0.1 Editor's introduction: on frank g. speck’s oklahoma and indian  (Page 2/4)

It is anticipated that a fuller treatment of these essays will eventually become available to scholars, students and other interested readers. Given the brevity of Speck’s essays, I will limit my editor’s remarks here to observing that almost every issue taken up by Speck in his essay “Observations in Oklahoma and Indian Territory” remains at the center of Oklahoma’s contemporary public policy discussions and all are prominent in the complex, and sometimes conflicted, ways that Oklahomans talk about, and experience, life in the state. Authored at the time of statehood, Speck’s refections foreshadow particularly Oklahoman debates about the state’s failing bridges and roads, its often very strained inter-ethnic relations, it challenged educational institutions, the constant reappearance of corruption in the financial sector, public health woes, painful epidemics of substance abuse, the problem of “brain drain,” and the reality of un-swimmable lakes and questionable drinkable water. Like many Oklahomans-by-birth and by-choice, I combine a deep love for the state of Oklahoma with a recognition that it is a special place with both unique merits and distinctive social and environmental problems. Regardless of political orientation, I am confident that any Oklahoman who follows the state’s news day to day and year to year will, despite its author’s discouraged and provocative tone, find Speck’s reflections to be not only a remarkable historical portrait but also a prescient preview of those issues that would continue to vex politicians, policy makers, and all Oklahomans.

Thankfully present-day realities in Oklahoma show significant change from the circumstances described by Speck in “Negro and White Exclusion Towns in Indian Territory and Oklahoma.” Yet, the specter of racism and racial violence continues to haunt present-day Oklahoma. Historically-aware Oklahomans reading Speck’s account will think immediately of the horrifying and massive Tulsa race riot of 1921, judged by many reasonable observers to be the worst such event in U.S. history. The results of this spree of anti-black violence and destruction are observable everyday by any citizen of Tulsa who cares to wonder about why the city has the built and unbuilt urban landscape that it does. In addition to the countless lives lost, the riot destroyed what was once known as the “Negro wall street” and 35 city blocks of thriving--if segregated--African American neighborhoods. The scars of this destruction are visible on the landscape today and are internalized in the consciousnesses of many Oklahomans. (For an overview of the Tulsa Race Riot, see Ellsworth 2009)

The Southern Poverty Law Center was aware of (as of this writing) nineteen active hate-groups in the state. Most of these were white racist and neo-Nazi organization, but they also highlighted the presence of Black Separatist groups in the state (Southern Poverty Law Center 2009). While dramatic racist violence is not a daily occurrence, incidents occur at a regular enough rate to form a kind of regular and unwelcome rhythm in the consciousness of those who follow the state’s major newspapers with a concerned eye. A more pervasive racial animosity is evident, for instance, in the comments that one can now find appended to many newspaper stories as these now appear online. Thankfully, contemporary Oklahoma is also the home to many people and organizations of goodwill who are devoted to combating racism and other expressions of injustice. The Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice is one such organization that has made a real difference working to bring the peoples of Oklahoma into healthy dialogue. I mention the continuity in Speck’s observations on race relations not to besmirch the state but to provide those who are working for its betterment a sense of the historical depth the lurks behind the problems they are addressing (Oklahoma Center for Community and Justice 2009).