March 2019 Archives

A story published Monday by public radio station KGOU is another prime specimen of the cognitive dissonance that is the "Greenwood Gap Theory" -- the misconception that Tulsa's African-American neighborhood was never rebuilt after what is commonly known as the 1921 Race Riot (but more accurately described as a massacre).

"How Curious: Where Were Oklahoma's Green Book Listings" is the latest edition in KGOU's series of feature stories in response to listener questions. This year's winner of the Oscar best picture has called public attention to the annual series of guidebooks for African-American motorists, letting readers know where their business would be welcome in the days of Jim Crow segregation. According to the KGOU story, the Green Book was first published in 1936; the last edition was for 1966-67.

Oklahoma was first included in 1939. Remember that date. We'll come back to it.

The article paints a lively portrait of Oklahoma City's "Deep Deuce" district, where many of the businesses listed in the Green Book were located. N. E. 2nd Street was the commercial hub of the African-American community. There are a few pictures of businesses that are still standing today.

But what about Tulsa? Claire Donnelly writes:

In Oklahoma City and Tulsa, very few addresses listed in The Green Book are still standing.

Many of Tulsa's listings were centered around the city's Greenwood District, which was looted and burned by white rioters in June 1921. According to the Tulsa Historical Society, 35 city blocks were destroyed and as many as 300 people may have died.

While those sentences are true, their juxtaposition suggests a causation that is impossible in the absence of time travel. The Green Book businesses, which were there in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, are gone, not because of the riot, but because of urban renewal and expressway construction in the late 1960s: The "Model Cities" program, part of LBJ's "War on Poverty," and the construction of the north leg of the Inner Dispersal Loop, which cut through the heart of the Deep Greenwood commercial district.

Here's an excerpt from the 1939 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, showing Greenwood as it would have been the first year Oklahoma was mentioned in the Green Book.

I can't get too upset with Ms. Donnelly: She links to the New York Public Library's online collection of Green Book editions and to a spreadsheet collating all of the Oklahoma Green Book listings, which (I surmise) she assembled herself -- a very handy resource.

Based on the spreadsheet, these are the Tulsa Green Book listings still standing. Keep in mind that street numbers may shift over time; I'm going by the numbering on the Sanborn map. The spreadsheet has the year of each individual book in which the business appeared; I've summarized with a range.

• Cotton Blossom Beauty Parlor, 106 N. Greenwood, 1939-1941.
• Art's Chili Parlor, 110 N. Greenwood, 1950-1961. (The Bryant Building.)
• Mrs. W. H. Smith Tourist Home, 124 1/2 N. Greenwood, 1939-1962. (Now the second story above Fat Guy's Burger Bar.)
• Maharry Drugs, 101 N. Greenwood, 1939-1955. (Northeast corner of Greenwood and Archer.)
• Vaughn Drugstore, 301 E. 2nd St., 1939. (Now Yokozuna.)
• Mince Service Station, 2nd & Elgin, 1939-1954. (NW corner, 325 E. 2nd. Red's Bar, formerly Dirty's Tavern and Woody's Corner Bar.)
• Lincoln Lodge, 1407 1/2 E. 15th St., 1941. (Aquarian Age Massage.)

The latter three are surprising, because they are outside the Greenwood District, in areas that might have been considered off-limits to African Americans. Association with the Green Book should add to the historic importance of these buildings.

Another location of note is the Avalon Motel at 2411 E. Apache St., on the northeast corner of Apache and Lewis, listed from 1954 to 1962. Before completion of the Gilcrease Expressway, this stretch of Apache was part of State Highway 11, which began at 51st and Memorial, headed north to Apache at the edge of the airport, then west to Peoria, and north to Turley, Sperry, and Skiatook. The motel, a simple one-story, park-at-your-door accommodation, was still there within my memory, but the site has been vacant for at least a decade. While many motels were built along US 66 around the same time, this appears to be the only motel catering to black tourists.

A concluding thought on the Greenwood Gap Theory: While it's easy to jump to the conclusion that Greenwood was never rebuilt after 1921 -- in the absence of city directories, aerial photography, Sanborn maps, and now the Green Book -- I suspect that the misconception has persisted in part because the civic leaders who were responsible for the second destruction of Greenwood in the 1960s and 1970s were still active in the community until not that many years ago and would have been quite happy to avoid any public blame for their decisions. Easier to remain quiet and let the folks sitting across the foundation boardroom table blame 1921 racists for the demolitions you promoted and approved.

MORE: You can find my omnibus overview of Greenwood's history, with links to further articles, images, and films, here.

UPDATED 2019/05/06, with a correction from Mike McUsic regarding Mince's Service Station. He provided a photo of a 1942 telephone directory listing Mince's at 325 E 2nd Street. McUsic will be leading walking tours of the Green Book locations in the Greenwood District on June 8th at 10:00 am and 3:00 pm, and on June 15th at 10:00 am. Tickets are $15, available via Eventbrite. McUsic has developed the Green Book Travelers HistoryPin site, locating 1,900 Green Book locations across the country, with names, descriptions, and historic and present-day photos. This link will take you to locations specific to Greenwood.

Religious Affections Ministries has published a new hymnal, and it's available for free download.

Hymns to the Living God is notable for its slim size and the scarcity of copyright notices. Only 294 hymns were selected for inclusion, and nearly all of them are in the public domain.

Scott Aniol, founder of Religious Affections Ministries and chairman of the Worship Ministry Department at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, explains what it was about Hymns Ancient and Modern, a groundbreaking Anglican hymnal published in 1861, that provided inspiration and model for the approach they took in assembling this new collection of hymns:

Hymns Ancient and Modern (HAM) became the benchmark for all subsequent hymnals for several reasons. First, the editors gave careful consideration to the text/tune marriages within. Previously, very fine hymn texts often fell to disuse due to the terrible tunes with which they were associated. HAM contained text/tune combinations still commonly used today, such as "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" with WINCHESTER OLD and "When Morning Gilds the Skies with LAUDES DOMINI.

Second, while most previous hymnals had little if any organization to the order of hymns, HAM was organized theologically and liturgically, categorizing hymns based on their purpose and use within the liturgy and broadly in the church year.

Third, desiring to recover some of what they considered lost in the worship tradition of the church, they translated the best of early and medieval Greek and Latin hymns into English, bringing some of the oldest hymns still sung today into use. They also translated several excellent German Lutheran hymns into English as well. This made HAM a truly "catholic" hymnal, drawing its collection from the best of all Christian traditions....

Fourth, although the hymnal editors objected to much of what they considered unhealthy sentimentalism in recently composed Victorian and evangelical revival hymns, they made a point to include what they considered the best of even those hymns....

Fifth, HAM gathered the best of "modern" hymns, including "Holy, Holy, Holy" by Reginald Heber, with NICAEA by John Dykes, and "Crown Him with Many Crowns" by Matthew Bridges, with DIADEMATA by George Elvey. The editors' goal was to sing newer hymns that matched the quality, both in text and tune, of ancient ones....

We had the same goal as the editors of HAM--rather than a descriptive hymnal that simply reflected what various churches were already singing, or a market-driven hymnal intended to appeal to the largest possible audience, we wanted to collect what we believe to be the best available hymns in the English language. We also had similar concerns as editors of HAM--we considered much of what has been written in the last 100 years and that has become the dominant song of evangelical churches to be weak compared to the rich heritage of the past, and so we wanted to create a collection that would model the best hymns, both ancient and modern.

As the editors are not from a liturgical tradition, they chose a different organizing principle:

Second, we carefully organized the hymns according to their usefulness in a liturgy that reenacts our covenantal relationship with God through Christ, beginning with God's revelation of himself and our adoration of him, leading to a recognition of our guilt and need for repentance and faith, then the solution to our need found in Jesus Christ's coming, life, death, and resurrection, followed by the Holy Spirit's work to bring us to Salvation, after which we hear God's Word, Submit ourselves to him, bring our Prayers before him, and experience Communion with him and with his Church. The hymnal concludes with songs of Commission, Comfort, and Benediction.

The editors of the new hymnal, published in 2017, re-tuned some hymns, but used traditional tunes for this purpose rather than insipid guitar riffs of the type that have emerged from the PCA's Reformed University Fellowship and infested congregational worship. "Rock of Ages" to the tune "Redhead", the traditional setting in the UK, is an improvement over the traditional American tune "Toplady" (too familiar from too many movie funeral scenes), and both are much to be preferred over the misaligned "New City Fellowship" tune, in which the natural rhythm of the words is undermined by the tune's tonal peaks. The editors pair "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less" with "Melita," which you may know as the tune for the naval hymn "Eternal Father, Strong to Save."

The Baptist worship of my youth was dominated by the revival songs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while the treasures of 18th century English hymnody were only dusted off at Christmas time. Hymns to the Living God has included a small selection from the gospel song tradition, such as "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" and "It Is Well with My Soul."

Only a handful of modern songs are included. Two of these are by James Montgomery Boice, the late pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and host of Bible Study Radio Hour. A metrical paraphrase of the Apostle's Creed was commissioned specially for the new hymnal.

There are a few nitpicks. The editors print text-only for certain hymns, forcing the singer to turn to a different page to see the tune. I'd prefer to see four-part harmony with each hymn, even though it would increase page count and cost. Likewise, where there are multiple tune choices for a hymn, print both. I was disappointed to see "Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven" set to "Andrews." It's good that there's a note suggesting "Lauda Anima" (the tune I'm used to), but if you're leading a congregation, you want the music for your chosen tune in front of them. Some of my favorite hymns and tunes are missing. ("All My Hope on God Is Founded," for example.)

Musically, the editors are fans of Johann Sebastian Bach (12 hymns set to tunes that he composed or harmonized) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (10 hymns set to the English folk songs he adapted or his own majestic processional tunes).

There are a fair number of textual alterations noted. These are usually done for theological reasons (and I often sing the original text loudly, just to be contrary). I haven't examined all the alterations in Hymns to the Living God carefully, but one caught my eye. One verse "And Can It Be?" is typically altered by Calvinists to avoid conflicting with the doctrine of particular atonement and to avoid a misunderstanding of the nature of Christ's kenosis, or self-emptying. The original:

Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race;

is changed by the Trinity Hymnal to:

humbled himself (so great his love!),
and bled for all his chosen race.

while Hymns to the Living God uses

Emptied himself and came in love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race!

While it would be bulky and unnecessary to include an explanation for each alteration in the hymnal itself, it would be enlightening to be able to read a rationale for the changes made, whether textual or musical, on a companion website. The hymnal itself could bear to have a single-page explanation of the guiding philosophy behind those choices.

The preface to the hymnal does explain the theological rationale behind the choice of hymns and tunes. The editors reject the idea that a tune is simply a neutral vehicle for words:

Third, we have chosen hymn tunes that we believe best communicate the kinds of sentiments and affections that are fitting for biblical truth. Tozer wisely cautioned, "Human emotions are curious and difficult to arouse, and there is always a danger that they may be aroused by the wrong means and for the wrong reasons." The church's battle against heresy defined Christian orthodoxy; there is a sense in which its battle against irreverent worship has attempted to define orthopathy: right affections. Orthopathy cannot be defined as precisely as the creeds and confessions have delineated Christian doctrine, but hymnbooks function similarly to those confessions. They are an attempt to represent instances of ordinate affection. We hope you find that deep love for Christ pulsing through the veins of our hymnal. As with poetry, musical form is not neutral; rather, melody, harmony, and rhythm combine to give expression to right affections.

Christian educators have come to understand that effective discipleship is not merely about instructing the mind to believe what is right (orthodoxy) or directing the actions to do what is right (orthopraxy); training the affections to feel aright (orthopathy) is an essential link between thought and action and essential to a lifelong walk with Christ. The Abolition of Man, by C. S. Lewis, was my introduction to the importance of learning to love what is good, what is true, and what is beautiful.

The editors also state their case for publishing a physical hymn book in the digital age:

First, when you hold a hymnal in your hands, you hold something of your Christian heritage. The physical nature of a hymnal has the effect of embodying a collection of the work of the church triumphant, and in using such a book, you identify with the entire church, and you sing her experience into yours.

Second, when you hold a good hymnal in your hands, you are holding the distilled affective responses of hundreds, if not thousands, of believers. A hymnal is a testimony of how Christians collectively have responded to the various truths of the Christian life. With hymnal in hand, one can peruse these responses and use them as a point of comparison for those of contemporary Christianity.

Third, a good hymnal remains the best devotional literature we have. Devotional literature is formative, and while it does not necessarily have to be printed, hymns in printed form provide a convenient and settled collection for personal and family devotion....

A printed hymnal offers saints a thoughtfully curated collection of some of the finest extra-Biblical expressions of God's truth in warm, devotional form. In this hymnbook you will find the great fundamental doctrines of Christian orthodoxy represented. As John Wesley said of his own hymnal, "This book is, in effect, a little body of experimental and practical divinity." In this volume, you will find words and music to give wings to the Christian's ordinate affections, whether they be of adoration to the Triune God, or of thanksgiving to Christ as Mediator, or of bittersweet tears at His atoning passion, or of steadfast hope in the goodness of God amidst days of trial. So, we trust that this volume contains nothing but songs which are, in the words of Calvin, "not only honest, but also holy," songs which are not just theologically strong, but devotionally warm.

Hymns to the Living God is available as a pew-quality hardback at the very reasonable price of $13.99 or six for $78, and there's a spiral-bound edition for $19.99. You can download it for free as a PDF by providing your email address.

MORE from ReligiousAffections.org:

Kevin Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary, has been posting an affectionate memoir of growing up in fundamentalism.

David de Bruyn, pastor of New Covenant Baptist Church in Johannesburg, South Africa, presents a parable about lollipops and pop music in church, the latest in a category of articles on aesthetics.

Tomorrow night (Saturday, March 2, 2019) is the annual Bob Wills birthday celebration at Cain's Ballroom, the site of weekly dances and daily radio broadcasts for bands fronted Bob and his brother Johnnie Lee for a quarter-century, from 1934 to 1959. Doors open at 6 p.m. Western Swing historian John Wooley will host a special live edition of his weekly "Swing on This" radio show from 7 to 8 on KWGS 89.5, with the band playing requests and dedications, and the dance will begin at 8:30.

Over the years since Bob Wills's death in 1975, alumni of the Texas Playboys have continued to perform western swing under various names and in various combinations. Leon McAuliffe led the Original Texas Playboys, which included sidemen from the pre-war years at Cain's -- Smokey Dacus, Al Stricklin, Joe Frank Ferguson, and Eldon Shamblin -- as well as others, like Leon Rausch and Keith Coleman, who worked with Bob later years. By prior agreement, when one of the originals, Al Stricklin, passed in 1986, the Original Texas Playboys played their remaining dates and disbanded. (You can watch the final concert of the Original Texas Playboys on YouTube.)

For many years guitarist Tommy Allsup and vocalist Leon Rausch fronted Bob Wills' Texas Playboys, with the official blessing of the Bob Wills estate. Allsup produced the Bob Wills / Tommy Duncan reunion albums for Liberty Records in the early 1960s and produced and played bass on "For the Last Time" in 1973. Rausch took over the Texas Playboys after Bob retired as a band leader in 1964. This Tommy and Leon gathered a band each year for the annual birthday celebration at Cain's Ballroom and the annual Bob Wills Day festival in Turkey, Texas, along with other appearances around the country. The lineup shifted from year, based on availability and ability to travel, but Leon and Tommy always managed to find sidemen who could really swing, who could produce the danceable improvisation that filled ballrooms, armories, and hangars across the American Southwest.

Allsup died in 2017. Rausch is 91 years old and decided last year he was ready to pass the baton on to a new leader.

There aren't many Texas Playboy alumni left. We lost steel guitarist Herb Remington, the last survivor from the late '40s Playboys, just last year.

The Bob Wills estate selected fiddler Jason Roberts to lead the band. With Asleep at the Wheel, Roberts played Bob Wills from his Tulsa days in the musical theater production A Ride with Bob. The band has a brand new Bob Wills' Texas Playboys website with the story of the band and bios of each of the sidemen and a new Facebook page. The group includes trumpeter Mike Bennett and trombonist Steve Ham from here in Tulsa and fiddler Shawn Howe from Welch. Saturday's dance will be the first Bob Wills birthday bash led by Roberts.

Tickets are available online and are $30 (including fee) at the door. Should be a great time.

MORE:

Dedications from Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys midnight dance broadcast on Saturday night, December 6, 1941. Requests came from as far away as Welder, Minnesota, and were sent to folks as far away as southern California -- and even one to a young sailor, George Spencer from Sperry, aboard the U.S.S. Helm, stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (The Helm was the only ship under way when the attack began, engaging a Japanese mini-sub in the harbor. The destroyer served in the New Hebrides and survived the war.)

John Wooley wrote this feature story for Oklahoma Magazine about Brett Bingham, the western swing aficionado who serves as the new lineup's manager.