{"id":21325,"date":"2021-06-10T11:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T15:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=21325"},"modified":"2024-11-13T13:49:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T18:49:20","slug":"remembering-dr-andrew-c-jackson-and-the-tulsa-race-massacre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2021\/06\/10\/remembering-dr-andrew-c-jackson-and-the-tulsa-race-massacre\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Dr. Andrew C. Jackson and the Tulsa Race Massacre"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 1, 2021 marked the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre<\/a>. Recently, National Library of Medicine (NLM) archivist John Rees fielded a reference email from Jon Adams seeking historical materials about his relative Dr. Andrew C. Jackson, a prominent Black physician working and living in the Greenwood section of Tulsa that was the epicenter of the event. Dr. Jackson was murdered during the massacre, an event that was widely-reported in newspapers and medical journals across the country. We are grateful to Mr. Adams for sharing his research and family history related to this major event in American history<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Circulating Now:<\/strong> Thank you for reaching out and speaking with us about your relative Dr. Andrew C. Jackson. To start, would you tell us a little bit about yourself, and your relationship to Dr. Jackson?<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>Jon Adams: <\/strong>I, along with my Dad, my uncle, my brothers, my sister and all of our children\u2014we are all nephews of Dr. Andrew Chesteen Jackson (Uncle Andrew). We also are all grandchildren of Henry Augustus Guess (H.A. Guess), a prominent attorney in Tulsa in the early 1900s, and Minnie Mae Guess (n\u00e9e Jackson), Uncle Andrew\u2019s older sister. Uncle Andrew\u2019s wife, Julia A. Jackson was an educator in the Tulsa Public Schools, where the children of H.A. Guess and Minnie Mae Guess attended school.<\/p>\n

I am currently living in Portland, Oregon. I have worked for the federal government since 2001 and am a volunteer freelance writer. My writing is a work in progress, but I am very passionate about what I write about.<\/p>\n

CN:\u00a0<\/strong> Dr. Jackson was a prominent Tulsa citizen and nationally regarded physician; his murder was specifically reported in several contemporary Tulsa World<\/a> newspaper stories covering the massacre, its aftermath, and brief trial<\/a> that absolved police of responsibility for his death. Over the last year, the story of his death has been in the news, for example on 60 Minutes<\/a> and in Tulsa Black History Month features, as Tulsa prepared for the 100th anniversary of the massacre<\/a> and began work to find mass graves.<\/p>\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
The Morning Tulsa Daily World, June 3, 1921<\/em>
Library of Congress, Chronicling America<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Dr. A.C. Jackson, negro, killed while fleeing from his home, which had been fired. He was the foremost colored physician in the southwest and was held in high regard not only by members of his own race, but also by many prominent whites. His body will probably be taken to Guthrie for burial.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What do you know about his life in Tulsa prior to his death?<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
An advertisement for Dr. Jackson’s medical practice,
circa 1920s
Oklahoma State University Collections<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

JA: <\/strong>Dr. Jackson was born in Memphis, Tennessee and graduated from Meharry Medical School. How the family got to Oklahoma is a bit of a mystery. Family lore has it that Dr. Jackson\u2019s father, who served for the Union Army during the Civil War, often challenged the White status quo in Memphis until he was run out of town. The family ended up in Guthrie, Oklahoma, where Dr. Jackson is buried alongside his mother Saphronia Jackson’s unmarked plot. My father placed a headstone on Dr. Jackson’s grave in 2013. My family and I visited there recently.<\/p>\n

Most of the attention paid to Uncle Andrew is about him dying, ad nauseum. What is seldom talked about is the entire sweep of his life. He accomplished a lot in his 42 years on this earth and was recognized for his important work. To wit, the Mayo Brothers found his work nothing short of remarkable as recorded in several of his death notices. He spent some time training at the Mayo Clinic. I\u2019m working with the Mayo\u2019s archivists to find the training attendance signature books.<\/p>\n

What is even more remarkable is that his subject matter expertise was treating infectious diseases like diphtheria and scarlet fever, right in the middle of Spanish Influenza of 1918. Talk about eerie coincidences.<\/p>\n

CN: <\/strong>You\u2019ve been on a quest, collecting all sorts of records and documents, to better understand how Dr. Jackson lived and worked. What NLM resources have you found useful in your research?<\/p>\n

\"Detail<\/a>
“Dr. Jackson and the Tulsa, Oklahoma Riots,” July 2, 1921
Journal of the National Medical Association<\/em>
NLM PubMed Central #2622621<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

JA: <\/strong>What impresses me most about NLM is that it houses the archives of the Journal of the National Medical Association (JNMA). In it, I found Uncle Andrew\u2019s whereabouts, his subject matter and, most importantly, his spoken words reduced to writing in letters<\/a> to the JNMA, some two weeks before he died. Dr. Jackson was a vice-president for the state of Oklahoma to the NMA at the time of his death and in 1921 JNMA printed a comment on his death<\/a>, an appeal<\/a> for the Tulsa Doctor’s Relief fund and an obituary<\/a>.<\/p>\n