July 25, 2000 -- Vol.5, no.1 Conspiracies of Silence To protect
Rowland, a group of black men marched to the courthouse.
Outgunned when a white mob showed up, they retreated into
Greenwood, a black area outside the white city. The Tulsa police
then deputized a number of men from the lynch mob, reportedly
including members of the Ku Klux Klan. These men went out,
killed, and set fire to the very homes and businesses they had
been deputized to defend. By June 1 when the Oklahoma National
Guard arrived, about 1200 buildings, including 23 churches, had
been burned, bombed, or looted, and as many as 300 people had
been shot, burned alive, or dragged behind cars.(2) And so, a
great drama triangle of persecutors, rescuers, and victims was
played out in Tulsa. Some of those who posed as rescuers,
however, were really wolves in sheep's clothing. Karpman (4)
made a significant contribution to understanding human problems,
when he described the reciprocal roles of victims, persecutors,
and rescuers. Switches in these ro