SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio resident Trestan Patton said his great-grandfather, Joe Robert Burns, was not a man of many words, but his story speaks volumes.
Burns was 4 years old when his neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma — the Greenwood District — was destroyed in 1921 because of race riots and violence against the Black community.
“He never really talked about it to us. That wasn’t something that he did,” said Patton. “None of the survivors really talked about that event just because of the fear that was instilled in them.”
At the time, the Greenwood District was the wealthiest black community in the United States. It was referred to as Black Wall Street because of the Black-owned stores and businesses that thrived within the area.
Greenwood featured doctor and attorney offices, entrepreneurs and landowners who offered various services in the neighborhood. It was segregated from the White neighborhoods in Tulsa.
“You build infrastructure to create success in a community, that’s what Black Wall Street was,” said Patton. “It was a conglomerate of businesses, a collective of people that put their money together and built something. They didn’t have to rely on the white community.”
But that was all wiped away within the span of days. From May 31 to June 1, White mobs stormed Greenwood after days of racial tension in Tulsa stoked by accusations that a 19-year-old Black man assaulted a 17-year-old white woman on an elevator.
According to the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot, anywhere from an estimated 75 to 300 people were killed.
Hundreds more were hospitalized and thousands were displaced. Others were placed into large facilities that resembled internment camps, the commission report stated.
“One of the things that stuck out to me when my granddaddy did talk about it, and it was very rare, he said casually that two weeks after, his dad just showed up,” said Patton. “It was like, ‘Oh, you’re alive?’ It’s crazy to think that’s normal. They were just going to go on with life without him. But that’s a testament to how we are able to persevere as a community.”
Patton’s great-grandfather survived, later enlisting in the US Army and returning with two Bronze Stars and a Presidential Award.
“He went to college, got his degree, was a pharmacist and came back to Tulsa. The city that burned down. The city that tore itself apart and served the community there,” Patton said.
Patton participated in last summer’s George Floyd protests in San Antonio. He felt compelled to help his community speak out on systemic racism and police brutality.
“I have to be out there and make sure that someone’s voice is heard,” said Patton. “There’s a lot of things that I owed to my great-grandfather.”
Patton was in Tulsa recently to commemorate 100 years since the massacre. He wanted to honor the victims and his great-grandfather, who died last year at the age of 92.
Patton said he’s trying to carry on his great-grandfather’s legacy as the story of the Tulsa massacre is now being told more in the open, an event that had not been discussed widely for decades.
“We’re now having this discussion about the Tulsa race massacre, but that wasn’t who my granddaddy was,” said Patton. “That wasn’t who he was as a person. He didn’t wear that on his shoulder. My granddaddy wasn’t just a survivor, he lived.”