Obit of the Day

Obit of the Day: Survivor’s Tale

Otis Clark died just ten days before the 91st anniversary of one of the worst episodes of racial hatred in American history. An event he not only witnessed but managed to escape with his life. On May 30, 1921, a nineteen-year-old black man named Dick Rowland entered a Tulsa elevator to ride to the 3rd floor bathroom - segregated for black use only. Operating the elevator was Sarah Page a white seventeen-year-old. No one knows what happened but not long afterwards, Sarah Page was in tears and Dick Rowland was nowhere to be found. He was later arrested for assault; most presumed rape.

Dick Rowland’s arrest would then ignite a conflagration both literal and figurative. The African American neighborhood Greenwood, located within Tulsa, was called “Black Wall Street” for its affluence - relative to other segregated neighborhoods in the South. But the arrest of Dick Rowland gave Tulsa’s Ku Klux Klan an opportunity to teach the residents of Greenwood a “lesson.” Beginning on May 31 and ending on June 1 Greenwood was razed to the ground. As you can see in the image above a fire set by the KKK leveled the neighborhood, leaving most of the residents homeless. When it was over 300 people were dead, approximately 270 of those were black. Greenwood was in ruins. And Tulsa would remain silent about it for 8- years.*

One of those who survived was Otis Clark. He spent the two days running through Greenwood, ducking down alleys, jumping into cars, racing through buildings to avoid the armed, white mobs. Eventually Mr. Clark jumped onto a freight train and ended up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Mr. Clark would head west not long after and was hired as the butler of Ms. Joan Crawford, the Oscar-winning actress. Through his connection with Ms. Crawford, Mr. Clark met stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age including Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin. He also developed a personal friendship with Stepin Fetchit - the first African American actor to become a millionaire.

Mr. Clark’s life changed after an arrest for selling liquor during Prohibition. Converting to Christianity while in jail, he would spend the rest of his life as an evangelist. “The rest of his life” ended up being 80 more years. He was able to travel as a missionary to Africa in 2006 - when he was 103. He made his final trip abroad in 2010 to Jamaica at the age of 107.

Otis Clark - riot survivor, butler to the stars, and “world’s oldest evangelist” - died at the age of 109.

(Image of a devastated Greenwood section of Tulsa following the riots is courtesy of sfbayview.com)

* It was not until 2001 that the city of Tulsa undertook a complete investigation of the riots. Following the report issued by the investigating commission, the Oklahoma State Legislature passed a bill offering scholarships to 300 descendants of Greenwood residents, a memorial, and additional economic development for the neighborhood. It was recommended that survivors of the riots and their descendants be given reparations but the legislature did not agree. For more information on the riots, here is the Wikipedia entry.

Obit of the Day: Most Decorated Athlete in the History of the Olympics

Edoardo Mangiarotti won his first Olympic gold medal as part of Italy’s épée team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. At 17, he was the youngest medalist at the Games. Mangiarotti would participate in every Games that followed (excluding the 1940 and 1944 Games that were cancelled due to World War II) ending his athletic career after the 1960 Rome Games. When everything was totaled up he had accumulated 13 Olympics medals (six gold, five silver, and two bronze). When his world championship medals were included, Mangiarotti had earned 39 medals, more than any other athlete in any Olympic sport.*

Mangiarotti was the son of an Olympic fencer (1908 London) and the brother of two more: Dario, who won the silver in épée in 1952 - Edoardo won gold - and Carola who participated, but did not medal, in the 1976 and 1980 Olympics.

Although his career as an athlete ended in 1960, he would continue to attend the Games in a variety of roles. By the time he passed away on May 25, 2012 at the age of 93, Edoardo Mangiarotti had attended 17 consecutive Summer Games from Berlin through Beijing. Sadly he missed the London Olympics Games by only 63 days.

(Image courtesy of Sport e Motori 2.0)

* The record for most individual Olympic medals earned is held by Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina who earned eighteen over three Summer Olympics: Melbourne-1956, Rome-1960, and Tokyo-1964. American swimmer Michael Phelps has 17 medals but also has the most gold medals with fourteen.

Obit of the Day: 1st African American Graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy

When Lt. Commander (Ret.) Wesley A. Brown entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1945, the military was still segregated. It would not be until President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981 in July 1948 that every branch of the armed forces were required to treat all members, black and white, equally. That would not prevent Lt. Cmdr. Brown from becoming the first black graduate of the nation’s second oldest military academy.

Lt. Cmdr. Brown was not the first black midshipman at the Academy. Five had preceded him but none had managed to graduate. Fortunately for him, he had served as Cadet Corps Battalion Commander* while at Baltimore’s Dunbar High School as well as in World War II prior to entering the Academy.

While at the USNA, Lt. Cmdr. Brown was a successful athlete on the track and cross-country teams. He would often find himself running with fellow midshipman, and future President of the United States, Jimmy Carter.

Following his graduation from the Academy in 1949, Lt. Commander Brown would serve in the Korean and Vietnam Wars as well as Liberia, Cuba, and the Philippines. He would retire from the Navy in 1969.

In 2007, the Naval Academy dedicated the Wesley A. Brown Field House in his honor. Lt. Commander Wesley Brown died at the age of 85.

(Image is copyright of Simmie Knox, who was also commissioned to paint the official White House portraits of former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton, as well as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.)

*The military-like program was similar to today’s JROTC