It could have begun with something as innocent as a stumble.
We donât know why Sarah Page, the teenage elevator operator in a four-story building in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, screamed.
Some say the elevator didnât stop level with the floors and Dick Rowland, a teenage shoeshiner, simply tripped and grabbed Pageâs arm to steady himself. Or perhaps it was something more nefarious â weâll never know.
What we do know is that is that a clerk for Renbergâs Department Store heard Pageâs scream, called the police, and the front-page headline the next morning in the Tulsa Tribune declared, in the language of the times, âNab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator.â
The horror and violence visited upon Tulsa’s Black community didn't become part of the American story until efforts decades later started bringing it into the light.