Class Photo of Segregated School in Tulsa

[African Americana]: [Oklahoma]:

"Class of 1935" Booker T. Washington High School [caption title].

Tulsa: Randle Studio, 1935. Photographic broadside, 8 x 10 inches. Moderate edge wear, left edge unevenly trimmed, some surface wear and light soiling, short closed tear in right edge. About very good. Item #5261

A striking photographic collage featuring the 1935 graduating class of Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The class photo includes small portraits of 116 students, all identified by name in printed captions below each photo. The photo credit at lower right indicates the image was produced by the Randle Studio in Tulsa. Booker T. Washington High School opened in 1913 with a student body of fourteen students taught by a faculty of two. In 1920, the new school building opened in the Greenwood district of Tulsa. Luckily, the school escaped destruction during the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. In fact, Booker T. served as headquarters for the American Red Cross's relief efforts just after the riot, providing temporary shelter for over 2,000 Tulsans displaced during the conflagration. Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the school was not desegregated until the 1970s. The present group collage photo for the 1935 class of Booker T. Washington High School remains a powerful reminder of African-American education in Jim Crow Oklahoma.

Price: $450