Pastor Imitates Jesus Christ and Tries to Fast for 40 Days; He Passed of Malnutrition, Shelley, Woolf, and Maas: Three Feminist Writers that Turned Pain into Masterpieces. The stock market crash of 1929 and the Depression that followed probably depleted her accounts. Meet Sarah Rector, the 11-Year-Old Who Became The Richest Black Girl in America in 1913. 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. 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? 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. The paper allegedly embellished details about the Rectors, saying that they lived in a shack, which generated concern from Black leaders like W.E.B. By then, Rector owned stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a bakery and the Busy Bee Caf in Muskogee, Okla. The facts, including that Rectors themselves had selected Porter, a family friend, went unacknowledged. One of the greatest examples of this hypocrisy and nonsensical laws is the case of Sarah Rector, a young black girl deemed by the press and society as the Richest Colored Girl in the World, " and who was eventually declared white so she could be a member of society. When Rector died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, her wealth was diminished, but she still had some working oil wells and real estate holdings. Deborah Brown grew up calling her Aunt Sister, and she remembers her storied life through the haze of childhood in segregated Kansas City, Mo., more than a half a century ago. Sales Partnership Solutions Back then, it was known as Twine, Indian Territory, since Oklahoma had not yet been incorporated as a state. She was born in an almost all-black town called Taft in Oklahoma, a land that was considered at the time an Indian Territory. At some point, the mansion was sold and Rector moved into a more modest house. They have sat back quietly as the rumors about their family recirculate every so often, as that false photo of Sarah is placed at the top of newspaper headlines and social media posts. She threw lavish parties and entertained celebrities such as Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Web5 Advantages Of In-Home Therapy And Rehabilitation Best Tyre Brands for Your Car NFL COVID PROTOCOLS: OUTBREAK POSTPONES STEELERS-TITANS Whats the Shortly thereafter, he died and was buried in Blackjack Cemetery in Taft. All rights reserved 2022 Collective Culture. Joe ended up quite satisfied when he was able to lease Sarahs land to an oil company where he received a bonus of $160. This caused National African American leaders Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Of course, Brown has no memory of Rector spending anything. To be clear, Sarah still had quite a bit of money, but she didnt have the ability to throw money around like she had once. 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. The newspaper published an article claiming that her estate was being mismanaged by her family and that she was uneducated, and had a poor quality of life. All Rights Reserved. Jones struck a gusher on Sarahs land that produced 2,500 barrels a day, which gave Sarah a whopping daily income of $300. A guardian was appointed to manage young Sarahs income, and a judge oversaw the guardian. Her grandparents had been enslaved by Creek Indians and freed after the Civil War. Joe Rector also began receiving payments of about $50 a month about $1,500 in todays dollars. They lived in a five-room cottage and even owned a car, a rarity for Blacks at the time. Historically so. This version has been corrected. Crystal click on the link The New Santa Fe Trailer for a longer more in depth story. 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. Evidently the color of an heiress does not matter if the color of her gold is genuine, wrote Edward Curd, Sarahs attorney. Soon, the NAACP and W.E.B. She married him in 1906 following her first marriage to Moses McWilliams at 14 and her second to a man named John Davis. 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. Rectors notoriety ballooned just as quickly as her wealth. Due to her newfound wealth, publications across America wrote of marriage proposals, especially those that came from four white men from Germany. 1901), Sarah (b. Jones started to assemble the necessary equipment to check out Sarahs land near the Cimarron River. 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. Her siblings all took on jobs- her mother even for a time went back to working as a maid. She was the owner of stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a restaurant in Oklahoma, a bakery, and around 2,000 acres of land. Nicks herself had an affair with Mick Fleetwood in early 1978 while he was married to Jenny Boyd. Enter your email address to follow this site and receive news sent to your email. The granddaughter of the LOral founder, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers was the wealthiest woman in the world as of March 2021. Through sheer chance Sarah Rector became one of the richest children in America. Beckys land was in Okfuskee County, and Sarah and Joe, Jr. ended up with parcels 50 miles northwest of Taft. She would start receiving gifts, requests from loans, and even marriage proposals, some of them by german men, according to the tabloid press. Sarah Rector was born in 1902 to a freed black couple, Rose McQueen and Joseph Rector. Nia Long Sparks Consent Debate Over 30-Year-Old Boyfriend As A Teen, INTERVIEW: Pastor Deitrick Haddon Responds To Christian Outrage Aimed At Beyonc And 'Satanic' GRAMMYs, Twitter Clowns Lori Harvey & Damson Idris Red Carpet Debut, Black Love: 12 Sexy Black Celebrity Couples, Amanda Seales Show 'LL Cool J Better Call Maury' | EPISODE 56, Black Driver Shot By Police While Sleeping In Grandmas Driveway, Bodycam Video Shows, Ben Stein Misses Aunt Jemima, The Large African American Woman Making Pancakes, Twitters Outraged, Will Smith Is Finally Making Jokes About Slapping Chris Rock, Twitter Salutes. Connecting Oklahoma's Electric Cooperative Communities, Mailing Address: was an adman and salesman. Privacy Policy At 18, Rector came fully into her wealth, free now of guardians. 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. WebWho was Sara Rector and how did she become wealthy? Much was publicized about her extravagant spending on luxuries. In November 1913, not aware of the monthly allotments Sarah was getting, the newspaper headline read Richest Colored Girl Forced to Live in Shack. Claims were made that Sarah was sleeping on the floor and her guardian was only giving her a few dollars a month. But it definitely isnt her.. With an estimated net worth of $177 billion, he is the richest person in the world. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. The fallacies kept cropping up and, worst of all, that pesky photo. At this point, her lawyers claimed that she owned $750,000 in oil properties along with other assets that pushed her worth to over $1 million. In 1902, young Sarah Rector was born into this world, the second eldest of Joe and Rose Rectors nine children. Mansa Musa I: The Richest Man In History Was An African King, Not Jeff Bezos. When she began attending Tuskegee Institutes Childrens School at the suggestion of Booker T. Washington, a guard managed to prevent her abduction by a group intending to hold her for ransom. Upon graduation, she attended the Institute. ABOUT 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. The most important part of this saga is the simple fact that her family got lost within the tabloids tabloids worldwide that painted a picture of a poor little black girl from Oklahoma who slept on dirt floors, struck it rich, was taken advantage of and lived frivolously. Did Joe and Rose Rector move the family to Kansas City to escape the violent fate that befell too many oil-rich Natives and Freedmen? In 1913, an oil driller discovered a gusher that produced a reported 2,500 barrels per day. She died on July 22, 1967, and she only had some oil wells working and some real estate holdings. 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. Sarahs experiences encouraged officials in Oklahoma to provide badly needed protection for children caught up in the oil boom, especially Black and indigenous children who became targets of unscrupulous men attempting to snatch their money. The petition was denied, and he was forced to keep paying the property tax, still without knowing that land was literally a fortune fountain. It became known as the Rector Mansion, Tonya Bolden said. WebShe recalls once during the Hotel California tour when Henley flew her in a cranberry-colored jet to the Omni in Atlanta to watch the show. Sarah Rector died in 1967 from a stroke at the age of 65. Claim #2: China is a Good Faith Peacemaker . No one took the time to teach her how to spend the money or how to invest it, Brown said. He focused on real estate development and his car dealership at 18th and Vine. The family resided in this home until shortly after the Stock Market Crash where it was then purchased by the Adkins Funeral Home. ), Although slavery was not common among Native Americans, prominent members of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole tribes in the southeastern states sometimes enslaved people, in part to flaunt them as status symbols. Kansas City Who was the first richest black woman in America? To raise enough money to pay the $30 annual tax bill, Sarahs father, Joseph Rector, leased her allotment to the Devonian Oil Company of Pittsburg in 1911. Sarah was born on March 3, 1902. Alice Walton, the daughter of the Walmart founder, was ranked second with 61.8 billion U.S. dollars in net worth. Sarah Rector moved to Kansas City in 1917, where she finished high school and stayed for the rest of her life. Browns mother insisted, too. There, the Rectors eventually moved into a home that was a far cry from that weather-whipped two-room cabin in which Sarah began life. Yet the possibility of riches teased the imagination as landholders throughout Oklahoma began striking oil. Newspaper articles reporting Sarahs rags to riches story and the NAACP investigation sparked a number of international marriage proposals when Sarah was just 13, some from white men seeking to control her growing oil empire. How the author stumbled on Sarahs story is included in this spellbinding presentation of an early America and real-life mysteries. Mansa Musa, who may have been the richest person ever. Sarah Rector was born in 1902 near the all-black town of Taft, located in the eastern portion of Oklahoma, in what was then Indian Territory. Was Sarah Rector the first black millionaire? We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Brown assumes so. Of course, there was a trick in this Act, and black children were simply granted the worst parts of the land; generally rocky and infertile soil so the good allotments could be granted to white settlers and distinctive members of the Indian tribe as it had been agreed upon. Black newspapers at the time, like the Chicago Defender in 1914, were angered by this takeover. There are few records of abuses and attempted abuses suffered by Sarah and other child landowners, but her wealth and property rights made her a target for exploitation. According to the Amsterdam News, Rector and her family sought to end Porters guardianship and were ultimately successful. But she had also intentionally chosen to omit Pope-Turnbos role.. Both of Sarahs grandfathers had fought with the Union Army during the Civil War, and when Indian Territory became Oklahoma in 1907 the Dawes Allotment Act divided Creek lands among tribal members and their former slaves. She also owned stocks and bonds, a boarding house, a bakery and restaurant inMuskogee, Oklahoma, and 2,000 acres of land. In 1922, she married Kenneth Campbell, the second African American to own an auto dealership. But the land given to the Freedmen was of generally inferior quality rocky and unfit for farming, hardly worth the tax burden. By the time she moved to Kansas City in her late teens, Sarah Rectors net worth was estimated to be greater than $1 million over $28 million today spread between oil fields, 2,000 acres of farmland in Oklahoma, and investments in numerous businesses in Kansas City. If theres a lesson for others in her legacy, its in the importance of financial literacy, she said. increase font size, Honor Black History Month by learning the rags to riches story of Sarah Rector. A horse and buggy were purchased to spare the children the two-mile trek to school. China is a responsible major country that is always willing to play a constructive role and has sincerity and goodwill in actively promoting peace talks, according to Global Times.. Since the outbreak of the Sarah Rector was not immune from the Great Depression, however, which cost her most of her fortune and Sarah Rectors net worth at the time of her death is a matter of debate and speculation. 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. Which Teeth Are Normally Considered Anodontia? Great greed followed great wealth, however, and the hunger for oil money sometimes led to murder, a phenomenon that played out notoriously in the decades-long killings of the Osage Indians for their oil rights beginning just a few years before Sarah struck it rich. Sarah's father Joseph was the son of John Rector, a Creek Freedman. 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