Covering it up.
Few history textbooks discuss the Tulsa riot of 1921. Almost immediately afterward there were efforts to figuratively sweep the event under the rug. The Tulsa Tribune, which published the inflammatory editorial suggesting the existence of a plan to lynch Dick Rowland is long defunct, and the paper copies of its edition for that day are non-existent. The microfilm copy is of a newspaper with the editorial page partially torn out. The actual words of the newspaper which incited some in the crowd are thus unavailable to historians.
Starting with the afternoon of June 1, when martial law was declared and a curfew established, efforts were made to keep the truth about the events of the two-day riot away from the public. That evening the only people allowed on the streets were police, firemen, National Guard troops, and emergency personnel such as doctors and nurses. Most of the city’s black population were in the detention areas or had, in very few cases, been allowed to return to their homes, or rather to where their homes had been.
But not all. The Salvation Army later reported that it fed 37 black men on Wednesday evening who were employed as grave diggers. Whom had employed them was not reported, but they claimed they had buried the bodies of 120 dead black men in unmarked graves. Other reports of unmarked graves appear in old funeral home records in Tulsa. This is in clear contrast with the official reports of casualties. The exact number of people killed in the riots is unclear, largely because there was no independent investigation of the event.
The performance of the Tulsa-based National Guard troops – as opposed to those which arrived from Oklahoma City and other parts of the state – is also something which its commander’s preferred to be kept under wraps. The Tulsa Guardsman actively took part in attacks rather than trying to suppress them and were responsible for the destruction of the Mount Zion Baptist Church by machine-gun fire and burning. By contrast, the troops which came to be known in Tulsa as State Troops disarmed anyone they encountered, black or white, as they restored order to the city.
Some accounts have stated that it was the State Troops from Oklahoma City who fired on the church with a machine gun before it was set ablaze. However, the church was already burning before the State Troops arrived and was destroyed before they deployed in the riot area in Greenwood. The State Troops and local Guardsmen wore the same khaki uniforms, which may have contributed to the misidentification.