T. D. Evans was an American lawyer, judge, and the

Mayor of Tulsa This is a list of mayors of Tulsa, a city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Mayors of Tulsa are elected for four year terms. Mayors of Tulsa Notes See also * Timeline of Tulsa, Oklahoma References ;General Political Graveyard–Mayors of T ...

during the

Tulsa race massacre The Tulsa race massacre was a two-day-long white supremacist terrorist massacre that took place in the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as ...

Biography

Evans was appointed municipal judge for the city of

Tulsa Tulsa ( ) is the second-most-populous city in the state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tul ...

in May 1917 and was the judge who oversaw the

Tulsa Outrage The Tulsa Outrage was an act of vigilante violence perpetrated by the Knights of Liberty against members of the Industrial Workers of the World amidst World War I on November 9, 1917, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In April 1917 the United States entered ...

. Evans campaigned for Mayor of Tulsa in 1920 on a single issue platform: approve the

Spavinaw Water Project The Spavinaw Water Project was established to provide fresh water for Tulsa, Oklahoma from a site on Spavinaw Creek near the town of Spavinaw in Mayes County, Oklahoma. Planning and financing began in 1919, The project scope included site select ...

. He was considered a compromise candidate, having previously served as municipal judge. He defeated Edward E. Short in the Republican primary with 1,275 votes to Short's 885 votes. He went on to defeat incumbent Charles D. Hubbard with 4,891 votes to Hubbard's 4,684 votes. T. D. Evans was the Mayor of Tulsa from 1920 to 1922. He was mayor during the 1921

. After the massacre, he blamed it on a "negro uprising" and advocated for building a railroad and rail station in the

Greenwood District Greenwood is a historic freedom colony in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As one of the most prominent concentrations of African-American businesses in the United States during the early 20th century, it was popularly known as America's "Black Wall Street". ...

. In an official letter to the council date June 14, 1921, Evans proposed relocated Tulsa's

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

community to the northeast and rezoning Greenwood for industrial use. Evans proposal was not fully implemented due to lawsuits filed by

Buck Colbert Franklin Buck Colbert Franklin (May 6, 1879September 24, 1960) was an African American lawyer best known for defending survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. Early life and education Buck Colbert Franklin was born on May 6, 1879, near Homer, in wou ...

and the district started rebuilding within a year of the massacre.

Notes

References

Mayors of Tulsa, Oklahoma 20th-century mayors of places in Oklahoma 20th-century American judges Oklahoma Republicans Year of birth missing Year of death missing {{US-judge-stub