Before her wealth and fame, What changed Sarah and the Rectors life overall was a stroke of luck if you may say. She eventually left Tuskegee with her family and moved toKansas City, Missouri, where she bought agrand home that still stands today. Yet the possibility of riches teased the imagination as landholders throughout Oklahoma began striking oil. Historically, racism has managed to create a well-functioning system to perpetuate ideas of race superiority and oppression towards those considered inferior to them. Rectors lost most of her wealth during The Great Depression. Sarah Rector was buried in Taft Cemetery, Oklahoma. By this point, Sarah was the second oldest of six children, her parents welcoming Alfred, Lillie and little Rosie by 1913. They divorced in 1930 and Rector remarried in 1934. Rector's parents, Rose McQueen and her husband, Joseph Rector (both born 1881),[4] were the Black grandchildren of Creek Indians before the Civil War,[5] and were descendants of the Muscogee Creek Nation after the Treaty of 1866. At the time, Sarah Rectors net worth was estimated to be comprised of about $750,000 in oil revenue, and she was bringing in over $100,000 per year. When she was 20 years old, Sarah married Kenneth Campbell; he was known to be the second Black man in the US to own an auto dealership. If you're unfamiliar with the story, The Richest Black Girl in America is set in the early 1900s, and follows the true tale of Sarah Rector, an 11-year-old Black girl in Jim Crow America, who is given reparations in the form of uninhabitable land by the U.S. government.Although initially the land seemed useless, "a misplaced band-aid on [1][15], Rector lived a comfortable life and, with a taste for fine clothing and cars, enjoyed her wealth. Likely in order to escape scrutiny and not wanting to be the target of some greedy partys act, Mollie McQueen, Sarahs paternal great-great-grandmother, was enslaved by Creek Chief Opothleyahola in Alabama. Since he could not sell the land, Joseph Rector decided to lease it out to a Pittsburgh oil company. . Soon after arriving to Kansas City, the Rectors bought a sprawling stone foursquare at the corner of 2000 East 12th Street. Who is the youngest richest woman in the world? Jones drilled a well on the property which produced a "gusher" that began to bring in 2,500 barrels (400m3) of oil a day. WebStevie Nicks, Beatles, John Lennon, George Harrison, Fleetwood Mac, Bee Gees, Star Wars, X-Files, "Worthwhile" Comedy (70s, 80s & early 90s SNL, Vintage Looney Jones produced a gusher on the land. Many stores, including Emery, Bird, Thayer & Co., would close down and allow the Rector women to shop freely. [4] In June of that year, a special agent for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), James C. Waters Jr., sent a memo to Du Bois regarding her situation. This was an irrevocable law so that Oklahoma could be integrated into US territory. They divorced in 1930 and Rector remarried in 1934. He had lived in the home for over 17 years. None of the allegations were true. According to the Amsterdam News, Rector and her family sought to end Porters guardianship and were ultimately successful. Unfortunately, Rector lost a majority of her wealth during The Great Depression and moved out of her It is important to hear from those directly concerned, rather than base research solely on archival material like newspaper clippings. Then check out the 10 richest people of all time. No one, including historians, is clear on what happened to Aunt Sisters money. They drive by the abandoned Rector Mansion, boarded up and falling into disrepair, wishing that they could find a way to buy it back and bring it to its former glory. While lands granted to former slaves were usually rocky and infertile, Rectors allotment from the Creek Indian Nation was located in the middle of the Glenn Pool oil field and was initially valued at $556.50. With Dave Stewart, Hall produced one of his albums titled 'Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine,' which has a #5 solo single named 'Dreamtime. Additionally, Joe and Rose now had a daughter who was transformed as a little black girl from Taft to a millionaire headline overnight. The White-owned newspapers, seemingly unconstrained by facts and at times human decency, were openly racist in their coverage. DuBois. Three sisters, now in their 60s and 70s, sat down with 41 Action News Anchor Kevin Holmes to talk As the richest self-made Black woman on this list, Oprah Winfreys contributions to both pop culture as a whole and the advancement of Black women, in particular, cannot be overstated. But will go back to this in a moment. Sarahs land was near a bend along the Cimarron River valued at around $500. Rumors even claimed that she was a white immigrant girl that was being kept in poverty. B.E. Even as tens of thousands of Native Americans were forcibly relocated northwest to Indian Territory from 1831 to 1850 in the genocidal journey known as The Trail of Tears, the tribes largely sided with the Confederate states during the Civil War. Your Money, Your Life, LATEST LISTS The facts, including that Rectors themselves had selected Porter, a family friend, went unacknowledged. By the time they had their chance to get a hold of land for their children, the pickings were slim. At that time, it was required by law that all Native Americans and Black citizens from Indian Territories with relatively significant property and wealth had to be assigned a well-respected white guardian to be able to keep making business. By then, Rector owned stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a bakery and the Busy Bee Caf in Muskogee, Okla. Born as the daughter of freedmen in 1902, Sarah Rector rose from humble beginnings to reportedly become the wealthiest black girl in the nation at the age of 11. Her descendants never knew. She never managed to recover all that wealth, though she lived comfortably for the rest of her life until the age of 65. On Browns visit to the D.C. area, she set out with Riffle for the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture bearing the faded photographs of Rector as a woman. The rags-to-riches story made its way around the world, with American newspapers reporting that several German youth wrote Leahy requesting the childs hand in marriage. Currently, no one has yet claimed trillionaire status, although some of the worlds richest individuals may only be a few years away from this milestone. Most of the fancy parties that Sarah had where celebrities such as Duke Ellington would attend werent at the Rector mansion- they were at her home at 2600 Lockridge where she had purchased several homes on the block. If Sarah had rubbed Aladdins lamp and commanded the Jinn to provide every luxury her most vivid imaginings could picture, the Jinns efforts would yet be far removed from the actuality.. Management A typical cabin for Creek Freedmen on Muscogee (Creek) Nation land in Oklahoma, similar to where Sarah Rector would have been born. Du Bois, who got involved with Sarah Rectors case when he heard rumors her money was being mismanaged by a white man. Waters had been corresponding with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the United States Children's Bureau over concerns regarding the mismanagement of Rector's estate. She divorced Campbell and married restaurant owner William Crawford, who she remained with until she died. Not too long afterward, Manuel disappeared into the sunset and Joe, embarrassed, finally wired his wife for the money to get home. In January 1914, the newspaper wrote,Oil Made Pickaninny Rich Oklahoma Girl With $15,000 A Month gets Many Proposals Four White Men in Germany Want to Marry the Negro Child That They Might Share Her Fortune. Meanwhile, the Savannah Tribune wrote,Oil Well Produces Neat Income Negro Girls $112,000 A Year. By the time Sarah was 18, she was worth well over one million dollars. Joe Rector also began receiving payments of about $50 a month about $1,500 in todays dollars. He focused on real estate development and his car dealership at 18th and Vine. Crystal click on the link The New Santa Fe Trailer for a longer more in depth story. We would like to see the house restored and have it become a historic landmark and museum, the Rector descendants told me around the kitchen table covered with photos, records and family papers. It has appeared on the cover of an award-winning book about Rector, on the Facebook page of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, and elsewhere. Sarah Rector was 11 when oil was discovered on her land in Oklahoma in 1913. After finding out there was oil in the parcel, and trying to make some money out of it, Joseph decided to lease the parcel to an oil company in 1911. The parcel allotted to Sarah Rector was located in Glenpool, 60 miles (97km) from where she and her family lived. Brown returned the images to the envelope. INFORMATION When her fortune topped $10,000 a month at the age of 13, a probate judge appointed a white guardian for her although both her parents were still alive. Unfortunately, Rector lost a majority of her wealth during The Great Depression and moved out of her mansion on 12th Street to 2440 Brooklyn Avenue. Rector became instantly wealthy. They moved to a modern cottage with five bedrooms and owned a car. Soon, the NAACP and W.E.B. She can afford it. She never said she was rich.. This prompted Du Bois to establish the Children's Department of the NAACP, which would investigate claims of white guardians who were suspected of depriving black children of their land and wealth. If youre unfamiliar with the story, The Richest Black Girl in America is set in the early 1900s, and follows the true tale of Sarah Rector, an 11-year-old Black girl in Jim Crow America, who is given reparations in the form of uninhabitable land by the U.S. government. That same year, Rector enrolled in the childrens house, a boarding school for teenagers at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. reset to default font size But she was also on a dual mission: She had packed two small black-and-white photographs of Aunt Sister to hand to the right authority at the African American Museum in D.C. We were going to present them and say, This is the record. By the time she turned 18, Rector was worth an estimated $1 million, or about $11 million today. This caused National African American leaders Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. The investments and payments to Sarah were overseen by Judge Thomas Leahy, who, by accounts of the time, was one of Muskogee Countys most honorable men. Soon, the wells, which would come to number in the dozens, were pumping 2,500 gallons a day, with about $300 a day a 12.5 percent cut flowing Sarahs way, Bolden writes. But her relatives say those images are fake. Women of Power Summit Upon graduation, she attended the Institute. The courts again sided with Rector, ruling that since she had managed her property with such astuteness that she needs no guardian.. They had to petition a court to obtain it or otherwise request a white guardian. Was Sarah Rector the first black millionaire? For a hundred years, these photos have depicted Sarah Rector, the Richest Black Girl in America. Rector Family PhotographSarah Rector moved to Kansas City in 1917, where she finished high school and stayed for the rest of her life. The family didnt leave Kansas City as some like to report; five generations of Rector descendants still call this place home. WebWhen 11-year-old Sarah Rector in Jim Crow America discovers a seemingly worthless plot of land she has inherited is worth millions, everything in her life changes and the walls begin to close in. Sara Allen (born March 23, 1954) is an There is 1 volunteer for this cemetery. Then in 1917, the source of all the speculation vanished from Oklahoma. As its revealed in the last episode of Self Made, yes, Madam C.J. Joe Rectors attempts to lease it for oil and natural gas exploration at first netted little. [4] Sarah Rector died in 1967 from a stroke at the age of 65. You might like this: Mansa Musa I: The Richest Man In History Was An African King, Not Jeff Bezos. She was born in an almost all-black town called Taft in Oklahoma, a land that was considered at the time an Indian Territory. He wrote of her white financial guardian: Is it not possible to have her cared for in a decent manner and by people of her own race, instead of by a member of a race which would deny her and her kind the treatment accorded a good yard dog? Privacy Policy A guardian was appointed to manage young Sarahs income, and a judge oversaw the guardian. In 1914, an African American journal, The Chicago Defender, began to take an interest in Rector, just as rumors began to fly that she was a white immigrant who was being kept in poverty. 1906). 1886), and by 1907, they were living in a two-room cabin outside of Taft, population 250, on Roses land allotment. Ironically, her body was brought to C.K. Her final resting place in the ground was back where the story beginsin Taft, in a peaceful parcel of land known as Blackjack Cemetery. John Rector's mother Mollie McQueen was the Muscogee Opothleyahola, who fought in the Seminole Wars and split with the tribe, moving his followers to Kansas. The Hall & Oates tour begins on August 5 in Mansfield, Mass. The stock market crash of 1929 and the Depression that followed probably depleted her accounts. Selena Hill is the Digital Editor at Black Enterprise and an award-winning multi-media journalist. The NAACP was able to convince the Rectors to send Sarah to the Tuskegee Institutes elementary school called the Childrens Home. Which Teeth Are Normally Considered Anodontia? Euston published her myth-busting piece about Rector in 2019 on her history blog, The New Santa Fe Trailer. Rector began to receive a daily income of $300 from this strike. Sarah Rector, Kansas Citys First Black Millionairess, was known in Kansas City for her fairy tale ascension to money and fame, fine living at Rector Mansion, and reported entertaining of African American celebrities such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Joe Louis, and Jack Johnson. Mansa Musa, who may have been the richest person ever. The Creeks called them Estelvstethe Black People. That same year, Sarah was making over $300 a day, which has been estimated to be around $8,000 today. It wasnt until Brown was in her late teens after Rector died in 1967 at the age of 65 that Brown realized Aunt Sister had indeed been rich. The couple had three children and though over a decade of marriage enjoyed the status of being local royalty. Her maternal great-great-grandmother had been enslaved by Creek Chief Opothle Yoholo in Alabama during the first half of the 19th century, according to Tonya Bolden, author of Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America published in 2014. 1878) met and married Rose Jackson (b. Thank you for subscribing! The judge also approved money for Rector to attend the childrens school at Tuskegee Institute. Quickly, this oil gusher produced 2,500 barrels of oil per day. Her parents, Joseph Rector and his wife, Rose McQueen (both born 1881) were African descendants of the Creek Nation Creek Indians before the Civil war. Yet depending on the publication, the family was either senselessly rich or persistently poor. about $11 million In fact, both women appeared to have a bit of a lead foot. Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle are privately owned by the Queen. 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