mother randall said it was like a war. mother fletcher said all of these years later, she still sees black bodies around. greenwood newspaper publisher, a.j. smitherman penned a poem of what he heard and felt that night. here s the poem. he said kill them, burn them, set the pace, teach them how to keep their place, rain of murder, theft and plunder was the order of the night. that s what he remembers from the poem that he wrote. 100 years ago at this hour on this first day of june, smoke, dark in the tulsa sky. rising from 35 blocks of greenwood, that were left in ash and amber raised in rubble.