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3.
It is now II;30,A.M.of the same day and the first edition of the Tulsa Daily Tribune is out.The newsies are hawking their wares.Listen:"Tulsa Daily Tribune,Mister?,Tribune,Mister?.All about a Negro assaulting a white girl--read about it--Tribune,Mister?."

And so thousands of people buy the Tribune and scan its pages for the article about the alleged assault.They find it tucked away in a small space on one of the inside pages of the paper.In the twinkling of an eye,a part of Tulsa is changed from the happy,joyous,care-free to looks of grim determination.

It is also the commencement season and the streets of the city are filled all day long with happy,innocent,care-free graduates,colored and white,walking proudly in their caps and gowns.The colored graduates are dreaming,building air-castles and,in their waking dreams,they see themselves rising,mounting higher and higher up the ladder of recognition and renown.But,alas',their dreams are like Ponzi's financial bubbles.

The day wears on,and the shadows of evenning lengthen and soon darkness comes on space.Now it is night and all law abiding citizens,except those attending some commencement program or detained on business in shop or office,are at home.Possibly a few are out with their families for a drive in the cool of the night.The night grows a little older and a few shots are heard--in the distance.One first thinks its fire signals.The night grows older and the shooting increases and becomes less intermittent.One becomes,by the peculiar working of one's mind,slightly disturbed and distressed.One's mind goes back to that news article about that purported assault,and then still farther back--about a month--to the lynching of that white man in West Tulsa.(This white man was taken from the Tulsa County jail by a mob and hung,I believe,to a telephone pole]. My mind becomes thoroughly aroused.

I had had an unusually hard day of it at court and in my office. By noon,I had finished the trial of a land case that was begun two days before.I had spent the entire afternoon briefing a law suit docketed for trial the following week.And so,I retired rather early.But the shooting continued.I arose,dressed and went to the 'phone to call the sheriff's office to find out the trouble.I could not make connection.The next thought was my office and to it I hastened.Upon reaching Greenwood Avenue,the same street upon which my office was then,and is now,located,I

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-03 11:43:03