre in our country’s history. It was a brutal attack on the prosperous black neighborhood with thousands of angry white people targeting the area and its citizens in a wave of violence that included murder, shootings, the looting of homes and businesses, fires set by torches, even incendiary explosive devices dropped from small airplanes that caused buildings to burn from the roof down. A number of the more graphic photographs were printed after the massacre as postcards such as these. Members of Tulsa white supremacist organizations displayed them and mailed them to sympathizers around the country. What caused the terrible outbreak? Apparently a young black teenager named Dick Rowland entered an elevator in an office building downtown. At some point after that, the young white elevator operator, Sarah Page, screamed, and Rowland fled. It has largely been accepted that Rowland may have only stumbled into the girl. The police were called, and the next morning they arrested Rowland. Later a large group of angry white men gathered outside the courthouse demanding Rowland, and rumors of a lynching spread. The white men grew to 1,500, some armed. About 75 black men had gathered to protect Rowland, some also armed. After shots were fired, the outnumbered black men went back to Greenwood, and there the massacre began. In the end, 35 blocks were burned to the ground, as many as 300 blacks were killed, and nearly 10,000 people were left homeless. No one was ever charged for these crimes, and prosperity for the African American community has never returned. For generations the tragedy was repressed, only now at the 100-year anniversary getting the attention it deserves.                                                               By Anne E. Peterson, Curator of Photographs

A Texas icon and 41st president, George H. W. Bush (1924-2018) died November 30, 2018 at his home in Houston. Bush, the patriarch of one of the most influential political families in the U.S., was 94. Barbara, his wife of 73 years, died last April. They had six children, among them George W. Bush, 43rd U.S. president.

Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, at 18, Bush enlisted in the armed services and became the youngest Navy aviator. During WWII, he flew 58 combat missions and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in action. He and Barbara married in 1945, and the Bush family moved to Texas in 1948 to enter the oil business. Bush served two terms as a representative to Congress from Texas. He went on to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, chairman of the Republican National Committee, chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in the People’s Republic of China, and became director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was chosen as a running mate by Ronald Reagan, and served as his vice president.

In 1988, Bush won the general presidential election, with Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana as his running mate, and became the 41st president of the United States (1989–1993). His single term of office was during a rapidly changing world: the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Communist empire, the fall of the Berlin Wall. In response to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein led invasion of Kuwait in 1990, working with United Nations partners, Bush organized a coalition of nations to oppose the invasion resulting in the Persian Gulf War. After 42 days, a cease-fire was signed.

President Barack Obama awarded George H. W. Bush with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2010, lauding his more than 70 years of service, his humility and decency that “reflects the very best of the American spirit.” At the news of Bush’s passing, Obama said, George H. W. Bush’s “life is a testament to the notion that public service is a noble, joyous calling….”  “It’s a legacy of service that may never be matched, even though he’d want us to try.” Bush will be buried next to his wife at his presidential library in College Station.

By Anne E. Peterson, Curator of Photographs, DeGolyer Library.

The Andy Hanson Photographs collection, held at the DeGolyer Library, is an important visual record of Dallas history. The large archive of more than 79,000 prints and 373,000 negatives provide a “whos who” of people living in Dallas and the politicians and celebrities who visited the city from 1960 to 2008.