"Mabel Bonner Little"(1896-2001)

Was a businesswoman,missionary,and a survivor,she possessed an incredible memory and used her knowledge of the past,her faith in god,and her ambition to succeed to overcome one of the worst acts of racial violence in the United States.The granddaughter of enslaved Africans.She was born Mabel Bonner in Spring,Texas,in 1896.Her family moved to Boley,Oklahoma,in 1910,one of the major U.S. all-black towns with thriving business districts.While her grandmother,Caroline Brooks,had vision of her becoming a missionary,in 1913,at seventeen,Mabel moved to Tulsa,Oklahoma.Her goal was to work there and save enough money to attend Langston University.She set about realizing her dream by working at the Brady Hotel for a salary of twenty dollars month.The next year,Mabel Married Pressley Little and established a shoeshine and beauty parlor business in Greenwood section of town.Sher and her husband worked together to develop their business and other areas of the black community.They were part of the building of Mount Zion Baptist Church which was the life of the black community.The Little's were an important part of the business that serve the black community.These businesses included a considerable number of restaurants and a confectionary.Mabel's business was so successful she employed four beauticians,and in 1918 she established  the first professional organization for beauticians in the city of Tulsa.Mabel and her husband used their resources to provide for their growing extended family.They adopted many children and raised them as their own.Most of these children,a total of twelve,were the children of family members who needed a home.Like Mabel and her family,most blacks lived in North Tulsa in residential areas described  as "Little Africa"and a business district called "Black Wall Street."These areas were a traditional part of racially segregation of America.African Americans provided for their own goods and services,since they were routinely denied full and equal access to white-run shops and restaurants.These communities offered support and some protection to blacks,since lynching was common in the United States and not all unheard of in Oklahoma.This sense of community building also included the development of social services by blacks.But within this context was also competion between whites and blacks for land and businesses,and the idea among some whites was that blacks interested in bussinesses and property "didn't know their place."However,by 1921 emerging black communities like those in Tulsa were being viewed as places of economic opportunity for blacks who came from all over the country.On May 31,1921,Mabel and several other black women of the Greenwood district were attending a community development meeting at Mount Zion Baptist Church.Mabel husband found her there and announced the onset of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921:"Baby,there's a riot starting! There's shooting at the courthouse."The riot was set off by published rumors that a nineteen-year-old black man,Dick Rowland,attempted to rape a seventeen-year-old white female elevator operator Sarah Page,in a downtown office building.The riot involved thousands of people and more than a thousand homes and businesses were destroyed.While conservative figures suggest that some three hundred people died,some scholars assert that the number of dead fromthe riots is as much as three thousand. Most of them were African Americans whose bodies were dumped in mass graves.Many blacks hid to escape the attacks and the ensuing chaos.Others banded together to protect Dick from a lynch mob  and to keep their families and neighborhoods safe from vigiliantism. Like many other black residents,Mabel  and her family survived the massacre and suffered the massive loss of property.In 1921 Mabel and her husband had just renovated their business, added a new home to accommodate their growing family, and began expanding to include rental property. On May 31 and June 1 their home and businesses were completley destroyed by the firebombs of the race riot, along with church they helped to build. Whenthe riot ended Mabel began the task of rebuilding their home, businesses, community, and Mount Zion Baptist Church.She and her husband also continued to expand their family by adopting children.In 1927 Mabel's husband Pressley died of tuberculosis.She maintained her business and worked as a beautician.In addition,during the depression era she worked in the aviation business with McDonnell Douglas in Oklahoma,Kansas,and California.Throughout this period,Mabel also remained focused in missionary work.She concentrated  on two main aspects of her missionary work.Her primary focus was to raise and provide for her children which also included her sister  and four children;and Mabel had a vision of helping the African American community "along the road to freedom and elevation."Mabel is considered a "great mother" in the Tulsa black community.Her concerns about the problems of youth translated into work organizing church youth programs,women's organizations,and education reform.She received numerous awards in her lifetime for community service,and was the subject of many interviews about her work and reflections on the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.In 1990,with the assistance of Nathan and Julia Hare,Mabel published her autobiography,Fire on Mt.Zion:My Life  and History as a Black Woman in America.In Fire on Mt.Zion,she shares her deep belief in god  and the power of prayer, and is and an important eyewitness testimony to the Tulsa Race Riot.